Tracklista: Brahms 1. Symphony No. 4 Schubert 2. Symphony No. 7 Unfinished Beethoven 3. Leonore Ouverture No. 3
The first recording by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for BIS centred on Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, a work which stands squarely on the threshold between Classicism and Romanticism. Nézet-Séguin’s interpretation brilliantly demonstrated this ambivalence, as the reviewer in CD Review on BBC Radio 3 remarked: ‘A Fantastic Symphony that relishes in the transparency and the delicacy of Berlioz's scoring while remaining true to its vivid imagination and dramatic punch’. On the follow-up to that exciting release is another work that straddles a musical divide, namely Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Composed in 1948, these late blooms of an unabashed Romanticism stood in the midst of a musical landscape which featured the twelve-tone serialism of the Darmstadt School, John Cage’s prepared piano and the first examples of musique concrète. In accordance with Strauss’s wish, it was the dramatic soprano Kirsten Flagstad who first performed the songs, but they also became closely associated with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. On the present recording, it is Dorothea Röschmann, one of today’s foremost Mozart sopranos who lends her voice to what is often regarded as an expression of the composer’s acceptance of death’s inevitability, at the age of eighty-four. We meet Strauss in a completely different mood in the disc’s opening work – the large-scale symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) composed fifty years before the songs. By casting himself in the role of the Hero, Strauss managed to provoke generations of music-lovers for years to come. A study of aggressive egotism, the work has been called, as well as the most conceited piece of music ever written. But it is also widely regarded as one of the most brilliant, and virtuosic, orchestral scores in the history of music, displaying the possibilities of a large symphony orchestra to the fullest.
Tracklista:1. I. Langsam - Allegro con fuoco 00:20:55 2. II. Nachtmusik I: Allegro moderato 00:16:59 3. III. Scherzo: Schattenhaft 00:09:46 4. IV. Nachtmusik II: Andante amoroso 00:14:05 5. V. Rondo - Finale 00:17:25
Album został wydany przez wytwórnię Hyperion (CDA 68231/2). Tracklista: CD 1: 1. Symphony No. 3 CD 2: 1-7. Symphony No. 4 8. Symphony in B flat
Tracklista: CD 1: Symphony No.1 In C Minor Op.68 1 I. Un Poco Sostenuto – Allegro – Meno Allegro 2 II. Andante Sostenuto 3 III. Un Poco Allegretto E Grazioso 4 IV. Adagio – Più Andante – Allegro Non Troppo Ma Con Brio – Più Allegro CD 2: Symphony No.2 In D Op.73 1 I. Allegro Non Troppo 2 II. Adagio Non Troppo 3 III. Allegretto Grazioso 4 IV. Allegro Con Spirito CD 3: Symphony No.3 In F Op.90 1. I. Allegro Con Brio – Un Poco Sostenuto – Tempo I 2. II. Andante 3. III. Poco Allegretto 4. IV. Allegro – Un Poco Sostenuto Symphony No.4 In E Minor Op.98 5. I. Allegro Non Troppo 6. II. Andante Moderato 7. III. Allegro Giocoso 8. IV. Allegro Energico E Passionato – Più Allegro
It was with performances and recordings of the music of Jean Sibelius, his great compatriot, that the Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä first attracted the attention of a wider international audience. Beginning in the early 1990s, seminal recordings with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra of tone poems and the seven symphonies became synonymous with a new interpretative approach to the composer’s music, with words such as ‘clarity’, ‘intensity’ and ‘freshness’ reappearing in review after review. Vänskä has remained true to Sibelius (and BIS), and recordings made by him over the past 20 years form the backbone of the label’s newly completed Sibelius Edition, but in the meantime his international career has also flourished, including a highly successful partnership with the Minnesota Orchestra. On disc this has resulted in an acclaimed cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies, and most recently with a recording of Bruckner’s Fourth (‘Romantic’) Symphony, which in Pizzicato Magazine was described as ‘exceptional… without doubt one of the finest recordings of the work…’ Now, some 15 years after the appearance of his previous cycle of Sibelius’s symphonies, Vänskä has returned to the works in recording, and with his Minnesota players he has recorded the first disc in a new cycle. The Sibelius expert Robert Layton, in his introduction to the programme, presents the Second Symphony as ‘the symphony by which many music lovers find their way to Sibelius’, and in his discussion of the Fifth he quotes the composer himself, in a comment about symphonic form: ‘a river with innumerable tributaries feeding it before it broadens majestically and flows into the sea’.
Poematy symfoniczne napisane przez czeskiego narodowego kompozytora epoki romantyzmu Bedřicha Smetanę. Skomponował je podczas swojego pobytu w Szwecji, wykazują wyraźne wpływy Berlioza i Liszta. Wykonawcy to zespół Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra pod dyrekcją Leoša Svárovský'ego.
Tracklista: CD 1 1. I. Allegro Molto 2. II. Adagio Cantabile 3. III. Rondeau 4. IV. Rondo. Andante 5. I. Allegretto Maestoso 6. II. Poco Adagio 7. III. Menuetto - Trio 8. IV. Aria Con Variation 9. I. Allegro Molto 10. II. Andante 11. III. Allegretto 12. I. Moderato 13. II. Andante Espressivo 14. III. Rondeau. Allegretto CD 2 1. I. Allegro Molto 2. II. Poco Adagio 3. III. Rondeau. Presto 4. I. Allegro 5. II. Andante 6. III. Rondeau 7. I. Allegro Molto 8. II. Cantabile 9. III. Presto 10. I. Largo - Allegro Molto - Largo 11. II. Rondo. Allegro
Tracklista: CD 1 1. Allegro 2. Adagio 3. Allegro 4. Aria 5. Wir Beten Zu Dem Tempel An 6. Höchster, Mache Deine Güte 7. Sei Lob Und Preis Mit Ehren 8. Alleluja 9. Encore. Alleluja CD 2 1. Allegro 2. Adagio 3. Allegro 4. Ouverture 5. Air 6. Gavotte I - Gavotte II 7. Bourrée 8. Gigue 9. Oster-Oratorium, BWV249 10. Vladimir Spivakov's Speech
Druga cześć cyklu poświęconego symfoniom Mahlera wykonywanych Lorina Maazela wraz z Philharmonia Orchestra. Czteropłytowy album brytyjskiej wytwórni Signum zawiera 4, 5 i 6 symfonię wiedeńskiego kompozytora.