As Barrymore Laurence Scherer relates on page 16, Bernstein's newest work had its origins in a remark made by President Eisenhower after hearing the Maestro play Mozart and Gershwin at the White House back in 1960. ''You know, I liked that last piece—it's got a theme. I like music with a theme, not all them arias and barcarolles.'' Well, by Eisenhower or Lloyd Webber standards, Arias and Barcarolles would seem to be music in search of a theme; or at very least a style. Bernstein is up to his old tricks again, actively defying categorization, revelling in the eclecticism of his own musical roots. But myriad musical styles have one common purpose here: there is a 'theme', the universal and familiarly Bernsteinesque theme of love confronted here in stinging off-beat style and culminating in one of the Maestro's reassuring, you might even say cathartic, resolutions. In a brief coda to the piece, entitled simply—''Nachspiel (In Memoriam)''—the two singers hum in descant to a slow, ineffably haunting, but inconclusive waltz. For the time being, at least, we have arrived at an oasis of harmony, and reconciliation.
Arias and Barcarolles begins in disharmony: an unsettling ''Prelude'' in which the fractured, distracted piano line is set in apparent contradiction to Bernstein's first words—''I love you, it's easy to say it, and so easy to mean it, too''—sung in a tender, seemingly impassive legato. I say seemingly, because on the final repetition of those three little words, ''I love you'', the harmony curdles ominously and we are off on our soul-searching explorations of love, I hesitate to say aspects of love. In these devilishly quirky, disparate settings (of predominantly Bernstein texts) time honoured questions are posed: how to keep love alive in a troubled world? How to identify it, how to hang on to it?
At the heart of the piece for me is a shining instance of Bernstein's word-setting prowess. The poem ''The love of my life'' is all about life's 'maybes': ''the love of my life may still arrive / maybe did arrive when I wasn't there''. The setting is edgy and obsessive, built upon a long, searching 12-tone row, probing as it evolves, the perfect musical metaphor for what is in effect an almost irrational stream of consciousness. In a deliciously ironic twist at the close, it occurs to the speaker that maybe, just maybe, the love of his life ''did arrive, once, and I was there, and maybe even aware, and... / You mean that was it, huh?'' Wistfully, the opening phrase of Tristan und Isolde is recalled at the words ''So that was it, huh?''. Ever so gently, Bernstein twists the knife.
Arias and Barcarolles is full of irony—bitter-sweet in the truest sense of the phrase. The opening ''Love Duet'' (a wickedly clever text that Stephen Sondheim wouldn't have thrown out) tantalizes us with constant shifts in musical style from neo-baroque fancy to blues inflexion. The song the couple sing is again a metaphor for their relationship—difficult to define, impossible to intellectualize. Just as the melody implied (a Bernstein tune on the tip of the tongue, as it were) never quite takes wing, so the couple drift through their life together, evading real issues, sidestepping conflict. The manner of the song is easy-going, non-commital, minimalistic (a conscious swipe on Bernstein's part, no doubt) until both parties simply call a halt. A bedtime story fol- lows—the child's world, more intense than the adult's with sardonic Bergian allusions colouring the savage tale of ''Little Smary'' and her pet wuddit (rabbit). On then to ''Greeting'', a brief haven of tranquillity and hope at the moment of birth (Bernstein's own son Alexander) when ''the world is pure'' and every musical inflexion seems to linger eternally. And from birth to marriage and a searing Yiddish poem about a mysterious fiddler inspiring dangerous passions at a Jewish wedding. Bernstein is in his heartland here: an extraordinary cantorial cadenza suddenly seems to focus all the emotion. A blast of the whistle signals the kick-off for his final setting—more operatic mini-drama than song. A truculent Shostakovich-like march sets the scene of domestic mayhem at four in the morning; the kids are scat-singing, mother, unable to sleep, bemoans her housewife's lot, father consoles her with romantic reminiscences. Harmony is restored as only Bernstein knows how; in more ways than one, we are back in A Quiet Place.
At a little over 30 minutes, Arias and Barcarolles is something more than passing fancy. The surface is deceptive, there is an edge to the capriciousness, an underlying fullness of heart. I look forward to the orchestral version for strings and percussion and I look forward to absorbing further these curious little vignettes. In the meantime, four accomplished performers have ensured a confident debut on disc.
That isn't all. For some, the real arias and barcarolles will be enshrined in the first eight tracks of this excellent disc: a mixed bag of songs and duets—prime Bernstein, all of them. Especially treasurable, and never before recorded, is one soaring ballad ''Dream with me'' originally written for Wendy in Bernstein's 1949 Peter Pan but inexplicably dropped from the show prior to production. Here is a Bernstein 'aria' if ever he wrote one. Composers these days would kill for a tune like it and probably sell tens of thousands of discs before opening night. Judy Kaye, a terrific Broadway 'belter' with a real soprano top, sings it gorgeously, but still more irresistible is the relish she brings to that Wonderful Town classic ''A little bit in love''. What a clever piece of word-setting this is—all contented sighs and innuendo. Lovely piano arrangement, too—the pianists', I presume. If I have a single reservation here, it is ''Some other time'' from On the Town—an all-time Bernstein favourite of mine here sounding just a little too carefully articulated (Liederish is how I would put it) by William Sharp, the baritone. But he eases gratefully into ''Lonely town'', that hymn to big-city solitude (given complete with the ensuing dance music), and is a model of sensitivity in what must be deemed Bernstein's Morgen—his beautiful Walt Whitman setting ''To what you said'' from the scandalously underrated Songfest.'