Monday, February 4, 2013

Leonard Bernstein’s Peter Pan (2004)

 

peter pan

Peter Pan is Leonard Bernstein's least-known musical--or at least chunk of a musical. Featuring four Bernstein songs, the show opened on Broadway in 1950; it starred Jean Arthur (then nearly 50!) as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff as Captain Hook.

The show used Alec Wilder's underscore, but Bernstein had composed one as well, and his finally sees the light of day on this CD after years of research and restoration by conductor Alexander Frey. Was it worth the effort? Absolutely.

Bernstein fans will of course crave the CD, but it should delight newcomers as well. The instrumental tracks display a wide stylistic palette, and the songs are simply wonderful. Just check out "Who Am I" (sung by Linda Eder) and you will hear a ballad as lovely as any cabaret singers in search of rare material would be well advised to look into it. Baritone Daniel Nardiccio does warm justice to Bernstein's near-operatic passages in "Pirate Song" and "Captain Hook's Soliloquy". As if this weren't enough, the CD concludes with the wistful "Spring Will Come Again," which Bernstein had written for a possible musical adaptation of The Skin of Our Teeth.

Track Listing:

01-Prelude - Act I
02-Who Am I
03-Peter's Tears
04-Shadow Dance
05-Flight to Neverland
06-Flight Music
07-Prelude - Act II
08-Pirate Song
09-Croc Music
10-Wendy's Entrance
11-Build My House
12-Scene Change
13-Neverland
14-Pirate Song (Reprise)
15-Lagoon Fight
16-Scene Change
17-Peter, Peter
18-Indian-Pirate Fight
19-Hook's Poison
20-Tinkerbell Sick-Tink Lives!
21-Captain Hook's Soliloquy
22-Prelude - Act III
23-Crew Dance
24-Plank Round
25-Fight
26-Scene Change
27-Dream with Me
28-Underscore
29-Scene Change
30-Spring Will Come Again

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