John Wilson

Sinfonia of London & John Wilson – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2, Prelude in C# Minor (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:08 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

John Wilson and Sinfonia of London release their second album of Rachmaninoff. The Second Symphony was mostly composed in Dresden – where Rachmaninoff was escaping the political and professional pressures of Russia – in 1906 – 07. An hour’s worth of music, the symphony is one of his largest works after the operas, and is widely viewed as one of his greatest works. It was possibly of some significance to the composer, following the less than auspicious début of his First Symphony (which he withdrew after the première). First performed in St Petersburg and Moscow, conducted by the composer, the Second Symphony was an immediate success with audiences and critics alike, and remains a mainstay of the orchestral repertoire to this day. Rachmaninoff dedicated the score to his teacher Sergei Taneyev, who was a pupil of Tchaikovsky.

Rachmaninoff composed the Prélude in C sharp minor in 1892, originally for piano, at the beginning of his career. Stokowski’s orchestration, performed here, whilst not the only one in existence, is certainly the best known and arguably the most successful.

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Sinfonia of London, John Wilson – Vaughan Williams, Howells, Delius, Elgar: Music for Strings (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:00 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

This keenly anticipated album from Sinfonia of London and John Wilson features two of the greatest British works for string orchestra: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. Elgar’s ground-breaking work, commissioned for the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 1905, is inspired by the baroque concerto grosso, and features a solo string quartet contrasted with the full symphonic string section. These orchestral forces were also adopted by Herbert Howells in his Concerto for String Orchestra, from 1938. Delius’s Late Swallows is the only piece not originally composed for string orchestra; it was arranged (from the slow movement of Delius’s String Quartet) by his amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD, and digitally in Spatial Audio.

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Sinfonia of London & John Wilson – Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3, Isle of the Dead, Vocalise (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:14 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Rachmaninoff’s tone poem The Isle of the Dead was composed in Dresden in 1908 – 09, inspired by the 1880 painting of that name by the Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin. The painting depicts a ferryman rowing a coffin towards the Isle of the Dead, and Rachmaninoff, unusually setting the piece in five beats to the bar, captures the atmosphere and the motion of oars in the water in the most extraordinary detail. Dedicated to the outstanding Ukrainian-born coloratura soprano Antonina Vasilyevna Nezhdanova, the ‘Vocalise’ was first performed, by her with the composer, in January 1916. After creating a version with orchestral accompaniment, Rachmaninoff then produced the version heard here, for orchestra alone. Following the Russian revolution and his exile to the USA, the compositional output of Rachmaninoff declined dramatically. In great demand both as a virtuoso performer and as a conductor, he toured extensively, but struggled to incorporate ‘modern music’ into his compositional style. In the mid 1930s he acquired a holiday villa in Lucerne, and surprised the world with his ‘Paganini’ Rhapsody, quickly followed by the Third Symphony. Sinfonia of London and John Wilson demonstrate exceptional ensemble playing throughout, and their glowing string sound suits this repertoire perfectly.

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Sinfonia of London & John Wilson – Hollywood Soundstage (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:49 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson present an album that celebrates the golden age of Hollywood. Sinfonia of London rose to fame in the 1950s as the leading recording orchestra of the day, appearing in the musical credits of more than 300 films, including the 1958 soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann for Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Reformed by John Wilson in 2018 as a recording orchestra, and made-up of some of London’s finest orchestral musicians, their first recording of Korngold’s Symphony in F# won the orchestral award from BBC music magazine, and drew critical acclaim worldwide. Korngold’s Overture from the private lives of Elizabeth and Essex which opens the programme is an excellent demonstration of his rich, chromatic sound-world that set a blue-print for the Hollywood sound and so many composers that followed. Although the songs were written by Harold Arlen, it was Herbert Stothart’s score for The Wizard of Oz that won the Oscar, and it is his suite from the movie that features here. There are also suites from Max Steiner’s Now, Voyager and Franz Waxman’s Rebecca (receiving here it’s premiere recording). Shorter pieces from David Raksin, Frederick Loewe, Johnny Mandel and Alfred Newman complete this rewarding programme.

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Sinfonia of London & John Wilson – John Ireland: Orchestral Works (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:16 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

John Ireland was something of a child prodigy, entering the Royal College of Music at the age of fourteen. There he studied piano, organ and composition (under Charles Villiers Stanford). He quickly progressed to significant positions as an organist, whilst continuing to pursue his interests as a composer. The Forgotten Rite, from 1913, is one of his earliest orchestral compositions, and was premièred by Sir Henry Wood at the Queen’s Hall. The symphonic rhapsody Mai-Dun was inspired by the Dorset countryside – Thomas Hardy Country – a landscape that exerted a lifelong influence on Ireland. While it was commissioned for the national Brass Band Championships in 1932, Ireland later arranged the central two movements of A Downland Suite for strings. The first and last movements were later arranged by his pupil Geoffrey Bush. The overture Satyricon was one of Ireland’s final large-scale works, and is based upon texts by the Roman writer Gaius (or, in some sources, Titus) Petronius Arbiter, a courtier of Nero. A London Overture and the Epic March were both commissioned by the BBC – the latter as a morale-booster during World War II. It was during this period that Ireland orchestrated The Holy Boy – a piano piece composed on Christmas Day in 1913.

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