Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan

Audio Mixers: David Merrill; Silas Brown; Susan Napodano.
Liner Note Author: Daniel Felsenfeld.
Recording information: New York, NY (10/2004-02/2005); Prague, Czech Republic (10/2004-02/2005).
Illustrator: George DelGiorno.
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