Philzuid

"If nothing sings in you, you cannot make music," says Leonard Bernstein in "Maestro," the recent, moving film about his life. Nearly everyone knows Bernstein from his musical "West Side Story" with popular songs like "Maria" and "I Feel Pretty." But Bernstein also had another side. For his monumental Second Symphony for piano and orchestra, 'The Age of Anxiety,' he was inspired by a text by W.H. Auden.

The poignant music follows the story of four lonely strangers in wartime, a nocturnal encounter in a bar in New York, a search for meaning and faith. The work is close to the heart of American guest conductor Steven Sloane. In the second half, with the famous WDR Choir, Bernstein's moving Chichester Psalms reflect against Stravinsky's magnificent Symphony of Psalms.