City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 3 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:54 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
For the third volume in their cycle of Schubert’s symphonies, Edward Gardner and the CBSO turn to the first and fourth symphonies. Composed in 1813, when Schubert was just sixteen, the First Symphony admirably demonstrates the young composer’s grasp of symphonic form and technique, and whilst the influences of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven are clearly audible, the spirit of Schubert’s own distinctive voice is certainly in evidence.
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James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 (2015)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:16:52 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 3,81 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,32 GB
This is the second volume in our series devoted to the orchestral works of Janáček, with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner.
The repertoire on this disc includes some of the greatest programmatic pieces by the composer. Unsurprisingly, the first piece featured here is Jealousy – his first declared piece of programme music, originally written to preface the opera Jenůfa but never included in any production of it during his lifetime. Both The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddler’s Child (also known as a ‘ballad for orchestra’) are characterised by the use of musicals symbols, reflecting the Czech poems on which the pieces are based and also some of the composer’s personal reflections and responses.
The one-movement Violin Concerto The Wandering of a Little Soul is a more mysterious piece, with uncertainties surrounding the title, the date of creation, and the goals of its composition. Like the unfinished Danube symphony, the version recorded here has been reconstructed by Miloš Štědroň and Leoš Faltus from Janáček’s sketches.
An interpretation of the famous tale by Gogol, Taras Bulba was completed in 1915 and was Janáček’s most substantial orchestral work to date. It is inflected with folk dances, battle and horse-riding music, suffering and love, and brought to a grandiloquent apotheosis, in orchestration of almost cinematic vividness.
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 1 (2014)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:03:23 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 3,12 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,06 GB
Edward Gardner conducts the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in the opening volume in their series devoted to orchestral works by Leoš Janáček. It features three pieces that originate in Janáček’s late period, when his passionate feelings for Kamila Stösslová, thirty-seven years his junior, inspired an extraordinary flowering of his creative genius.
The Sinfonietta is one of Janáček’s most successful and popular works, famed for its opening movement, a brazen fanfare scored for a phalanx of brass with timpani. The remaining four movements, full of character, celebrate Janáček’s adopted town of Brno, blending occasional reflection with high-voltage exuberance.
Scored unusually for left-hand piano and an ensemble of brass and flute, the Capriccio is remarkable even among Janáček’s distinctive late works. Its overall effect is mercurial and capricious, in the composer’s words: ‘whimsical, all wilfulness and witticisms’. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet employs his formidable technique and interpretative flair in the solo part.
The Cunning Little Vixen, Janáček’s opera from 1923, was not universally well received at first. A number of its orchestral interludes, however, were immediately popular and after Janáček’s death in 1928 Václav Talich, a leading Czech conductor, extracted an orchestral suite, re-orchestrated by two young colleagues. Recently Sir Charles Mackerras restored Janáček’s striking original orchestration, the version recorded here.
Read more![Beate Mordal, Jeremy Carpenter, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner - Arne Nordheim: The Tempest (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/29/ybgr3omq5ajca_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Beate Mordal, Jeremy Carpenter, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Arne Nordheim: The Tempest (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 49:39 minutes | 1,76 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Lawo Classics
Arne Nordheim was Norway’s most significant and respected composer until his death in 2010, and one of the few figures in contemporary western music who proved himself able to move beyond traditional harmonic relationships while maintaining a distinct ability to communicate widely through his striking, physical music.
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![John Relyea, Michelle DeYoung, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner - Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle, Op. 11, Sz. 48 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/27/yirr7b2zssyca_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
John Relyea, Michelle DeYoung, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle, Op. 11, Sz. 48 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:55 minutes | 901 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Following outstanding reviews for his interpretation of Duke Bluebeard around the world, notably at the Paris Opéra and then in Philadelphia and New York with Michelle DeYoung, John Relyea stars in this recording of Bartók’s psychological thriller. The two protagonists are joined by Edward Gardner and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hungarian actor Pál Mácsai who delivers the Prologue, the work being sung in the original Hungarian. Bartók’s only opera, Bluebeard’s Castle was composed in 1911 and is based on a libretto by Béla Balázs (a room-mate of Kodály), which met Bartók’s desire for a subject that was modern, but drawn from traditional culture.
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CBSO Youth Chorus, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Edward Gardner – Holst: The Planets / Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:48 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
For its very first album on Chandos, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain devotes its characteristic energy and musical mastery to an explosive programme that transcends daily life and earthly experience. It is helped by the enthusiastic, encouraging, and experienced baton of Edward Gardner as well as by the sumptuous yet detailed acoustic of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, all fully revealed in this surround-sound recording.
Their performance of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst’s The Planets is already a point of reference in the UK after the immensely successful Prom concert that preceded the recording. The concert’s five-star review in The Daily Telegraph praised in particular the orchestra’s ‘great attack and complete absence of anything routine’, while The Guardian emphasised the great performance of the orchestra in this ‘graceful and evocative programme’, especially the ‘depth and richness of sound that belied their youth’.
This unique album is a first milestone in what promises to be a superb discography for the NYO.
Edward Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – Grieg: Piano Concerto & Incidental Music to ‘Peer Gynt’ (2018)
SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:22:56 minutes | 3,7 GB | Genre: Classical | © Chandos
This much awaited recording offers keenly idiomatic performances of the most famous works by Grieg, played by the composer’s own orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, and its Chief Conductor, Edward Gardner. The drama and passion of such favourite pieces as the incidental music to Peer Gynt and the Piano Concerto are superbly captured in surround-sound with exemplary Chandos sound quality. Unlike most existing recordings, offering only the orchestral suites, this disc presents numerous extra excerpts from Peer Gynt, which follow the sequence of Henrik Ibsen‘s dramatic poem, including sections for the unique Norwegian ‘Hardanger Fiddle’. Having collaborated with the orchestra on several occasions, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is the soloist in the Piano Concerto, a piece that stands out as a shining example of a single great thought captured and expressed in music. The power of this conception is evident throughout the concerto in the pianist’s faithful, yet highly romantic interpretation.
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Edward Gardner – Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3, Chain 3 & Concerto for Orchestra (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:52 minutes | 1,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Edward Gardner, the music director of English National Opera and an exclusive Chandos artist, has completed the first disc in a projected Chandos series devoted to Polish music. Also his first purely orchestral album for Chandos, the disc presents music by one of Poland’s most important twentieth-century composers, Witold Lutoslàwski, including perhaps his most famous work, the Concerto for Orchestra (1950 – 54), a brilliant and highly attractive work.
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Edward Gardner – Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 1 – Nos. 3, 5 & 8 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:11 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Following a highly successful series ‘Mendelssohn in Birmingham’, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their former Chief Conductor Edward Gardner here presents a new series: Schubert Symphonies.
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Louis Lortie, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos Nos. 3, 5 & Other Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:51 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Louis Lortie completes his survey of the piano concertos of Saint-Saëns with Nos 3 and 5 (the Egyptian), adding the Rhapsodie dAuvergne and Allegro appassionato for good measure. As before, he is joined by Edward Gardner and the BBC Philharmonic.
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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 Orchestra, Doric String Quartet, Edward Gardner – Elgar: Symphony No. 1 & Introduction and Allegro (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:15 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Edward Gardner’s 2017 audiophile release on Chandos explores two of Sir Edward Elgar’s most admired works, the Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and string orchestra, and the Symphony No. 1 in A flat major. Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra are joined by the Doric String Quartet in the Introduction and Allegro, which was modeled on the Baroque concerto grosso form and intended to be a showpiece for the strings of the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. While it received comparatively few performances in its early years, it has become a concert staple with the dramatically improved skills of modern orchestral string sections. This performance amply demonstrates the wide expressive and technical range of the BBC Symphony and the brilliance of the Doric String Quartet, which maintains interest throughout with its refined playing and polished sonorities. The Symphony No. 1, which was roughly contemporary with the previous work, was immediately popular with audiences and has become one of the best-loved symphonies in the repertoire. Here, Gardner and the BBC Symphony deliver an expansive and richly detailed performance that shows off the orchestra in a transparent multichannel recording that has extraordinary depth and dynamic range, and astonishing clarity. While many listeners will already have a favorite recording from the past, this hybrid SACD is highly recommended because Gardner brings out every facet of the score with precision, vibrant colors, and deep feeling.
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Edward Gardner, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, English National Opera Chorus – Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage (Live) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:38:09 minutes | 1,54 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © London Philharmonic Orchestra
This is the first commercially available recording of Tippett’s first opera in over 50 years, recorded in a landmark performance conducted by Tippett enthusiast Edward Gardner. Performed at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, this performance was a thrilling start to Edward Gardner’s tenure as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 2 – Nos. 2 & 6 & Italian Overtures (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:53 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
For the second volume in his Birmingham Schubert symphony cycle, Edward Gardner turns to the Second and Sixth Symphonies. Composed between December 1814 and March 1815, the Second Symphony is not only a response by Schubert to the works of Beethoven, and especially the Prometheus Overture, but also strives to push the conventional symphonic boundaries, most notably in the extended exposition of the first movement. Completed in February 1818, the Sixth Symphony was the first to be titled “Große Sinfonie” (grand symphony) by Schubert, a mark of his growing confidence in his work in the symphonic idiom. The two Overtures were composed at the same time as the Sixth Symphony, and are clearly modelled on the overtures of Rossini, whose music was all the rage in Vienna at that time.
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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Mendelssohn – in Birmingham, Vol. 5 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:53 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Edward Gardner’s Mendelssohn in Birmingham series continues with an album that collects eight overtures.
As on the previous volumes, a reduced-size CBSO joins Gardner in Birmingham’s Town Hall, where Mendelsohn himself conducted many of the UK premieres of his own orchestral works.
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