Rating:
Genre:
Soundtrack
Release Date: 06/21/2005
Run Time: 58:15
In 1950,
Leonard Bernstein was engaged to write songs for a Broadway
musical adaptation of
J.M. Barrie's children's classic
Peter Pan. By the time the show reached the stage on April 24,
Bernstein's contribution had been scaled back to half-a-dozen songs, making the production more of a "play with music" than a full-fledged
musical.
Columbia Records released an Original Broadway Cast album featuring those songs along with incidental music composed by
Alec Wilder. More than a half-century later, conductor
Alexander Frey, having discovered that
Bernstein wrote considerably more music than was actually used, put together this recording of the material, which vastly expands the score to 29
musical cues, played by
the Amber Chamber Orchestra, with
Linda Eder voicing the part of
Wendy Darling and
Daniel Narducci playing
Captain Hook. The restoration does not, however, support the notion that
Bernstein wrote much more of a song score than was previously known. The songs that were in the original production are here, of course, along with a couple of cut numbers (
"Captain Hook's Soliloquy" and
"Dream with Me"), but the rest is instrumental music. It's very pretty music, to be sure, and for anyone familiar with
Bernstein's work, highly suggestive of future efforts. For example,
"Crew Dance" and
"Fight" both sound like early renderings of ideas that would turn up in
West Side Story, while
"Spring Will Come Again" (a song intended for a version of
The Skin of Our Teeth, included here as a bonus) sounds like a dry run for
"Somewhere" from that later show. Pleasant as this music is, however, it is easy to appreciate why this version of
Peter Pan is not as well remembered as the 1954 Broadway
musical with songs by
Moose Charlap and
Carolyn Leigh, or even the 1953
Walt Disney animated movie, with songs by
Sammy Fain and
Sammy Cahn.
Bernstein makes no concessions to children in his songs (for which he wrote the lyrics), seeming more interested in exploring a new approach to
operetta in the
Gilbert & Sullivan mode. The result is a minor, but worthwhile addition to the
Bernstein catalog.
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
;)
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