BERNSTEIN: WONDERFUL TOWN - Simon Rattle, London Symphony (Hybrid SACD)

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra pay homage to Leonard Bernstein with a recording of Wonderful Town that captures the energy and excitement of sold-out performances from December 2017. Featuring an all-star cast led by Danielle de Niese and Alysha Umphress, this release coincides with worldwide #BernsteinAt100 celebrations marking the centenary of the Orchestra’s former President. 

Bernstein’s five-time Tony award-winning musical follows sisters Ruth and Eileen on their quest to make it big, pursuing careers in writing and acting from their cramped basement apartment in New York’s bohemian Greenwich Village. Fresh from rural Ohio, the sisters end up getting more than they bargained for, realising that life in the Big Apple is not as glamourous as it may seem. 

A bright and cheery love letter to the city that never sleeps and the colourful characters inhabiting it, Wonderful Town draws on Fields and Chodorov’s 1940 play My Sister Eileen, which itself is based on a series of autobiographical short storied by the ‘real-life’ Ruth McKenney. 

Bernstein’s infectious score includes classic numbers such as ‘Ohio’, ‘One Hundred Easy Ways’, and ‘A Little Bit in Love’, as well as a riotous conga that had delighted audiences dancing in the aisles of the Barbican hall.

Composer Leonard Bernstein
Conductor Sir Simon Rattle
Performers London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus
Soloists Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn, Duncan Rock

Wonderful Town, Act I:
1. Overture
2. No 2, Christopher Street
3. No 3, Ohio
4. No 4, Conquering New York 
5. No 5, One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man
6. No 6, What a Waste
7. No 7, A Little Bit in Love
8. No 8, Pass the Football
9. No 9, Conversation Piece
10. No 10, A Quiet Girl
11. No 11, Conga!

Wonderful Town, Act 2:
12. No 12, Entr’acte
13. No 13, My Darlin’ Eileen
14. No 14, Swing!
15. No 15, Quiet Incidental
16. No 16, Ohio Reprise
17. No 17, It’s Love
18. No 18, Ballet at the Village Vortex
19. No 19, Wrong Note Rag
20. No 20, Finale. It’s Love Reprise