Conductor Leonard Bernstein

[Polarius T]

Well, let us then call him "fallible" like the rest of us, someone with a bit of a hot head and a mawkish old-world sentiment always simmering in the heart. Actually, where I found* him musically most captivating was, almost paradoxically, in Stravinsky: no, in none of the big early fireworks but with the more objective works relying on very austere instrumentation and human voices like Les Noces and the Mass on that fab old DG issue. (To be sure, he was helped much by a pretty star-studded lineup in the former at least.)

PT

*Past tense because I gave up on exploring his discography after sampling a couple of the new Sony Mahler SACD reissues which, to me, just don't cut it at all: the last letdown, I decided.