Leonard Bernstein: Music for String Quartet (1936)
- Allegro Vivace
- Andante (Tempo di Sarabande)
Aaron Copland: Elegies for Violin and Viola (1932)

Despite, or maybe even because, his musicals and stage works (West Side Story, Candide, etc ..) have always been popular and some even controversial (Mass), Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was never seen as a serious contender within the field of 20th century "classical" music composers. He was greatly admired as a conductor, writer, speaker, and stalwart promoter of composers like Dmitri Shostakovich and Gustav Mahler, but struggled to reach the bulk of the listening public through his own symphonic works, like his Symphony No. 2 "The Age of Anxiety" for example. Maybe it's simply because he was a "thinker's" composer. Unlike Aaron Copland for example who painted vivid portrayals of American life within his music, Leonard Bernstein preferred to solve musical puzzles down to the finest details.

And this early chamber music piece, Music for String Quartet, is no exception. Its main theme gets a serious intellectual workout throughout the Allegro Vivace, tossed around equally between the four instruments. Despite hints of jazz at its core, the motivic development is focused from start to finish. This is the world premiere recording of a long-lost work, written by Bernstein when he was 18 years old, most likely as a school assignment when he was a student at Harvard University. Its second movement was recently discovered at the U.S Library of Congress, which prompted the impulse behind this recording. It's performed here with acuity by Lucia Lin (violin), Natalie Rose Kress (violin), Danny Kim (viola) and Ronald Feldman (cello). At only eleven minutes in length, it's a rather short work but nevertheless demonstrates the future potential of one of the great musical minds of our time.