Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety”, Overture from Candide & Fancy Free

Bernstein’s youth work Fancy Free is an amusing ballet narrating the baiting of three sailors looking for an affair during their leave. It was the first major success of its composer, which definitively featured him as one of the most important American composers of his generation. This version by Andrew Litton has a particularity: it opens with the echoes of Bernstein’s Big Stuff sung by Billie Holiday to picture the atmosphere of the bar the sailors are entering into.

This recording comes with the irresistible overture from Candide, and the second symphony after Auden’s beautiful text on human condition The Age of Anxiety (which takes place in a bar too, by the way).