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Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra – Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica & Symphony No 9 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:44 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Two late, great Vaughan Williams symphonies: with the ‘Antartica’ and No 9, Martyn Brabbins and his BBC forces complete a cycle enthusiastically acclaimed by Radio 3 Record Review as ‘unmissable’.
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Louis Lortie, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 & Concert Overture (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:10:57 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
This recording of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski form part of the Polish Music series on Chandos, and is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. These performers have impressed in their Lutoslawski survey, which is part of the same series; in a review of volume 1, Gramophone described them as a veritable ‘dream team’.
Symphony No. 2 by Szymanowski is a work of great power and ingenuity, with many passionate and varied contrasts in its use of solo instruments. Composed in 1909 – 10, it is widely considered the greatest orchestral work of the composer’s early period, not to mention one of the most important Polish symphonic compositions to date. Szymanowski himself thought very highly of it, and in August 1911 wrote in a letter to his fellow Polish composer Zdzislaw Jachimecki: ‘How happy I am that this Symphony impressed you as I had wanted. I will frankly admit that I feel somewhat proud about its value. In some miraculous way I have managed during my work on it to resist all those garish phantoms which seduce “young and inexperienced” artists and to produce pure and uncompromising beauty in the way I personally understand it.’
The internationally acclaimed pianist Louis Lortie joins the orchestra and conductor in Symphony No. 4 of 1932, which the composer subtitled ‘Symphonie concertante’ in recognition of the near-soloistic role played by the pianist. Whereas Szymanowski’s early and middle works clearly reflect Wagner, Strauss, and Scriabin, this work is strongly influenced by Prokofiev, particularly in the finale, an agitated and daring movement reminiscent of the Russian composer’s Piano Concerto No. 3, composed about a decade earlier.
Written in 1904 – 05 in a style recalling Wagner and Strauss, the Concert Overture is characterised by enormous expressiveness and gusto in the way it handles the expanding themes. Szymanowski inscribed the original score with part of the poem Witez Wlast by his friend Tadeusz Micinski: ‘I will not play you sad songs, O Shades! but will give you a triumph proud and fierce…’. This vivid imagery is perfectly in keeping with the music’s exuberant and vivacious character.
Read more![Janis Kelly, Kathryn Guthrie, Antonio Figueroa, Richard Morrison, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jayce Ogren - Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/04/10/0002894795346_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Janis Kelly, Kathryn Guthrie, Antonio Figueroa, Richard Morrison, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jayce Ogren – Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:07:50 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
‘Prima Donna is an opera composed by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright to a French language libretto which he co-authored with Bernadette Colomine. It is about ‘a day in the life of an aging opera singer,’ anxiously preparing for her comeback in 1970s Paris, who falls in love with a journalist. It premiered at the Palace Theatre, Manchester on July 10, 2009 during the Manchester International Festival. The U.S. premiere was presented by New York City Opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on February 19, 2012. In March 2014, Wainwright began raising funds via PledgeMusic to record a two-disc album recording of the opera.’….’It is vitally important to me that Prima Donna be properly recorded and released so that I can tour a concert version of it in the coming year, and I have decided to do this with the help of both PledgeMusic and the incredible BBC Symphony Orchestra which in turn requires your generous support. Quality studio opera recordings are extremely expensive and too time consuming to pull off these days, and it seems that a once vibrant recording industry is no longer what it was and new methods are needed to get the music out. Though sad, the upside is that everyone in the field agrees that this is a great time to bring the audience into the wonders of the creative process and the myriad of stages the recording of an opera requires. Exciting rehearsals, deep conversations, strange and colorful characters, not to mention many a silly moment, all of this I’m truly excited to experience with you until that glorious moment when the conductor, myself the composer, the orchestra, the singers and the recording crew turn on the red light and put down for posterity my first magnum opus, Prima Donna.’
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BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiri Belohlavek – Josef Suk: Prague – A Summer’s Tale (2012)
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,83 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,23 GB | Full Artwork: 106 MB
Label/Cat#: Chandos # CHSA 5109 | Country/Year: UK 2012 | 3% Recovery Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Late Romantic, Early 20th Century
In my review of the excellent Chandos disc of Josef Suk’s orchestral music Suk: Ripening, Symphony in E major – Belohlavek in September 2010 I expressed the hope that there would be a follow-up disc – well here it is. Once again the performers are the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Jiri Belohlavek – now at the end of his tenure as the orchestra’s chief conductor – and like the earlier release this new one has been recorded in the spacious acoustic of Watford Colosseum in January this year by the capable team of Brian Pidgeon (producer) and Ralph Couzens (sound engineer).
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BBC Symphony Orchestra – Richard Flury: Orchestral Music, Vol. 3 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:59 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
The First and Fourth Symphonies of the Swiss composer Richard Flury (1896–1967) both have a strong sense of place. They retain a hint of Bruckner but are fluid rather than monumental. The First is lyrical and grandiose in equal measure, perhaps reflecting the grandeurs of the Swiss landscape. The Fourth was inspired by memories of childhood visits to Liechtenstein and spins out tunes and atmosphere with the profligacy of a Hollywood film score. The existing material for both works was full of errors; this recording is the first to return to Flury’s manuscripts and expunge the wrong notes.
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Yan Pascal Tortelier, BBC Symphony Orchestra – Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays Debussy, Ravel & Massenet (2010/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:56 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
The exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a master of this repertoire. This is his second concerto recording for the label, after his survey of the complete piano concertos by Bartók (CHAN 10610) which was released in September to high acclaim and voted ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ by the magazine BBC Music. Bavouzet’s complete recording of the piano music by Debussy also scooped awards from BBC Music and Gramophone, which wrote: ‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.’
On this release, Bavouzet is accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier, a conductor steeped in the French tradition and utterly at home in this repertoire. The result is a totally idiomatic performance of these French masterpieces for piano and orchestra.
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Tamsin Waley-Cohen, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Roy Harris & John Adams: Violin Concertos (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:20 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen continues her series of concerto recordings on Signum with two contrasting works by American composers.
Already considered by many to be a modern classic, John Adams 1993 Violin Concerto was described by the composer as having a ‘hypermelody’, in which the soloist plays longs phrases without stop for the duration of the 35 minute piece.
Although composed in 1949, the first performance of Roy Harris’ Violin Concerto didn’t occur until 1984. Since then it has been championed for its “luminous orchestration and exalted tone” and has been rarely recorded.
For this recording Tamsin Waley-Cohen is joined by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under American conductor Andrew Litton.
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Guy Braunstein, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Kirill Karabits – Tchaikovsky Treasures (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:21 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Tchaikovsky has dedicated some of his finest music to the violin, but this new album expands the instrument’s repertoire even further. Inspired by great masters such as Sarasate, Heifetz, Kreisler and Joachim, violinist Guy Braunstein reanimates a tradition of violin and orchestra rhapsodies with new arrangements of famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake. Together with the extraordinary Violin Concerto, Valse-Scherzo and Sérénade mélancolique, they constitute a collection of glittering “Tchaikovsky Treasures”. On this first Pentatone recording, Braunstein plays with the renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Kirill Karabits.
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Javier Perianes, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo – Grieg: Piano Concerto & Lyric Pieces (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:01 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Miniatures and large forms.The work of a young musician of 25, the celebrated Concerto of Grieg combines the great Romantic tradition (Liszt was one of its most fervent admirers) and Norwegian folk music, with the halling and springdans of its thrilling finale. Yet the composer never wrote another, for he felt more comfortable writing in miniature forms. In 35 years he produced no fewer than 66 Lyric Pieces, every one a gem, from the truculent March of the Trolls to the poetic meditations of Homesickness and Remembrances.
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Timothy Ridout, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Martyn Brabbins – Elgar: Viola Concerto – Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:56 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Timothy Ridout gives us the opportunity to discover the splendid viola version of Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto – an arrangement approved by the composer, who conducted it’s premiere in 1930. In addition to this deeply moving work, he gives us a powerful, poetic reading of Bloch’s all too rarely performed Suite for Viola and Orchestra, in which the Swiss composer indulged his fascination with the Orient.
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Yevgeny Sudbin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo – Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos 2 & 3 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:12 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Oh no, it’s not the program of this album that’s any kind of news – after all, Rachmaninov’s Second and Third piano concertos have been recorded over and over again by dozen pianists since their very composition – but the interpretation of Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, born in 1980 in Saint-Petersburg. Hailed by “The Daily Telegraph” as ‘potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century’, Yevgeny Sudbin released his first album on BIS in 2005. Since then his recordings have met with critical acclaim and have been regularly featured as “CD of the Month” by the highly choosy BBC Music Magazine or “Editor’s Choice” by the none less choosy Gramophone. Sudbin performs regularly in prestigious venues such as London’s Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Avery Fisher Hall in New York. Recent engagements have included performances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, and Philharmonia Orchestra. His love of chamber music has resulted in partnerships with musicians including Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer and the Chilingirian Quartet among others. Appearances at festivals include Aspen, La Roque d’Anthéron, Mostly Mozart and Verbier. In 2016 he was nominated Artist of the Year at the prestigious Gramophone Classical Music Awards.
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Emmanuel Despax, Miho Kawashima, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Andrew Litton – Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 15, 16 Waltzes Op. 39 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:57 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
New concerto recording from acclaimed French pianist. Following the acclaimed Bach recording ‘Spira, Spera’ in early 2021, Emmanuel Despax releases a recording of his most treasured piano concerto alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton. The concerto is paired with the 16 Waltzes (op.39) for piano four-hands, performed here with his wife and fellow pianist, Miho Kawashima.
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Sarah Connolly, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius & Sea Pictures (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:04:38 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Chandos Records is delighted to present this new recording of Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius and the enduringly popular song cycle Sea Pictures. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, a peerless Elgarian who this year was awarded the prestigious Elgar Society Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the composer’s music. In Gerontius the soloists are Stuart Skelton, David Soar, and Sarah Connolly who also sings Sea Pictures. This recording was made in the days leading up to their triumphant live performance of Gerontius in April this year, after which The Guardian praised Skelton as ‘the ideal tenor for the role of Gerontius’, Soar as ‘an implacable, dark-sounding Priest’, and Connolly as ‘a consummately polished Angel’.
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BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Elgar: Symphony No. 2 & Serenade (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:41 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Following a highly-praised recording of Symphony No. 1 last year, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony present here an electrifying interpretation of Elgar’s Symphony No. 2, with the addition of one of his most performed works: the Serenade for Strings.
Having now become experts in British repertoire with highly lauded series of Walton and Britten, they reveal all the aspects of Elgar’s masterpiece in this surround sound recording. Symphony No. 2 is richly orchestrated and skilfully constructed, drawing on hugely varied resources of harmony, rhythm and melody, and making considerable use of thematic transformation as a unifying technique.
While the Symphony No.2 is one of the greatest products of Elgar’s maturity, the Serenade in E minor for Strings is perhaps the most charming product of his youth. In this three-movement piece dominated by a deeply passionate Larghetto, the strings of the BBC Symphony superbly encapsulate all the emotions offered by this graceful work: tender, lyrical and intense.
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BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Delius: Appalachia, The Song Of The High Hills (2011)
BDP-170 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & DST64 5.0 >1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Digital Booklet | 3.05 GB
FLAC tracks 2.0 24bit/88.2 kHz | Digital Booklet | 1.10 GB
This release offers a pair of fairly early Delius works; they may not be instantly appealing to those making a start with this idiosyncratic English impressionist, but confirmed fans will love them. The roots of Frederick Delius’ Appalachia lay in his experiences as an orange plantation manager in Florida in the late 1880s, where he heard the singing of African-American laborers and, according to his own testimony, first began to think about becoming a composer. The work is subtitled “Variations on an Old Slave Song with Final Chorus for baritone, chorus, and orchestra,” and everything about it is intriguingly confused. Florida is not part of Appalachia. Nor is the Mississippi River delta, which Delius claimed was the inspiration for the work, but which he apparently never saw. To top it off, the “old slave song” is obscure; Delius, who had firsthand experience of African-American music, may indeed have heard it somewhere, but the text doesn’t appear anywhere in databases of spiritual texts, and apparently no one has discovered the source. The melody, uncharacteristically simple for a spiritual, is stated plainly after a two-part introduction, and then follows a set of variations of all possible shapes and sizes, culminating in a choral finale. The finale gives the advertised baritone soloist precious little to do; he gets to sing just a few bars after cooling his heels on-stage for half an hour. And it introduces the text of the song, which with its “sold down the river” images sounds a bit out of place in the mouths of a substantial English chorus. The BBC Symphony Chorus under Andrew Davis does its best with this, and in general the level of orchestral detail, the heart and soul of a Delius performance, is impressive here. The Song of the High Hills expands on the wordless chorus idea that is introduced in Appalachia, and technically it’s perhaps a more accomplished work. Appalachia, however, truly announced Delius as an original, and it’s the kind of piece you’ll either love or hate depending on your attitude toward the composer’s output in general. In any case, it’s not a terribly common work on CD, and Davis deserves thanks for its resurrection here.
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