David Childs, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Ben Gernon – The Symphonic Euphonium, Vol. 2 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:06 minutes | 1,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Unlocking the full potential of the euphonium as a concerto instrument with symphony orchestra has been an ambition for David Childs since he premiered the orchestral version of Philip Wilby’s Euphonium Concerto in the BBC Young Musician of the Year final in 2000. The four compositions on this album are all results of that ambition, in different ways.
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Howard Shelley, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Martyn Brabbins – Scott: Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 4 & Early One Morning (2006/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:13:06 minutes | 653 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Cyril Scott’s music inhabits a sound-world that is very much its own, despite the inevitable comparisons to composers such as Scriabin, Sorabji, and even the French impressionists. This new recording of the First Piano Concerto – the first one in over 30 years – takes a fresher, lighter approach that is absolutely thrilling in the outer movements.
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Juanjo Mena, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Berit Norbakken Solset – Arriaga: Overtures, Herminie & Other Works (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:09 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Spanish music specialist and former Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Juanjo Mena continues the series La Música de España, which has seen the recording of some of the orchestral works of de Falla, Turina and Albéniz, with another important Spanish composer: Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, nicknamed after his death as ‘the Spanish Mozart’.The orchestral overture to ‘Los esclavos felices’ (The Happy Slaves) is all that remains of the opera the child prodigy Arriaga wrote aged 14. When Arriaga moved to Paris to study under Fétis, Guérin and Baillot in 1821, he revised the overture, making changes to the instrumentation and removing a third theme group. It is the revised version heard on this recording. Air from Médée and Herminie form parts of the autograph volume ‘Ensayos lírico-dramáticos’ (Lyric-dramatic essays) that completes this release, here sung by one of Scandinavia’s most sought after concert singers, Berit Norbakken Solset. Tonally ambiguous Symphony in D minor (which begins and ends in D major) alongside the Overture in D major, which was written ‘without having learnt the principles of harmony’ are proof that Arriaga’s premature death aged 19 was a ‘sad loss to Basque music’.
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena – Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:50 minutes | 551 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Considered by some to be the ‘Cinderella’ of his symphonies, the Sixth Symphony of Anton Bruckner was composed in 1879 — 81. It may well demonstrate a reaction to the severe criticism of the first Viennese performance, in 1877, of his Third Symphony, which Eduard Hanslick described as a vision of how Beethoven’s Ninth befriends Wagner’s Walkre and ends up being trampled under her horses’ hoofs’. Much the shortest of his mature symphonies, the Sixth also reverts to a more classical form than its predecessors. This recording was made in 2012, during the first season of Juanjo Mena as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, and just a month before their acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms. Classical Source commented: ‘Mena didn’t miss a trick and the result for the whole symphony was a revelation, and you don’t get many of those. This was a thrilling, delightful performance.’
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Wilson – Orchestral Works, Volume 1 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:39 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Eric Coates studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder (composition) and Lionel Tertis (viola), and played in string quartets and theatre pit bands before joining symphony orchestras conducted by Thomas Beecham and Henry Wood. His experience as a player added to the rigorous training which Coates had received at the academy and contributed to his skill as a composer. In 1919 he gave up the viola permanently and from then until his death made his living as a composer and occasional conductor. His prolific output includes the suite London (1932), of which the well-known march ‘Knightsbridge’ is the concluding movement, the waltz By the Sleepy Lagoon (1930), and The Dam Busters March (1954). The early compositions of Coates were influenced by the music of Arthur Sullivan and Edward German, but his style evolved in step with changes in musical taste, and his later works incorporate elements derived from jazz and dance-band music. His output consists almost wholly of orchestral music and songs. With the exception of one unsuccessful short ballet, he never wrote for the theatre, and only occasionally for the cinema. John Wilson has spent many years editing all the orchestral works of Coates, and will now be using these new editions for this cycle of recordings with the BBC Philharmonic.
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Wilson – Copland: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:09 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
‘I hope you will knuckle down to a good symphony’, wrote Samuel Barber in September 1944 to his fellow composer Aaron Copland: ‘We deserve it of you, and your career is all set for it.’ It was a strange thing to say given that Copland had already composed a variety of symphonies, albeit admittedly all more experimental than Barber might have preferred.
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds – Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905” (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:45 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
1905 was a year of revolutionary upheaval in pre-Soviet Russia. Shostakovich based this work on the events of one episode of that year, when thousands of workers and their families converged on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to petition the Tsar over their working and living conditions. The Tsar had been advised to leave, no-one was there to accept the petition, and the authorities resorted to cavalry charges to disperse the crowd. With 200 dead and 500 wounded, this incident damaged the Tsar’s reputation and flamed the fire of revolution in the masses.
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![BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds - Antheil: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6 and Other Works (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/24/nc0xd43jt2spa_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds – Antheil: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6 and Other Works (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:52 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Alongside its ongoing much-lauded Copland series, the BBC Philharmonic embarks on a new American journey, this time with its chief guest conductor, John Storgårds.
Known as the ‘bad boy of music’, George Antheil began his career with a reputation as an enfant terrible, composing shockingly avant-garde works such as his ever-popular Ballet mécanique, inspired by the dynamism and dissonances of Stravinsky’s early ballets. Although he is well-established on the film music scene, too, it is his symphonic output – sampled here – that today survives in the concert hall.
This new series documents the evolution of his musical style, which moved towards a fundamentally tonal and melody-based idiom, Antheil joining the growing ranks of famous US symphonists. The war-inspired Fourth Symphony and ‘joyous’ Fifth clearly represent this compositional shift, breaking with what the composer called the ‘now passé’ modernism.
Also here is the premiere recording of the Texas-inspired Over the Plains, memorable for its allusions to cowboy music and offering some unexpectedly dramatic and atmospheric twists along the way.
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![BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds - Antheil: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/24/ycnxu7dj14m0a_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds – Antheil: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:26 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
In this their third volume of orchestral works of Antheil, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic present a collection of scores spanning the whole of Antheil’s compositional life. Written in the early 1920s, the First Symphony is full of Antheil’s enthusiasm for the mechanical, and takes strong leads from the prevailing sound of the jazz era as well as a nostalgic look back to its predecessor, ragtime. Antheil regarded this work as ‘a young symphony with the feeling of summertime in eastern America in it’. For it he drew heavily on his experiences of his home town of Trenton, and the nearby Delaware River.
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Vassily Sinaisky, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Glinka: Orchestral Works (2000)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:14 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (Russian: Михаил Иванович Глинка, tr. Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə] (listen); 1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1804 – 15 February [O.S. 3 February] 1857) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country and is often regarded as the fountainhead of Russian classical music. His compositions were an important influence on Russian composers, notably the members of The Five, who produced a distinctive Russian style of music…
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Gianandrea Noseda – Smetana: Smetana Richard III, Wallenstein’s Camp, Hakon Jarl & Prague Carnival (2007/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:35 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
The cycle of symphonic poems known as Má vlast by Smetana is well known to most music lovers, but how many people know any of his other orchestral music? Well, this disc provides the opportunity to explore the symphonic poems which preceded Má vlast. There are three from his ‘Swedish’ period: Richard III, Wallenstein’s Camp and Hakon Jarl. Written in his native Prague, Prague Carnival and the remaining works on this disc demonstrate a more nationalistic style. Gianandrea Noseda conducts the BBC Philharmonic in an important introduction to Smetana’s orchestral output which confirms the composer’s status as one of the greatest Czech composers of the nineteenth century.
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