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Scoring

2.picc.2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn-4.3.3.1-timp.perc(4):SD/BD/TD/tam-t/cym/
tpl.bl/tgl/glsp/xyl-cel-2harps(IIad lib)-pianino-strings

Abbreviations (PDF)

Publisher

Boosey & Hawkes, Sole Agent

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.

Availability

World Premiere
4/8/1949
Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
Leonard Bernstein, piano / Boston Symphony Orchestra / Serge Koussevitzky
Programme Note

Like Serenade, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety” is a concertante work, and closely follows the action of a philosophically oriented literary source – in this case, W. H. Auden’s poem/dialogue of the same title. In Auden’s poem, four lonely people meet in a bar and try, through alcohol, to establish some kind of connection: ostensibly with each other, but ultimately with God. Says Bernstein, “The piano provides an almost autobiographical protagonist, set against an orchestral mirror in which he sees himself, analytical, in the modern ambience.” Bernstein’s intense personal identification with this poem, and with its characters’ dilemmas, gives this work its powerful emotional pull.

Subjects
Recommended Recording
cd_cover

Jean-Yves Thibaudet/Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
Naxos 8.559790

Links

Listening
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