Edward Gardner's Mendelssohn in Birmingham series continues with a recording of Overtures. As with the previous volumes, a reduced size CBSO join Gardner in Birmingham Town's Hall, where Mendelssohn himself conducted many of the UK premieres of his own orchestral works. The majority of works in the programme were written as concert overtures, spanning the length of Mendelssohn's career from the early Midsummer Night's Dream composed when he was just 16 though to 'Ruy Blas' written towards the end of his lifetime. Two of these overtures were written as the opening movements of larger works: 'St Paul', his first great Oratorio from 1836, and his overture to 'Athalie', incidental music written for Racine's play. The Trumpet Overture is the earliest work here, written possibly to precede a performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt, and allegedly Mendelssohn's father's favourite piece!
In this third volume of Edward Gardner’s Walton series with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, James Ehnes leaves his violin to tackle the taxing soloist role in the Viola Concerto. In a recent Strad interview, Ehnes confesses: ‘This is a piece I have loved since I was a teenager, so it is wonderful that the opportunity has come my way to record it... With Walton’s Viola Concerto, none of the writing is impossible but a lot of it is close. And in a way that is exactly where you want it to be: on the edge of technical limitations. There’s a tremendous amount of excitement in that.’ This album in surround sound also features two much later works: the 1957 Partita for Orchestra and the Sonata for String Orchestra, adapted in 1971 from the String Quartet in A minor of 1945 – 47. There is a striking contrast between the uncomfortable modernism of the up-and-coming young composer’s Viola Concerto and the relaxed brilliance of the mature Partita. But the Sonata shows Walton late in his life re-engaging as an arranger with his earlier manner, and so with the characteristic vein of restless unease that runs through most of his output.
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Ehnes and Gardner take us back to pre-Menuhin tempos, only a fraction slower than William Primrose’s pioneering 1946 recording. There’s a grand sweep to the performance which is wholly engaging in its refusal to wallow. Ehnes’s burnished viola tone is noble and warm. Gardner conducts a lithe performance of the Sonata for string orchestra, and a suitably boisterous Partita to fill out the disc.
This recording brings together some of Chandos’ greatest artists in a spellbinding programme. It follows performances that The Guardian described as ‘a thrilling show of ferocity and feistiness,’ given by the same forces in January at the Barbican. After widely acclaimed recordings of Walton’s and Lutoslawski’s violin concertos, Tasmin Little again joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, in intensely expressive interpretations of the concertos by the Polish composers Karlowicz and Szymanowski. All were written within the space of a generation, and yet they belong to quite different worlds. One was composed at a time of national occupation, another in the throes of wartime, and yet another at a time of national renewal. The first inhabits the lyrical tradition developed by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, the second escapes towards Debussy and the exoticism of Mediterranean influences, while the third is imbued with the folk culture of the Tatra Mountains.
Britten: Cello Symphony; Symphonic Suite From Gloriana; Four Sea Interludes From Peter Grimes
Chandos
CD
$21.99Mar 29, 2011
These are outstanding performances, as good or better than the composer's own. Edward Gardner tears into the Four Sea Interludes with uninhibited excitement. It's great to hear the high violins and flutes in "Dawn" swooping and soaring like the gulls that they're supposed to be evoking. "Sunday Morning" has an infectious bounce, while "Moonlight" casts a rapt stillness abruptly shattered by perhaps the most vicious storm on disc. It's one of those versions you will listen to and say, "Finally, that's the way it should go!"
The suite from Gloriana is still a comparative rarity, which is a pity, as the music really is first-rate Britten. But then, so is the opera; why anyone cares that it flopped at its premiere is beyond me (the Queen allegedly was not amused, as if her opinion matters). The Lute Song is very nicely sung by Robert Murray, but the version for oboe rather than voice strikes me as more appropriate within the context of the symphonic suite as a whole. Granted, Britten used Peter Pears, but that was an opportunity for him to give his partner something to do while on tour.
Finally, there's the Cello Symphony: a tough, somewhat gnarly work that receives a performance every bit as fine as Britten/Rostropovich, which still remains the benchmark version. Paul Watkins and Gardner somehow make music out of the low, grotty opening, pacing the movement as unerringly as did Britten himself. The finale works its way up to a wonderfully life-affirming conclusion, and Watkins does a wonderful job with the lengthy preceding cadenza. In short, this release is a major entry in the Britten discography, and the sonics are every bit the equal of the interpretations.
Elgar: Symphony No. 2 & Serenade for Strings / Gardner, BBC Symphony
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Jun 01, 2018
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 skillfully 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.
Britten: Peter Grimes / Skelton, Wall, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Chandos
SACD
$43.99Sep 04, 2020
Winner of the coveted Gramophone Record of the Year award!
‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison – The Times. This studio recording was made following the acclaimed production at Grieghallen, in Bergen, in 2019 (repeated in Oslo and London and reviewed above). Luxuriant playing from the Bergen Philharmonic and a stellar cast under the assured direction of Edward Gardner make this a recording to treasure.
REVIEW:
The net joy of this new recording is that Skelton, now a Grimes of considerable experience and range, has found in his vocalisation of the role a well-judged mixture of obsessive professional (sometimes rough) fisherman and troubled, confused and persecuted outsider. All this is precisely framed by Gardner’s conducting and his choice of cast. An exciting, committed, necessary and brilliantly recorded version for our times.
– Gramophone (Recording of The Month, October 2020
Sibelius: Orchestral Works / Davidsen, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Jul 02, 2021
Following their acclaimed recordings of Schoenberg with Sara Jakubiak and Britten’s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic turn their attention to the music of Sibelius. Written in 1913 for the diva Aino Ackté, the tone poem Luonnotar draws on text from the Finnish national epic poem, the Kalevala. Its virtuosic demands are ably met here by award-wining soprano Lise Davidsen, who also feature in the Suite from Pelléas and Mélisande, music re-worked by Sibelius from his incidental music written for the first performances of Maeterlinck’s play in Helsinki, in 1905, in Swedish. The tone poem Tapiola, from 1926, is Sibelius’ last great masterpiece and evokes the forests of his native Finland. The programme is completed by a pair of much earlier works, Rakastava (the Lover) and Vårsång (Spring Song).
REVIEW:
Here’s a mostly excellent disc, smartly programmed to offer an appealing mix of familiar and less-known music. Soprano Lise Davidsen seems to be all over the place these days. She’s the real deal, an intelligent and affecting singer with the vocal heft and secure technique to do justice to just about anything she tries. Let’s hope her current popularity doesn’t result in a premature vocal blowout. Her Luonnotar is beautiful, but just a hair too fast. This of course makes it easier to sing, but there’s more mystery and atmosphere in the music than Gardner and Davidsen realize here. It’s my only quibble about this otherwise wholly desirable program.
As for the rest: this Tapiola has all of the eerie strangeness missing in Luonnotar–and let’s face it: Is there a more alien and spooky sounding work out there, by anyone? Gardner is so adept at easing the music from one section to another that you have to wonder why he was in such a rush in Luonnotar? The Pelleas and Melisande music goes splendidly, each of its numbers played to the hilt, with Melisande at the Spinning Wheel and the following Entr’acte especially memorable. Rakastava (The Lover) is an odd arrangement for strings (with triangle and timpani) of an original vocal work. Seldom performed and melodically elusive, it’s good to hear a fresh new version. Spring Song is another rarity. It’s hymn-like opulence sounds strangely un-Sibelian, although it represents perhaps the most extended example of a very characteristic aspect of his musical personality. It’s splendidly done, its successive climaxes especially well-judged by Gardner.
As you might have guessed, the Bergen Philharmonic sounds terrific, as do the sonics. Never mind the unfortunately zippy Luonnotar. This is great stuff.
