The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner present two works that stand at opposite ends of Richard Strauss's creative life, effectively bookending the two World Wars of the 20th century. Strauss's depiction of a day in the life of an Alpine mountain was completed as the First World War took hold, while his deeply personal threnody for German musical life was written in the final months of the Second World War. Now in the fifth year of his tenure as Principal Conductor of the LPO, Ed Gardner continues to be one of today's most sought-after conductors. These recordings are a testament to the strength of the partnership between the LPO and Gardner, showcasing the Orchestra at both it's most epic and it's most intimate.

Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 27 November 2013 and 14 October 2015.

“The LPO string-players vividly felt the music’s pain. They don’t write music like that anymore” - Classical Source on Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 14 October 2015

This is the first release of works by Krzysztof Penderecki on the LPO Label. The Orchestra has had a long relationship with Krzysztof Penderecki as both a composer and a conductor, regularly performing his works at Royal Festival Hall.

The Adagio for Strings and Horn Concerto on this album, both conducted by the composer, are recordings of the UK premiere performances.

Krzysztof Penderecki wrote the Horn Concerto specifically for soloist Radovan Vlatkovic. The Guardian described this performance as impressive, and having a “disquieting, at times savage beauty,” while The Telegraph called it “fantastically fluent” with “genuinely entrancing [moments].”

This is also the first release on the LPO Label featuring conductor Micha? Dworzynski. He is renowned as a great champion of music by Polish composers. His interpretation of the Violin Concerto was praised by The Guardian for capturing “the work’s fraught, tightly bound texture and the imploded lyricism of its constantly evolving melodic material.”

Violinist Barnabás Kelemen’s performance in the Violin Concerto was widely praised. Bachtrack said he “[married] brilliant virtuosity to deep expressiveness. Whether racing through leaping runs or holding eye-wateringly high notes, his tone never faltered.”

The Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is an iconic work by Penderecki which received the UNESCO Prize in 1961. On its dedication to Hiroshima, Penderecki wrote “May this threnody express my deep belief that the sacrifice of Hiroshima will never be forgotten and lost, and Hiroshima will become a symbol of brotherhood between people of good will.”

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REVIEW:

All the works here, except the First Violin Concerto, are conducted by Penderecki himself, so hearing them with the LPO in the Festival Hall immediately makes this a special document, and it is a fascinating compilation of the orchestra’s performances of his music in recent years. The LPO is consistently excellent throughout.

– Choir & Organ

Sukanya is Ravi Shankar’s only opera. He began writing it at the age of 90 and it was left incomplete at the time of his death in 2012. It was completed and orchestrated by David Murphy, a longtime collaborator of Shankar’s, with the help of Shankar’s wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka.

Inspired by Shankar’s own wife and based on a tale from the Mah?bh?rata, Sukanya seamlessly blends Western and Indian musical traditions to tell an epic and magical love story which transcends time and space.

Featuring the original cast of the opera, including Susanna Hurrell and Alok Kumar as Sukanya and Chyavana the elderly sage performing alongside masters of traditional Indian instruments and the BBC Singers. This blend of traditions was praised for its “soundworld of arresting beauty and originality” (What’s On Stage). This World Premiere recording is taken from a live performance during the premiere production of the opera. Classical Source praised the production and said it created “a blaze of colour and energy... ravishing musical moments and gorgeous spectacle... Sukanya is a triumphant celebration of shared humanity.” The Telegraph called the production “a delightful evening of pure escapism,” and The Guardian described it as “a ravishing spectacle.”

LPO concert performance of Sukanya on 15th January 2020 at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra presents this live recording from 2017 of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, with soloists including Sofia Fomina and Matthew Rose, and massed choirs. It's a celebration of the end of Jurowski's 14-year tenure as Principal Conductor.

From it's opening notes, to it's final closing breaths, the spirit of revolution is infused into the fabric of Shostakovich's 11th Symphony. Completed in 1957, it remembers the failed uprising of 1905 and hints at Hungary's anti-Soviet rebellion of 1956. Through his powerful, and at times unsettling music, Shostakovich celebrates the revolutionary spirit and offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of complete power. The London Philharmonic Orchestra harnesses the dark intensity and emotion of his writing in this live performance under Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski.

Recorded live in concert at Royal Festival Hall in 1988 and 1992 under the baton of Zubin Mehta, these recordings of Richard Strauss's Symphonia Domestica and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade are now available from the London Philharmonic Orchestra archives.

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REVIEW:

The key to appreciating the Symphonia Domestica's gentleness and its small details, as American audiences did from early on, is to simply take the work at face value, and this is accomplished admirably here by conductor Zubin Mehta. Even better, is the pairing: Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Op. 35, might seem poles away from the Symphonia Domestica in its contrast of eastern exoticism to Strauss' bourgeois world, but Mehta asks hearers to listen again. Both works are delicately orchestrated, a bit folkish in places, and they alternate action with big melodies in a similar way, and what melodies they are. A fine pairing of favorites from the London Philharmonic's in-house label.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

Mozart was a master at capturing the spirits of the instruments for which he wrote. This skill is perfectly exemplified here in the lighter-than-air Flute Concerto No.2, the sprightly and playful Bassoon Concerto and the interplay of the four soloists in the Sinfonia Concertante. These three exceptional works come to life in this studio recording with featuring soloists of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski.

For collectors of Tchaikovsky Symphonies these recordings of Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3, taken from the Complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies box set are available as a separate release for the first time on the LPO label and along with this re-release of the Manfred Symphony join previous releases of the numbered symphonies as a complete set. Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski is a renowned conductor of Tchaikovsky. The previous release of Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 was a Gramophone recording of the month, number 19 in the Sunday Times 100 best records of the year, a Classic FM album of the week, and one of the Arts Desk's Top Classical albums of 2012. Jurowski's Tchaikovsky has been praised for it's nuance, musical empathy and intelligent phrasing.

Rachminov's Symphonic Dances was one of the first four releases on the LPO Label. As a celebration of the LPO 20 Anniversariy, they are releasing a new recording of the Symphonic Dances, recorded in March of 2023, paired with Rachmaninov's The Bells. Both recordings are performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of our prinicpal conductor, Edward Gardner. The Bells, a choral symphony incorporates Edgar Allan Poe's namesake poem, with a traditional Georgian melody Dies Irae. Motifs of Dies Irae can also be heard in the final movement of the Symphonic Dance; where the Dies Irae theme represents Death.

Edward Gardner, now in his fifth season as Principal Conductor, continues to shape the LPO's distinctive sound with authority and brilliance. Gardner's long-standing relationship with Tippett's music is captured once again in this powerful live performance of A Child of Our Time. Recorded live in concert at London's Royal Festival Hall, this powerful performance - with the voices of the London Adventist Chorale especially deepening the soul-stirring impact of the Spirituals - highlights Gardner's long-standing affinity with Tippett's music, bringing conviction and emotional depth to this searing work of oppression, compassion and hope.

Cuban-born American composer Tania Leon was Composer-in-Residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 2023-2025. During this period, she not only brought a bold new voice to the concert stage with a number of world premieres, but also mentored the LPO's Young Composers, championing living composers and diversity in contemporary music. Premiered in the UK by the LPO under Karina Canellakis at the Royal Festival Hall in October 2023, Horizons (1999) is an evocative orchestral work reflects Leon's fluid musical form - an ever-shifting stream punctuated by vivid foreground events and rich textures. Commissioned by the LPO and Concertgebouw Brugge and [world] premiered by the LPO under Edward Gardner in March 2024, Raices explores Leon's multicultural heritage through a vibrant, three-part structure that fuses contemplative textures, lively Latin rhythms and jazz-inflected exuberance. A Pulitzer Prize-winning work premiered by the New York Philharmonic and given it's UK premiere by the LPO in 2023 under the baton of Dima Slobodeniouk, Stride draws inspiration from women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony's determined spirit. It's powerful rhythmic language blends Black music traditions from the US and Caribbean with the modality of the orchestra. With it's European premiere by the LPO under Edward Gardner in February 2025, the vivid four-part Pasajes evokes the sounds, sights, and joyful spirit of Leon's childhood in Cuba. Rich in color, rhythm and narrative, it is a sonic gallery of cultural memory, celebration and radio playing in the street.

This is Edward Gardner's sixth release on LPO Label, and the third that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the label in 2025. This Britten program was recorded at London's Royal Festival Hall (Sinfonia da Requiem and The Prince of the Pagodas) and Saffron Hall (Winter Words). A bold, early masterpiece written at just twenty-six and originally commissioned to commemorate Japan's 2600th imperial anniversary, Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem was rejected for being too solemn, but emerged as his only major purely orchestral work and a powerful response to the growing threat of war. Winter Words Britten's poignant song cycle originally for tenor and piano, set to texts of 8 poems by Thomas Hardy is presented here in a new orchestration by Robin Holloway-a world premiere recording. The Prince of the Pagodas, Britten's ballet with Edward Gardner's distilled concert suite from The Prince of the Pagodas-another world premiere recording-fulfils Britten's unrealised ambition to arrange his full-length ballet into a dramatic orchestral suite.

One of Elgar's greatest works, The Dream of Gerontius is his setting of Cardinal Newman's poem about a dying man's journey from his deathbed to his judgment before God and his placement in Purgatory. The work is not a traditional oratorio; instead, it is a hauntingly beautiful and transformative journey of the soul. Elgar himself said of it, "I've written it out of my insidest inside." This BBC recording was captured live at the Royal Albert Hall during the 2022 BBC Proms season. Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, with the Halle Choir, in what was described by The Guardian as a "perfectly judged performance." The recording features a cast of three world-class soloists - Allan Clayton, Jamie Barton, and James Platt - celebrated for their individual excellence and compelling interpretation of their roles.

Although LPO Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis has appeared on previous LPO Label releases alongside other conductors, this marks the first major release devoted entirely to her work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Both symphonies were recorded live in London at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall. The London Philharmonic Orchestra has a rich legacy of compelling Tchaikovsky interpretations with Vladimir Jurowski and Vasily Petrenko. Karina now stands with this legacy in the seventh Tchaikovsky release on the LPO Label.

This recording of the Ninth Symphony marks LPO Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski's fifth Mahler release on the LPO Label, captured live with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall on December 3, 2022. Jurowski has garnered an international reputation for his interpretation of Mahler's music, both on the podium, and through his distinguished recording legacy with the LPO. Mahler's Ninth was the composer's last symphony to be published during his lifetime. Written in the shadow of personal tragedy and his own heart condition, the work has often been heard as a farewell - to life, to Vienna, and to the world he knew. It's premiere was given in Vienna in June 1912 by Bruno Walter, Mahler's protege. Landmark performances with Walter and the LPO in the 1930s and 1940s helped ingrain Mahler's music into the Orchestra's DNA, a legacy that continues to shape the LPO's sound and spirit today.

Vladimir Jurowski is one of today's most sought after conductors. His London Philharmonic Orchestra performances from Stravinsky's catalogue span his 20 year association with the Orchestra, culminating in him including Stravinsky's Jeu de cartes in the program of his final concert as Principal Conductor in August 2021. This recording, the first of a three volume Stravinsky series, features two cornerstone works. The Firebird featured in Jurowski's first scheduled concert conducting the LPO back in March 2002 and this recording comes from a 2018 Royal Festival Hall performance, described as "a masterpiece" by the Evening Standard. The Rite of Spring comes from an earlier Royal Festival Hall concert in 2008. Stravinsky's music in the hands of Jurowski delivers a focus and clarity that is beautifully preserved and realised on these recordings.

This recording is the second of a highly-rated three-volume Stravinsky series recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with then Principal Conductor (now Conductor Emeritus) Vladimir Jurowski. This series documents Jurowski's year-long Stravinsky festival with the LPO in 2018, 'Changing Faces'. The festival surveyed Stravinsky's works, programed chronologically alongside his influences and those he influenced. The Fairy's Kiss is a work close to Jurowski's heart. The LPO had performed this work 17 times under his baton by the time of this recording, and the partnership between the conductor and the Orchestra culminates in this performance. It is rare to find a live performance recording of The Sleeping Beauty excerpts. The most recent commercial recording of the Pas de deux was 2012. Stravinsky was in the audience, as an 8-year old, for the premiere performance of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, a performance that was to have a profound effect on him as a composer. Stravinsky's music in the hands of Jurowski delivers live in concert a focus and clarity that is beautifully preserved and realised on these recordings.