One of the foremost musicians of his generation, James Ehnes continues to dazzle audiences around the world. Here he joins the BBC Philharmonic and Sir Andrew Davis in a recording of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Written for the Polish virtuoso Samuel Dushkin, the four-movement work takes the music of Bach as its inspiration, and is built around a chord of the notes D, E, and A, which Stravinsky described as his ‘passport to the concerto’ and with which the solo violin part opens each movement. Dushkin gave the premiere, conducted by Stravinsky, in Berlin in 1932.

Apollon musagète, a ballet in two parts for string orchestra, was written in 1927-28, and demonstrates the composer’s complete rejection of the Russian folk music and idioms that had been so instrumental in his previous ballets (The Firebird, Petrushka). They are replaced by a concentration on ‘pure form’, which became known as his neo-classical style. The album is completed by his two orchestral suites – light-hearted music arranged from piano duets he had written in the 1910s – and Scherzo à la russe, a showpiece for the Paul Whiteman band that he composed in the early 1940s when newly arrived in California.

The BBC Philharmonic and its new Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, follow their previous release of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony with this album of Symphonies Nos 12 and 15. Subtitled ‘The Year 1917’, the Twelfth Symphony was a project which Shostakovich had been planning and discussing for two decades – a symphony about Lenin. The first movement, ‘Revolutionary Petrograd’, depicts the arrival of Lenin in Petrograd in April 1917 and his meetings with the working people of the city. The second, ‘Razliv’, commemorates the site of Lenin’s retreat to the north of the city. ‘Aurora’, the third movement, refers to the Russian battleship the revolutionary mutinous crew of which fired the first shot of the attack on the Winter Palace.

Finally, ‘The Dawn of Humanity’ celebrates the ultimate victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Musically, the Twelfth seems to regress to a more simplistic musical language than that of the immediately preceding Symphony – which some commentators ascribe to Shostakovich’s joining the Communist Party and perhaps trying harder to meet its expectations. The Fifteenth (and last) Symphony was written entirely in July 1971, at a composer’s rest home in Repino, north-west of Leningrad. It was his first non-programmatic symphony since the Tenth, and Shostakovich was wary of discussing the meaning of it, but eventually commented that it might be understood as representing the journey from life to death.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic continue their survey of Shostakovich’s late symphonies with this recoding of the 14th, with Elizabeth Atherton and Peter Rose as soloists. Completed in the spring of 1969, and premiered later that year, the symphony is written for soprano, bass and small string orchestra with percussion, setting eleven linked setting of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death, and indeed all four of the poets had died prematurely and / or in unnatural circumstances – Wilhelm Küchelbecker in Siberian exile for his part in the 1825 Decembrist uprising, Federico García Lorca assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, Rainer Maria Rilke of blood poisoning following an accident in 1926 and Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918 during the Spanish influenza pandemic. The Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva were composed in 1973, originally for contralto and piano, and subsequently arranged for chamber orchestra (the version we hear here, with Jess Dandy as soloist). The recording was made at Media City in Salford, Manchester, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

Over 75 minutes of the great Czech composer's most well-known works are represented here on Naxos, the budget classical CD leader. These are all modern, digital recordings taken from their catalog

John Wilson’s third volume of the music of Eric Coates combines some of the composer’s larger-scale works with miniatures and two marches.

The Cinderella Phantasy frames the well-known fairy-tale from Cinderella’s perspective, glossing over the more brutal elements of the original, with some notably descriptive writing for the dream sequences, the ball and of course the happy ending.

The Three Men is to some extent autobiographical, as Coates explores his love of his native Nottinghamshire countryside, his love for London and his love of the sea.

The Three Elizabeths is a suite of portraits of three great figures in English History – Queen Elizabeth I; Elizabeth of Glamis (then the Queen Consort, now remembered as the Queen Mother), and Princess Elizabeth (who of course became Queen Elizabeth II).

Lost Love is a wistful Romance written in 1939, while the much later Sweet Seventeen is a beautiful waltz, inspired by Eric and his wife Phyliss’ love of dancing. In fact, the title refers to his first date with Phyllis, at the Blenheim Restaurant, the day before her seventeenth birthday. Two marches complete the program – the Television March was commissioned by the BBC (just three weeks before the date of broadcast!) for the resumption of television broadcasting in 1946. The Dam Busters March was used as the main title for Michael Anderson’s 1955 film and is arguably the composer’s most widely known work.

REVIEW:

The Dam Busters march became the biggest and final hit of Coates’s career. John Wilson’s way with it – letting that tune glide in almost imperceptibly, relishing the moment when the violins decorate it, like sprinkling icing on a cake – typifies his approach.

-- Gramophone

Cyril Scott was an artists of immense standing amongst his contemporaries. Debussy wrote of him, 'Cyril Scottt is one of the rarest artists of the present generation...' and Elgar acknowledged Scott's influence in his treatment of harmony. Scott failed to receive attention after the First World War for he did not connnect with the msuical establishment as it developed. His posthumous lack of popularity is unfathonable as his music has a personality and integrity which demand, nearly half a century on, that we revisit it. This release places Scott's early masterpiece, the first Piano Concerto, alongside one of the larger orchestral works composed after the Second World War. Performed here by Howard Shelley, the large scale Piano Concerto was composed immediately before the First World War and premiered by Scott himself, with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of his friend Sir Thomas Beecham. Scott's static and exotic harmony, and his use of ostinati, repeated motifs, exotic orchestral colours and the bell-like effect of repeated fourths lend the work an oriental sound world. Scott himself said about it: 'It's as if Scarlatti had lived in China'. Symphony No.4 was completed in 1952 but has not been performed until now and with this release receives its world premiere recording. Clearly influenced by Ravel and Debussy, particularly at the climax points, Scott composes melodic lines that are richly chromatic, and his orchestration is colourful and constantly changing. This work is coupled with 'Early One Morning', a single-movement 'Poem' for piano and orchestra.

John Wilson’s first album in a series of recordings of the orchestral works of Eric Coates, using his own definitive editions of the scores. includes the suites The Jester at the Wedding and London, and the miniature overture The Merrymakers. Infectiously idiomatic playing from the BBC Philharmonic! Eric Coates was born on August 27th, 1886, at Hucknall. Coates showed an interest in music at an early age, studying first the violin and then the viola with George Ellenberger, a pupil of Joachim, and harmony with Dr Ralph Horner in Nottingham. At the age of twenty he arrived in London determined to make a career in music despite some family misgivings. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied viola with Lionel Tertis and composition with Frederick Corder. Eventually, in 1919, when neuritis in his left hand made playing the viola more and more difficult, Eric Coates turned exclusively to composition. Eric Coates' work is in the tradition of polished melodic light music started by Sir Arthur Sullivan and continued by Edward German.

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REVIEWS:

Wilson is relishing every second of the music. The BBC Phil is in great nick, and Stephen Rinker’s engineering brings sound of clarity and fidelity, every detail, dynamic, and subtlety captured perfectly.

– ClassicalSource.com

Volume 1 implies we are to get more like this and they can’t come soon enough. Eric Coates is surprisingly undervalued, even with the resurgence of interest in light music. There are some very familiar pieces here – The Merrymakers, By a Sleepy Lagoon, London Suite – alongside the ballet The Jester at the Wedding and two symphonic rhapsodies. All engaging and here splendidly played by the BBC Phil under one of the real champions of light music, John Wilson.

– Lark Reviews

Dohnányi's works are characterized by their fluency, rich sense of harmony, and mastery of instrumentation and form. Dohnányi expressed his romantic hertiage in the perfect forms of the eighteenth century, which he used as a framework for his highly vivacious and lyrical music. Thsi does not mean the he simply produced replicas; rather, he succeeded in combining classical form with the Lisztian concpet of motifs being developed and binding together a large-scale work. Recorded in: New Broadcasting House, Manchester 12-14 September 2001 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Mike George Sound Engineer(s) Stephen Rinker Christopher Brooke (Assistant)

Classical Music

Edward Gregson (b. 1945), one of Britain’s most versatile and prolific composers, has gained worldwide recognition for his approachable and engaging music. With the BBC Philharmonic, Bramwell Tovey conducts orchestral works, including two recently arranged for ensemble in the Horn Concerto and Aztec Dances, that take inspiration from an array of musical and extra-musical sources, revealing the breadth of Gregson’s musical imagination.

For the second volume of the music of Eric Coates, John Wilson has built his programme around three contrasting ‘major’ works. The Suite Summer Days was premiered in October 1919, shortly after Henry Wood had fired Coates from his position as lead viola in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. An immediate hit, the suite received rave reviews and many more performances. It was recorded in 1926, Sir Edward Elgar telling Coates that he had played it so often that he had worn out the album! The Selfish Giant, from 1925, based on Oscar Wilde’s story, was the first in a series of highly successful musical retellings of fairy tales. The Enchanted Garden originated in a commission from the Swedish Broadcasting Company. Although he described The Enchanted Garden as a ballet, Coates conceived it principally as a concert work. Composed in June and July 1938, it was premiered in a BBC radio broadcast in November that year, immediately before Coates took it on tour to Stockholm. Of the other, shorter pieces on the album, Calling All Workers is arguably Coates’s best-known work, composed in the summer of 1940 and dedicated ‘to all who work’. The march was adopted by the BBC as the signature tune for their new daily radio show ‘Music While You Work’, and was heard twice daily for twenty-seven years – clocking up more than 16,000 broadcast performances.

REVIEWS:

The second volume in John Wilson’s Eric Coates edition for Chandos reprises the excellence to be found in the first. Wilson has recorded much Coates for other labels but to find him return to the repertoire in a more formalized way is especially good news.

– MusicWeb International

Wilson has been a Coates champion for decades and has the natural lightness of touch to make these works, including a substantial ballet, The Enchanted Garden, and an Oscar Wilde-based phantasy, The Selfish Giant, sparkle.

– Sunday Times (UK)

Xavier Montsalvatge (1912 - 2002) was an important composer in Catalan music. His work ranges from operas such as "Una voz en off" and "El gato con botas," to vocal, chamber and orchestral music. Montsalvatge's "Sinfonía de réquiem" is one of the featured works on this disc. Montsalvatge achieved international recognition with the "Cinco canciones negras" for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, also featured in this recording, which shows the influence of Antillean melodic and rhythmic characteristics. His score for the 1987 film Dragon Rapide, about Francisco Franco, was nominated for the Goya Awards.

R E V I E W S:

"The latest release in Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic's La Música de España series marks the centenary of the birth of Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge, the best of whose music combines Catalan and Caribbean folk idioms with taut neoclassical structures and a glamorous, post-impressionistic sense of orchestration. The finest work here is Calidoscopi Simfònic, dating from 2001 – the year before Montsalvatge's death – which dazzlingly reworks music from a ballet left unfinished in 1955... The performances are immensely persuasive."
-- The Guardian (UK)

John Wilson's fourth volume devoted to music by Eric Coates opens with Music Everywhere, a rousing march that was commissioned by Britain's first independent TV and radio service, Rediffusion, for use as it's signature tune. The concert waltz Footlights is a life-affirming evocation of the glamour of the inter-war West End, created just weeks before the start of the Second World War. In wartime, as it turned out, the demand for refreshing, morale-boosting music would be higher than ever. Coates's 'Souvenir' I Sing to You was premiered on 14 March 1940 - the week in which wartime meat rationing was introduced in the UK. Composed for his young son Austin, The Three Bears Phantasy transports the Goldilocks fairytale firmly into the 1920s. From Meadow to Mayfair reflects Coates's own journey from rural Nottinghamshire to life in London. Under the Stars, composed in 1928, marks the first inclusion by Coates of an alto saxophone in his orchestration. The Four Centuries Suite is one of Coates's most substantial compositions - not only in length, but also in the size of the orchestra. It's four movements evoke the musical styles of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Dedicated to his wife, Phyllis, the work is also a celebration of the couple's lifelong love of dancing.

It is amazing to think that Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, knighted in 1998 for his services to music has written so much music: orchestral works, quartets, concertos, symphonies, operas, ballets, songs, madrigals, jazz pieces and much more - all totalling over 600 items! He has scored over 50 films (including some documentaries in the earlier part of his career). This album comprises a fair cross-section.

Usually we only hear Bennett's celebrated waltz from Murder on the Orient Express so the eleven-minute suite from the 1974 Academy Award nominated score is most welcome. Gamba, aided by Chandos's superbly dynamic and detailed sound, gives a thrilling reading of this glittering, sophisticated music for the smart set travelling on a mission to kill, on Europe's premier train. The music reflects the styles of that hedonistic era between the two world wars: waltzes, tangos and music played in the salon style. There is, as to be expected, an element of murky mystery and swift violence; but there is appealing elegiac material too. But overall, there is the glamour and urgency of the great powerful train itself.

From international sophistication, the prograame turns to a smaller world of rural romantic tragedy and to John Schlesinger's 1967 film of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Alan Bates and Terence Stamp. Although the film had mixed reviews, Bennett's score was Oscar-nominated. Bennett wrote some beguiling pastoral themes, notably the poignant Bathsheba love theme. Opposed to this delicacy, is some very astringent, harsh, dissonant folk-like material that underlies the cruel reality of rural life like the loss of the shepherd's (Bates) flock of sheep (they throw themselves over the edge of a cliff) leaving him penniless and unable to pursue his love, Bathsheba. There is also bravado music for the proud, womanising soldier (Stamp), counterbalanced with elegiac material and music that, in its sense of chill isolation, recalls Holst's Egdon Heath.

Bennett has arranged his music for the 1972 film Lady Caroline Lamb as an elegy for orchestra and that Cinderella of the orchestra, the viola. His music for this film, which was about Lady Caroline Lamb's disastrous obsessive love for the poet Lord Byron, is distinguished by a very appealing tender romantic melody that is redolent of the Lady's yearning. The work is presented in two movements. Before the love theme is stated in the first of these, there is headlong skittish, neurotic music portraying the rash, foolish woman. Afterwards comes some comically ironical military music of some pomposity which includes (Lady Lamb's?) sighs before the mood darkens - perhaps signifying Lady Lamb's encroaching madness. The second movement reprises the love music, which becomes the theme for a set of variations: some dreamily nocturnal, some passionate, some troubled. Philip Dukes is a sensitive and refined soloist.

Cynthia Miller adds an ethereal touch, playing her ondes martenot for Bennett's Enchanted April score. This 1991 Merchant Ivory production dealt with the lives and loves of a handful of English ladies spending an idyllic month in an Italian villa. Accordingly, Bennett responded with a mellow nostalgic score, in which the ondes martenot transports the characters, and us, away from the ordinary, everyday world - to somewhere that is extraordinary and enchanted. His music is very delicate, atmospheric and impressionistic; and very reminiscent of both Debussy and Ravel (Ravel in Chinoiserie mode). At one point this delicate fantasy is grounded by the strains of Elgar's Chanson de matin played on a cor anglais but the peaceful idyllic mood is soon reinstated. A lovely work that perhaps is too fragile for its 19-minute length.

The concert is completed by two shorter works: the Nicole's haunting theme from the 1985 TV production, Tender is the Night, although I would argue that this is not its premiere recording for I remember hearing it the soundtrack recording I purchased at that time. I would also argue that Nicole was rehabilitated by the man she married and it was the strain of that work which caused his destruction! The concluding item is the touching and plaintive love theme for Four Weddings and a Funeral that tended to be overshadowed by more familiar pop source music.

Gamba leads the BBC Philharmonic in committed, romantic performances. A delightful album and strongly recommended.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

The BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena focus here on the orchestral works of Joaquín Turina, one of the two leading Spanish composers of the twentieth century, the other being Manuel de Falla. Turina was a prolific composer, who in his sixty-seven years wrote more than one hundred works, in which he explored a wide range of classical genres, from symphonic music, solo piano pieces, and vocal works to ballet scores and chamber music. Most of these show the influences of traditional Andalusian music – often conveying feelings of rapture and immense exaltation – while also owing a debt to a range of French composers. - Chandos

“I hope you will knuckle down to a good symphony,” wrote Samuel Barber in September 1944 to his fellow composer Aaron Copland: “We deserve it of you, and your career is all set for it.” It was a strange thing to say given that Copland had already composed a variety of symphonies, albeit admittedly all more experimental than Barber might have preferred. The fourth volume in the highly acclaimed Copland series from John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic opens with the resoundingly successful Symphony No. 3 (1944-46). The optimistic spirit of this work resonated perfectly with the euphoria of post-war America, resulting in its becoming an emblem of US nationalism. This lesser-recorded original version comes complete with the twelve bars which Bernstein later suggested cutting from the fourth movement. Three commissions complement the symphony: ‘Letter from Home’ (1944) reflects the feelings of receiving a letter from a loved one. ‘Down a Country Lane’ (originally commissioned by Life magazine as a solo piano work) is here performed in its orchestral version (1964), reimagined for a series of concerts showcasing youth orchestras. ‘Connotations’ (1962), a twelve-note serial composition premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the inauguration of The Philharmonic Hall, complete this invigorating surround-sound album.

Marking their third collaboration, violinist Tasmin Little with conductor Sir Andrew Davis are acclaimed for their nuanced understanding of the concertos of Elgar and Moeran and here demonstrate the deep connection to British music with works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Haydn Wood, and Frederick Delius. With the BBC Philharmonic.

Review:

Besides the stellar quality of Little's playing (as ever, warmly engaging and technically bombproof), Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic provide accompaniments in a special class. The slow movements of Wood's Concerto opens with a long theme for the principal horn, delivered here with spellbinding loveliness.

– BBC Music Magazine

Classical Music

Grammy Award Nominee 2006 'Best Classical Contemporary Composition' Composed in 2005 as a specially commissioned ballet score fo New York City Ballet, 'Piano Concerto No.2' comprises three movements: cumnock fair, shabards and shamnation. The work here receives its world premiere recording. It is a highly energetic work - a frenzy of folksong and dance; the first movement, cumnock fair, is a whirling fantasy of eighteenth-century Scottish dance melodies; shambards makes use of Burnsian folksong with fragments of the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor drifting in and out of focus; shamnation is heavily influenced by Scottish folklore, often quite devilish. 'For sheer excitement...this half-romp, half tantrum of a work is hot stuff', wrote The Times. 'A Scotch Bestiary' was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic to inaugurate the new organ in the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. This is a conertante work for organ (an instrument rarely used by contemporary composers) and orchestra, in two parts, and follows in a tradition of musical portraiture to which Elgar, Saint-Saëns and Mussorgsky have made significant contributions.

Classical Music

Of all the recent issues in Chandos' excellent series of film scores by British composers, this may well be the most interesting and important, not just because of the stature of Vaughan Williams himself, but also because of his work in recasting the score of Scott of the Antarctic as his Seventh Symphony. Now obviously you have to know the latter work well to get maximum enjoyment out of the former; not that film score isn't enjoyable on its own, but as in so many cases it consists of little bits, some less than a minute long, that often have no form, stop suddenly, and repeat themselves without any ostensible musical purpose. In other words, it's a typical film score. Also, in making the symphony, the composer shrewdly chose all of the most evocative and atmospheric music and very cleverly expanded it, enriching the orchestration and most importantly enhancing its melodic interest. So the symphony actually gives a much more powerful sense of the moods and atmosphere of the film than does the film score itself. Still, here you will find music omitted in the symphony, such as scenes prior to Scott's arrival at the South Pole, or a brief portrait of his sculptress wife, though not surprisingly these contain the least interesting music.


Of the other two pieces here, the Coastal Command Suite is colorful WWII documentary material of minor interest in the context of Vaughan Williams' work, but The People's Land is quite a find, more than 13 minutes of continuous music based on several folksongs. It was composed in 1942 for a brief narrative "infomercial" describing the work of the British National Trust, and it's a fine example of the composer's breezy, "open air" manner that surely deserves some currency as a concert item.


Rumon Gamba leads aptly vigorous performances and the BBC Philharmonic plays with its customary professionalism. The wordless soprano solo in Scott of the Antarctic is taken by one Merryn Gamba, no doubt a relative of the conductor and an excellent argument against nepotism in musical projects. She sounds shrill and quite unpleasant, even from offstage! Big, rich, slightly soft-edged sonics round out a very worthwhile release that all Vaughan Williams fans will want to sample. [11/11/2002]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Sir Andrew Davis is among the most distinguished interpreters of British music today and here turns to the works of Sir Arnold Bax. With the inclusion of the Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra, this album marks the completion of Chandos’s long project to record Bax’s complete orchestral music over time.

Born in 1883 into a wealthy family in London, Arnold Bax began a love affair with Ireland as a young man. He moved there in 1911 and his Four Orchestral Pieces from 1912 – 13 are deeply influenced by the landscape of the countryside near his Dublin home. The first three are better known in revised versions, from 1928, as Three Pieces for Small Orchestra. Here ‘The Dance of Wild Irravel’ joins the other three movements for the premiere recording of the four Pieces as Bax originally conceived and orchestrated them.

The Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra from 1920 was inspired by the strong feelings with which Bax responded to the Irish political turmoil at the time, underlined by his use of the Sinn Fein Marching Song (later the Irish national anthem) at its climax. Bax is celebrated for his melodic invention and this passionately lyrical score must be one of the finest examples of his gift. Here the soloist is Philip Dukes, described by The Times as ‘Great Britain’s most outstanding viola player’.

By 1927 Bax’s style was changing and the opening of the Overture, Elegy and Rondo is reminiscent of a classical concerto, suggesting a leaning towards then-fashionable neoclassicism. The long, dreamy melody of the middle section and brilliant, colourful orchestration, however, are unmistakable hallmarks of Bax’s individual voice. - Chandos

Reviews

“… Dukes is a sterling advocate of this unjustly neglected work [Phantasy] – the haunting cor anglais solo recalls the shepherd’s lament in Wagner’s Tristan – while Davis proves passionate in the impressionistic Four Orchestral Pieces and the powerful, dark Overture, Elegy and Rondo.” - Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times, Culture magazine, London – [September 14, 2014]

“All three of these rarely heard works come from the first half of Bax’s career as a composer. The earliest is the lightweight but charming set of Four orchestral Pieces from 1914, recorded here for the first time … The latest is the far more substantial Overture, Elegy and Rondo … Through stylistically the two works have their differences … both works reveal the same sure-footed handling of the orchestra, which these carefully manicured performances under conductor Andrew Davis show off beautifully…” - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, [August 29, 2014]

York Bowen has a distinguished reputation as a composer and was considered to be one of Britain's finest pianists. In his day he was known as 'The English Rachmaninoff', and Saint-Saëns described him as 'the most remarkable of the young British composers'. The works of York Bowen tend to display a blend of romanticism and strong individuality, and although his influences include the likes of Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky, his music is also strongly defined by textures and harmonies that are uniquely 'Bowen'. This recording presents the only two surviving symphonies by Bowen: Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2, which are performed here by the BBC Philharmonic under the exclusive Chandos artist Sir Andrew Davis. Symphony No. 1 was written in 1902 when Bowen was an eighteen-year-old composition student at the Royal Academy of Music. The work is laid out in only three movements (unusual for the time), and requires a relatively modest orchestra. It is a deeply impressive achievement - the beauty and lyricism of the second movement and its myriad of orchestral colourations, together with a unique and often surprising sense of well-being in the finale, demonstrate that here is a genuinely symphonic composer who was not content just to copy established models and appease his professors. At least one movement of this symphony was performed during Bowen's time at the academy, but this recording may well be the first time that the work has been performed in its entirety. When Bowen composed his Symphony No. 2 just seven years after completing his first, much had happened in the world of modern music, not least in instrumental terms with the acceptance of large orchestras as standard. As a result this work is much larger in scale than his first symphony, and performed with significantly larger instrumental forces too. The finale in particular is spectacular in the way it develops from the tiniest semi-tonal seed into a fiery and almost unstoppable flood of 'Bowen-esque' inventiveness. This symphony is the work of an assured composer who was completely certain in his music's sense of direction and in the positive and life-affirming nature of his compositions.

My Recording of the Month, by a long way. The BBC Philharmonic sounds simply superb … Noseda conducts intelligently, sensitively, with full structural awareness of the dramatic trajectory.


Note that this is not part of the Chandos ‘Opera in English” series. This Aleko is sung in Russian. Rachmaninov’s early opera is remarkable, especially given its early date. The inspiration is free-flowing from the composer’s pen; the integrity of the Pushkin original is maintained.

The BBC Philharmonic sounds simply superb in the opening Prelude, delivering the themes of fate and jealousy with equal amounts of foreboding and lyricism. The recording helps – superbly focused, believably balanced and with just the right amount of space. The orchestra is superbly captured throughout, a vital facet of any recording of this piece given the dances that permeate the score. The Women’s Dance is superbly characterful - the BBC Philharmonic’s wind section excels. The Men’s Dance contains more contrasts, all relished by the forces here.

The opening chorus of gypsies makes plain reference to Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances. The chorus throughout - and it plays an integral part in the work’s unfolding - is magnificent. The Teatro Regio, Turin chorus makes a lovely, rounded sound and still sounds believably Russian.

The Russian text is given in Cyrillic only in the booklet, which might pose problems for some. At least there are translations in English, French and German and track points are frequent.

Luxury casting comes in the form of the experienced Gennadi Bezzubenkov as the Old Gypsy, full of Russian melancholy as he reminisces (track 3). The oboe’s supporting comments seem echt-Russian rather than Mancunian. The Old Gypsy Woman, who appears towards the end of the opera, is similarly convincing (Nadezhda Vasilieva).

The title role is taken by baritone Sergey Murzaev, strong and virile of voice. Aleko’s Cavatina (track 10) is powerfully delivered, a clear arioso narration until Aleko utters the magic name of “Zemfira”. The aftermath of his Cavatina (after the lines “Zemfira is unfaithful! Zemfira has grown cold!”) is a magical Intermezzo, during which the moon disappears and daybreak begins onstage. His vocal acting in the finale, when he awakes to find Zemfira and the Young Gypsy together, is excellent, right up to the moment he stabs the Young Gypsy.

As Zemfira, Svetla Vassileva is pure and yet passionate. Her big number is the Lullaby (track 9), preceded by the tender duet with the Young Gypsy - the ardent tenor Evgeny Akimov. Only his later off-stage aria, “Look how beneath the distant vault of Heaven …” disappoints, lacking the last iota of conviction. Again, the BBC Philharmonic performs a sterling service in setting up the atmosphere, here in the pointed phrasing. Vassileva sings beautifully, moulding her responses to the text perfectly.

Noseda conducts intelligently, sensitively, with full structural awareness of the dramatic trajectory. We clearly hear the Tchaikovskian influences in the orchestral writing, particularly in the yearning string phrases.

Rob Barnett rightly praised the Järvi DG recording on this site some eight years ago. I would love to hear the Svetlanov (only part of a six-disc set, alas). I remember a Proms performance of Aleko some years ago now which featured the magnificent Elena Prokina – perhaps it is too much to wish that she were part of the Chandos cast. Whatever, there is no doubt that this performance stands firmly on its own two feet.

My Recording of the Month, by a long way.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

This new release, the fourth volume of the Alwyn film music series, has been long anticipated. This series began seventeen years ago with the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Richard Hickox, and continued with Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic, who released volumes 2 and 3 in 2001 and 2005. Rumon Gamba also got involved in other series, exploring the music of d’Indy, Rozsa, and British composers of the twentieth century, as in two volumes of Overtures from the British Isles. This latest album brings new recordings of music from the prolific decades of the 40s and 50s, during which Alwyn scored a number of famous films. These scores show to perfection Alwyn’s supreme skill in providing music totally attuned to the subject matter, which ranges from the dramatic to the exotic, from comedy to the factual. Much of the music recorded here had to be reconstructed by Philip Lane from the soundtracks, as written scores had not survived.

RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3. Caprice bohémien. Prince Rostislav • Gianandrea Noseda, cond; BBC PO • CHANDOS 10677 (73:50)


Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony, composed in 1935–36, has never gained the same traction as the Second or The Isle of the Dead , both composed some years before his departure from Russia in 1917; it is neither as lush as the Second—how could it be?—nor as muscular as the Symphonic Dances , his next, and last, composition. Aside from the difficulty Rachmaninoff had composing in exile, which has been well documented, I believe the Third Symphony and the Fourth Piano Concerto, both “problem” pieces, stand in similar relation to the Symphonic Dances and the Paganini Rhapsody , respectively: Just as the Fourth Concerto shows Rachmaninoff working out the difficulties of adapting to a familiar genre the leaner-textured and more harmonically bold style of his later solo piano works, so does the Third Symphony; and, in each case, the work that follows demonstrates his masterly solution to the problem. In other words, while the Third Symphony is a not-quite-comfortable juxtaposition of past and present in Rachmaninoff’s musical language, the Symphonic Dances expresses the complete assurance of his new style or manner, much in the same way an émigré writer’s second novel in his new country would exhibit greater security in its use of the new language.


Over the years I’ve found the recordings of the Third by the Philadelphia Orchestra, for which the symphony was written, generally satisfying: the composer’s own, supple 1939 version, and those by Eugene Ormandy, first a taut version on a mono LP and then a somewhat more luxuriant one in stereo. (The Dutoit recording for Decca is more problematic; see my review in Fanfare 35:1.) This new version by Gianandrea Noseda, however, demands consideration. For starters, the BBC Philharmonic sounds terrific; the strings are rich and full, as they must be in this work, and the many wind solos are superb. The statement of the first movement’s second theme near the end, by flute and clarinet two octaves apart, is meltingly beautiful. The ensemble in the tricky scherzo section of the second movement is dead-on. This may well be Britain’s finest orchestra these days.


Then there’s the contribution of Noseda himself. He’s a veteran Rachmaninoff conductor by now, having recorded all three symphonies and all three operas for Chandos; of the major works, only the Symphonic Dances and the choral-orchestral music remain. Fanfare’s critics have had mixed reactions to his previous Rachmaninoff recordings, but I find this one a real winner: Like the composer’s own version, tempos are flexible but never arbitrary, instead seeming to react to the music’s ebb and flow; climaxes are dynamic (and with Chandos’s sound, they can pack a wallop) but never exaggerated. Noseda takes the first-movement exposition repeat, now standard practice, but something neither Rachmaninoff (on 78s) nor Ormandy did.


The symphony, sensibly placed last on the disc, is complemented by two early works. The Caprice bohémien is a sonic showpiece, again with particularly beautiful wind solos. Noseda handles the gradual but relentless increase in speed in the latter portion nicely, making for a big finish. Prince Rostislav , from Rachmaninoff’s incredibly fruitful year of 1891—he was 18 years old!—is long on atmosphere if short on memorable thematic material; it owes a debt to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko.


This is a first-rate recording. If, like me, you could use a well-wrought Rachmaninoff Third with the exposition repeat and in excellent modern sound, you need look no further.


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan


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There was once a trend among critics to downplay Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 3 likely stemming from mixed reviews at the work's premiere but beginning in the late 1970s the symphony has been re-evaluated several times and is today often recognized as an assured and thoroughly exciting Russian orchestral work, with appealing themes and a structure every bit as strong as the popular Symphonic Dances. In fact the dance rhythms of the Symphony's energetic finale are much akin to those in the Symphonic Dances as is the colorful orchestration. The work was written for Rachmaninov's favorite orchestra, the Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski.

The album contains two other rarely heard works. The symphonic poem Prince Rostislav wherein the youthful composer shows the influence of his composition teacher Rimsky-Korsakov and, as with Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular works, is graced with eloquent, folk-like melody. Despite these appealing elements, the piece is overshadowed by Rachmaninov's later masterpieces. An even more rarely heard work is the Capriccio bohémien, which is luminously orchestrated and inspired by similar musical moments within the composer's opera Aleko.

Gianandrea Noseda continues this Chandos Rachmaninov series with excellent, well-recorded performances by the BBC Philharmonic who seem to be enjoying themselves within this passionate, fiery, luxurious music.

- Greg La Traille, ArkivMusic.com

In his final year as BBC Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena completes a highly-acclaimed Ginastera series with this third volume. Like in his previous series ‘La Musica de Espana,’ Mena brings the composer’s creative genius to a more deserved fame, showcasing here three works that belonged to three different periods of his compositional life. While the Concierto Argentino is the most significant score of his early years, drawing directly on Argentinian folk music and full of youthful exuberance, the Variaciones Concertantes (more a concerto for orchestra than a set of variations) assumes a more personal and abstract form in accordance with the development of his harmonic ideas in the later stage of his life. The rhythmic energy and magic scoring of the ‘neo-expressionist’ piano concerto (as Ginastera defined the third phase of his life) is faithfully expressed by the highly technical and virtuosic playing of Xiayin Wang, widely praised for her recent solo recording of piano works by Enrique Granados.

This is the second recording from the BBC Philharmonic under its brilliant new Principal Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda. The disc features some of Respighi's most popular music, the glittering ballet 'La Boutique fantasque', alongside the rare and intriguing 'Prelude and fugue in D major' and 'La pentola magica'. Recorded in: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester 2, 5 & 6 October 2002 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Mike George Sound Engineer(s) Stephen Rinker Denise Else (Assistant)

As a pianist, Dohnányi was legendary. As a composer, however, he was for many years dismissed as little more than a musical adjunct of Brahms. Certainly his music is more conservative than that of his contemporaries, but it is hard to see how anyone could fail to be engaged by its humour and passion. Wtih music this rich in detail you need a top-flight orchestra to bring out all the nuances and subtlety in the orchestration. Matthias Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic have already proved themselves worthy Dohnányi advocates. The irrepressible Howard Shelley is the pianist in the virtuosic piano concerto. Clifford Lantaff is the BBC Philharmonic's own renowned harpist and the young James Ehnes, who performed with such élan on Chandos' recent Hummel disc, is the soloist in the violin concerto.