Episode 33: Serenade - A Bernstein Celebration

In this episode, Ilya Kaler is the soloist and David Stern the conductor in an epic performance of Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium, a five-movement Violin Concerto with the Heifetz Chamber Orchestra, part of an-all Bernstein program marking the composer’s August 25th birthday and the upcoming Netflix biopic Maestro.

This Episode’s Playlist

Leonard Bernstein: There’s A Place For Us / I Feel Pretty fr. West Side Story 
Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello | Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, piano
Monroe’s Highland, Charlottesville, VA
Heifetz Institute Recording | 07.04.2022

Bernstein: Three Meditations from Mass
III. Presto
Michael Arumainayagam, cello | Stefan Petrov, piano | Carlos Avila, percussion
Francis Auditorium, Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA 
Heifetz Institute Recording | 07.26.2018

Bernstein: Music for Two Pianos 
Beilin Han, piano | Dina Vainshtain, piano 
Francis Auditorium, Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA 
Heifetz Institute Recording | 07.10.2018

Bernstein: Piano Trio (1937) 
II. Alla Marcia [excerpt]
Ilya Kaler, violin | Amit Peled, cello | Alon Goldstein, piano 
Francis Auditorium, Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA 
Heifetz Institute Recording | 08.05.2016

Bernstein: Serenade after Plato’s Symposium
I: Phaedrus: Pausanias (Lento: Allegro) 
II: Aristophanes (Allegretto) 
III: Erixymachus (Presto)
IV: Agathon (Adagio) 
V: Socrates; Alciabiades (Molto tenuto; Allegro molto vivace)
Ilya Kaler, violin | Heifetz Chamber Orchestra | David Stern, conductor 
Francis Auditorium, Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA 
Heifetz Institute Recording | 07.14.2018

Go Deeper

• There’s a fascinating backstory behind the creation of Bernstein’s Serenade, including its ties to a James M. Cain potboiler by the same title, an abandoned musical that morphed into West Side Story, and Bernstein’s friendship with the dedicatee, violinist Isaac Stern (pictured here at the 1955 recording session with the New York Philharmonic).   Read – and hear – all about it on our real-time-program-notes video here. 
• Coming to a Bijou near you…”Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between cultural icon Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro, at its core, is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.”  See the trailer
• Check out more from the excellent and in-depth LeonardBernstein.com website, including the newsletter Prelude, Fugue, & Riffs!