Estonian National Symphony Orchestra

Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi – Lalo: Symphony in G Minor, Orchestral Works (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:23 minutes | 1,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Lalo considered himself to be first and foremost an opera composer, even though Le Roi d’Ys was his only opera to be performed in his lifetime. He is now best known for his symphonic and chamber music, largely because of the highly political musical establishment in France in his time. The Overture to the opera (which opens this album) is now the best-known music from the piece, which proved a considerable success in France. His ballet Namouna was commissioned by the Paris Opéra and, remarkably, was completed in just four months following extensive delays in agreeing the subject – part of the tales of Casanova. After a successful run of fifteen performances, Lalo parcelled the music up into three ‘rhapsodies’ for orchestral performance. The first two of these were published as Suites Nos 1 and 2. The third was not published, but the ‘Valse de le Cigarette’ was later issued separately. Lalo’s only surviving Symphony was completed in 1886, but somewhat overshadowed by Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony (1886) and Franck’s Symphony in D minor (1888), but it is a strong work that showcases Lalo’s melodic gift and forward-looking harmonic palette.

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Estonian National Symphony Orchestra & Neeme Järvi – Kapp, Lüdig & Lemba: Orchestral Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:13:23 minutes | 674 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

In his latest recording for Chandos with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi explores pieces by three of Estonia’s first composers. The bulk of the works in the programme were composed in the first decade of the twentieth century, and are all excellent representations of the birth of Estonian Music, as Estonia transitioned from a territory in the Russian Empire to an independent nation state. As was the norm at the end of the nineteenth century, these composers studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and Estonian symphonic music certainly has its roots in the Russian nationalist style.

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Estonian National Symphony Orchestra & Neeme Järvi – French Music for the Stage (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:18:40 minutes | 758 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

For this album, Neeme Järvi and his Estonian National Symphony Orchestra present a delightful programme of lesser-known stage music from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Overtures by Thomas, Auber and Boieldieu were all composed for works staged at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and are wonderful examples of the period.

The Scène du bal and Vieille Chanson from Le Roi s’amuse were written by Delibes in 1882 as incidental music for Victor Hugo’s play, first performed in 1832 but banned after the first performance because it was deemed to be an attack on the reigning monarch, Louis Philippe. The play, which went on to form the basis of the libretto for Verdi’s Rigoletto, was eventually revived with some success, with Delibes’s score an important factor.

Massenet’s one-act ballet Espada dates from 1908, and is the most recent – and most substantial – work on the album. Set in Spain, the work clearly owes more than one idea to Bizet’s Carmen (The Card Game and March of the Toreadors for example), but musically and orchestrally it is pure Massenet.

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Estonian National Symphony Orchestra & Neeme Järvi – French Music for Ballet (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:08:18 minutes | 652 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

In this fascinating recording the legendary Neeme Järvi explores two lesser-known French ballets by Sauguet and Ibert, complemented by the Ballet Suite from Massenet’s opera Hérodiade. Sauguet studied composition with Canteloube and Koechlin. He wrote in a variety of genres, notably for radio and for film, but his ballet scores – more than twenty of them – were central to his output. Les Forains (‘The Showfolk’) was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in March 1945. The cast was led by the work’s brilliant young choreographer, Roland Petit, and conducted by André Cluytens. Sauget’s wide-ranging influences, notably the orchestration of Richard Strauss as well as the works of Satie and les Six, give his work a flowing, openly melodic style that is immediately appealing and full of wit and charm. Following the success of Les Forains, and the formal establishment in October 1945 of Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées, Roland Petit and Boris Kochno devised a number of new ballets for the company. One of these was Ibert’s Les Amours de Jupiter, premiered on 9 March 1946 with a cast led by Petit himself as Jupiter.

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