Album insights
Leonard Bernstein's work "Mass" continues to polarize, largely due to its misleading name. Commissioned by the widow of the late US President John F. Kennedy, the piece is not a Roman Catholic Mass but rather a politically charged satire inspired by it. Against the backdrop of a tumultuous era defined by social upheavals and the Vietnam War, the universal message of peace in the 1971 debut remains strikingly relevant today. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has taken on the rare and lavish piece, recording a exemplary rendition with the Philadelphia Orchestra. According to Nézet-Séguin, the composition reveals a multiplicity of aspects of Bernstein's artistry.