Arias and Barcarolles (Bright Sheng version)

Leonard Bernstein, Jennie Bernstein, Yankev-Yitskhok Segal (E,Yid)

Arias and Barcarolles began life as a song cycle for piano four-hands and four singers (SABB), but shortly afterwards, the composer reduced the vocal forces to two singers, mezzo-soprano and baritone. It is “literary” in a very personal sense: Bernstein wrote most of the texts for these eight songs himself. Its title stems from an encounter he had with President Eisenhower: following a 1960 White House concert in which Bernstein conducted Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the President remarked, “I liked that last piece you played. I like music with a theme, not all them [sic] arias and barcarolles.” Arias and Barcarolles is a work of reminiscences, touching on birth, infancy, the mystery of creativity in conflict with mundane affairs, inconclusive liaisons, married life, and death. The final song, a wordless Nachspiel, is, in Jack Gottlieb’s words, “a simple Schubertian waltz,” It serves as a poignant ending to this, Bernstein’s last major work.