This re-release of Herbert Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi and A Kent Yeoman’s Wooing Song forms part of the new Hickox Legacy series commemorating the life and career of that great conductor. Mestro Richard Hickox’s lifelong commitment to British music in general is well-known, as is his work with the challenging, intricate music of Howells. This disc displays extremes of Howells’ emotional language - from the intense and powerful Hymnus to the sprightly and rather flirtatious Wooing Song – communicated masterfully by Hickox and his associates.

Chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2013, Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo has a special affinity with the music of his compatriot Sibelius which this recording admirably demonstrates. Sibelius’ ever-popular ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ is coupled here with ‘Spring Song’, and the lesser-known Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’. Sibelius composed the ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ (also called the Four Legends, or Four Legends from the Kalevala), Op. 22, in the 1890s. Originally conceived as a mythological opera, Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat), the suite is based on the character Lemminkäinen from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. Sibelius’ music for ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ was originally composed as incidental music for a play (by Hjalmar Procopé), in 1906. First performed in the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki in November of that year, conducted by the composer. The following year, Sibelius extracted four of the eight movements to form the more widely known orchestral suite we hear in this recording.

REVIEWS:

The BBC Symphony's chief conductor brings deep insights to bear here. It is thrilling to hear the rarity Spring Song played with full acknowledgement that this is rather more than a seasonal ditty. We once again come close to the heart of Sibelius in an unlikely place.

– Gramophone

The Lemminkäinen Suite has tended to be viewed as an important staging post on Sibelius’s path to the symphony. What Sakari Oramo shows is that it’s a marvellous achievement in its own right, and as such not quite like anything else. Superbly recorded, this is a Lemminkäinen Suite to treasure.

– BBC Music Magazine

This recording of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski form part of the Polish Music series on Chandos, and is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. These performers have impressed in their Lutoslawski survey, which is part of the same series; in a review of volume 1, Gramophone described them as a veritable ‘dream team’.

Symphony No. 2 by Szymanowski is a work of great power and ingenuity, with many passionate and varied contrasts in its use of solo instruments. Composed in 1909 – 10, it is widely considered the greatest orchestral work of the composer’s early period, not to mention one of the most important Polish symphonic compositions to date. Szymanowski himself thought very highly of it, and in August 1911 wrote in a letter to his fellow Polish composer Zdzis?aw Jachimecki: ‘How happy I am that this Symphony impressed you as I had wanted. I will frankly admit that I feel somewhat proud about its value. In some miraculous way I have managed during my work on it to resist all those garish phantoms which seduce “young and inexperienced” artists and to produce pure and uncompromising beauty in the way I personally understand it.’

The internationally acclaimed pianist Louis Lortie joins the orchestra and conductor in Symphony No. 4 of 1932, which the composer subtitled ‘Symphonie concertante’ in recognition of the near-soloistic role played by the pianist. Whereas Szymanowski’s early and middle works clearly reflect Wagner, Strauss, and Scriabin, this work is strongly influenced by Prokofiev, particularly in the finale, an agitated and daring movement reminiscent of the Russian composer’s Piano Concerto No. 3, composed about a decade earlier.

Written in 1904 – 05 in a style recalling Wagner and Strauss, the Concert Overture is characterised by enormous expressiveness and gusto in the way it handles the expanding themes. Szymanowski inscribed the original score with part of the poem Wite? W?ast by his friend Tadeusz Mici?ski: ‘I will not play you sad songs, O Shades! but will give you a triumph proud and fierce…’. This vivid imagery is perfectly in keeping with the music’s exuberant and vivacious character.

- Chandos

Essentially, in the incredible ease and naturalness of his pianism, in the unassuming simplicity and absorption of the man, Backhaus was much the same artist and personality then. And he was far from unknown. Even before he won the Rubinstein Prize in 1905, Backhaus was internationally celebrated as a prodigious virtuoso. Backhaus never failed to win a succès d'estime among professional musicians. They always knew his qualities, always marveled at his instrumental perfection, his titanic mastery that scorned every complexity, his unsurpassed freedom and endurance. There was never a time when Backhaus could not toss off any or all of the Chopin études or the Brahms-Paganini variations with an imperturbable calm, an implacable security that left one open-mouthed. Not everyone, for only the pianists really knew what was happening before their eyes and ears, knew how to measure such achievement. There they all sat, in breathless astonishment and envy and despair. Backhaus was a shy, unaffected, recessive personality whose sensational capacities were so unsensationally projected that lay audiences remained totally unconscious of his fabulous accomplishments. (Gerhard Melchert)

The precursor to this album made a Critic’s Choice of the Year in Gramophone (2013). The program presented includes works by Benjamin Britten, William Mathias, Arnold Cooke, and Gerald Finzi. Michael Collins brilliantly walks the line between being a soloist and conductor, as he serves as both in this recording. The accompanying ensemble here is the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

‘Why has this intense, brilliantly orchestrated, claustrophobically gripping masterpiece been so neglected since its 1977 premiere?’ asked Richard Morrison in The Times of the concert performance in the Barbican that preceded this recording.

Miss Julie is Alwyn’s last large-scale work, written in 1973-76. Alwyn set his own libretto, based on Strindberg’s 1888 play of the same title. The naturalistic drama and lifelike characters of that play appealed to Alwyn from an early age – in fact, he previously attempted to compose an opera on Miss Julie in the 1950s. That attempt failed because of differences with his then-librettist, Christopher Hassall. Alwyn believed that in opera, the action should be self-explanatory, arias should serve a dramatic purpose (as opposed to sheer vocal display), characters should sing to each other and not to the audience, ensembles should be minimized and the text should be set to vocal lines that reflect natural speech patterns. These views were distilled over his extensive career as a film composer, which taught him that music could do more than establish characterization, suggest mood, and heighten atmosphere: in some cases it could also communicate the unspoken thoughts of an onscreen character even when these were at odds with what he or she was presenting visually.

Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra support an outstanding cast featuring Anna Patalong in the title role in this acclaimed revival of Alwyn’s neglected masterpiece.

REVIEW:

Alwyn’s orchestral writing is always characterful, his vocal lines are unfailingly singable. Though his richly coloured writing reveals a whole range of 20th-century influences – Strauss, Janácek, and Ravel especially – it’s the world of Puccini that’s most strongly evoked at the work’s dramatic flashpoints. Anna Patalong as Julie nailed her character’s dangerously unhinged brittleness from the start. Benedict Nelson as Jean, the valet with whom she is so desperate to run away, sings the role with tremendous verve.

– The Guardian (UK)

I'd quite forgotten what a marvellous performance this is—even though, when it comes to Bartok's speech-derived vocal inflexions, native Hungarians have the edge (and in that respect, Ferencsik's 1956 team is probably the best). Still, the crux of the drama, its emotional thrust and potent symbolic allusions, all are unequivocally realized by Siegmund Nimsgern, Tatiana Troyanos and Pierre Boulez. Troyanos's Judith has more credibility than most. For example, that wonderful passage 3'21'' into the ''First Door'', when Bluebeard asks Judith why she must open all the doors, and she responds with a confession of love—is seethingly intense, although the frenzied string writing that tails her candid ''because I love you'' rather loses focus in all the steam. Yet Boulez captures to perfection the ambiguous nature of Bartok's heated response, whether Judith really is in love—or just plain curious. Again, at the ''Third Door'' (''Now behold my spacious kingdom''), the impact is colossal, even though digital technology would have stretched the dynamic curve even further. Judith's triumphant, heroically sustained C sounds more genuinely wonder-struck than any other on record, while Boulez's pacing is ideally judged—in fact, throughout this memorable performance, he balances the constituent parts of Bartok's rich tonal palette with a meticulous ear, patiently scaling the score's many texturally complex climaxes. Nimsgern is a tortured, yet commanding Bluebeard, vocally excellent and interpretatively compelling, although the recording does sometimes lend his voice an untypically cavernous quality.

As to CD competition, I would single out the Bluebeards of Sawallisch, Dorati and Kertesz as the best alternative interpretations; and yet if pressured into choosing, I would probably opt for this latest reissue—not only because it seems to me the best sung, but also on account of Boulez's dramatic, psychological and musical perceptiveness. It is one of his finest recordings and if he ever decides to re-record it (say, as part of his current Bartok series for DG), then this Sony production will certainly prove a very hard act to follow. The actual recording is hugely accommodating within the sonic limitations of the period (there are occasional traces of over-modulation), and the CD comes complete with texts and translations. Very strongly recommended.

-- The Gramophone

Also available from Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra on Chandos: Walton: Symphony 1, Violin Concerto / Little and Walton: Symphony No 2, Cello Concerto / Watkins

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.

– Gramophone

The ever-more comprehensive Sony Classical Masters series is pleased to announce ten new releases. Ranging from symphony cycles to solo piano music, these budget-priced box sets celebrate some of the leading musicians of recent times. Pierre Boulez transformed the musical tastes of a generation with his groundbreaking, lucid interpretations of early 20th-century repertoire. Gramophone wrote that his death in 2016 marked “the end of a whole way of perceiving music”. This collection of three CDs brings together the key early ballet scores of Stravinsky with a number of other works by the Russian composer, all recorded with ensembles with whom Boulez maintained a close relationship. With the New York Philharmonic are recordings of the Firebird and the Pulcinella suite, Petrushka, the tone poem Chant du rossignol and the Symphonies of Wind Instruments. His famed Rite of Spring, recorded with the Cleveland Orchestra, is “meticulously contemplated” (BBC Music Magazine), and Gramophone described his Firebird suite with the BBC Symphony Orchestra as a “clear, sharp-edged” recording. True to surprising form, Boulez recorded not the commonly heard Firebird suites from 1919 or 1945, but Stravinsky’s original version of 1910.

The celebrated violinist Francesca Dego is joined by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and her regular collaborator Dalia Stasevska for this recording of the violin concertos by Brahms and Busoni.

A cornerstone of the repertoire, Brahms’s Concerto dates from 1878, a year after the Second Symphony, and was composed for (and dedicated to) the virtuoso Joseph Joachim. The Concerto takes the standard three-movement form, and as in Beethoven’s Concerto (considered by many as Brahms’s inspiration for the work) the first movement is significant in its length and its complexity.

Busoni’s Violin Concerto in its turn is inspired by both Brahms and Beethoven, and like both previous works it is in the key of D major. Premièred in Berlin in 1897 by the Dutch violinist Henri Petri, the Concerto is dazzlingly virtuosic. Francesca Dego writes: ‘To be able to record Brahms’s Violin Concerto is a dream and a milestone for every violinist and I feel that with “my” Brahms I do not want to compete with the many gorgeous versions out there but instead to declare my own love and history with my favorite violin concerto. Busoni’s Concerto, however, is a rarely performed work, brought to the studio only a handful of times. It represents a different kind of responsibility, one that pushed me to want to rediscover every detail of this music as if it had never been played before.’

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a translation by Edward Fitzgerald of a selection of poems which were originally written in Persian and are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. There are about a thousand poems in the complete volume. British composer Granville Bantock composed this choral setting of the works. Part 1 premiered in 1906, Part 2 in 1907, Part 3 in 1909, and the complete works were performed in 1910 at Queen’s Hall. This four disc set is the only complete recording ever made of the work, and is made up of original BBC Broadcasts from 1968 and 1979.

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REVIEWS:

Those who want to hear Omar Khayyam in all its glorious monumentality will need to buy the Lyrita set. it’s one of the monuments in British music that needs to be heard.

– The Guardian

Del Mar’s soloists sing with urgency and passion. A hugely enterprising addition to Lyrita’s ever-growing catalogue.

– Gramophone

This lively 1979 revival of the complete work is well coupled with other less rare Bantock, especially Fifine at the Fair. Del Mar, an eminent Strauss scholar, has a sure feel for the orchestral writing of this era, well paced and translucent rather than weighty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Making his debut on Chandos, Sakari Oramo, who with the BBC Symphony Orchestra this year has championed new and rarely performed works, presents in surround sound the extravagant musical world of Florent Schmitt. The recording follows two exceptional Barbican performances with the same forces, a ‘sensuous and exotic’ Antoine et Cleopatre, according to the Financial Times (2016), and the first performance for nearly a dozen years of Symphony No. 2 (2017). The Second Symphony, the last major work by Schmitt, has nothing valedictory about it: as lavish and rhythmically sophisticated as his earlier music, emphatically bounding in fast passages and supple in slow, it also encompasses all the different musical expressions and styles that he had used over almost eight decades of composing. On the other hand, it is far from being an ‘old man’s piece.’ ‘It is really exuberant- very, very inventive, and incredibly busy for everyone,’ as Sakari Oramo explained in a BBC Radio 3 interview. The symphony is paired with the two orchestral suites from Antoine et Cleopatre, music written for Shakespeare’s play, premiered in 1920 at the Paris Opera, and very rarely recorded since then.

Bridge has the admirable philosophy of concentrating on a few composers in which the label believes, and then issuing a series of discs that begin to give us listeners a sense of the scope of their work. It’s an invaluable service, which one could only wish were more widely imitated. Not only does the label support such obvious masters as Carter and Crumb, but the Dane Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is an instance of its taking a chance on a younger composer just hitting his prime. The works on this program come from three different points in the composer’s career. The Piano Sonata No. 2 is the earliest (1982); De Profundis dates from 1990; and the two orchestral works are the most recent, with Concerto in Pieces composed in 1994–95 (and one of Ruders’s biggest “hits”), and Fairytale in 1999.

The sonata is a brilliant work in four movements, lasting 25 minutes. It comes from the period when Ruders had just found his voice, which combined the astringent spikiness of modernist gesture with a more cyclic flow and a “pitch-centricity” suggestive of minimalism. Like his compatriot Per Nørgaard, Ruders found ways to spin out his music so that it seemed to be constantly regenerating itself (though the models he chose to follow had more to do with change-ringing than Nørgaard’s “infinity series”). As a result, the music moves from a dark, more dissonant and taut world towards ever-greater radiance. If I think of a point of comparison, it might be the Copland Piano Variations, though far more expansive in its scale. The pianist, in a live performance from the Aldeburgh festival, is none other than Thomas Adès, the great young hope of English music, who plays this very difficult music with bravura. One hears a tiny bit of strain in the rendition, especially in the climax of the first movement, but overall I find myself even more open to Adès’s own compositions on the basis of his obviously overwhelming musicianship. This recording is a rare instance of that wonderful thing, when one major artist takes the time and effort to devote himself to the work of another.

De Profundis is scored for two pianos and percussion. It’s conceit is simple: a slow and inevitable rise from low to high in every manner—from bass to treble register, from spare to prolix texture, from slow to fast tempo, from dark to blinding color. Ruders handles the task with a great sense of dramatic pacing. Of course, the progression sounds similar to what I described above in the sonata, but here it is far more continuous in its transformations (though from a different Scandinavian country, Ruders seems to have learned a lot from Sibelius).

The two orchestral works are colorful and occasional. Fairytale was commissioned by the Nordic youth orchestra that performs it here (stunningly). It is non-stop, ostinato-driven, breathless. The Concerto in Pieces was commissioned as a double tribute, to both the tercentennial of Purcell’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the Britten Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra. The idea was to create a modern analogue to the Britten, and as such, it had to be an incredibly intimidating commission, perhaps even more so for a foreigner. But Ruders seems to have relished the challenge. The work exudes a sense of athletic exuberance, a delight in discovering new ways to tweak its source (a different Purcell piece than Britten’s choice, by the way), and a constant pleasure in sonic and structural invention. While all the orchestral sections get a full workout, the music makes its point more from distinctive color-combinations than exposure of separate choirs. Tuba, muted trumpet, harp, and saxophone get extended solos in different variations. And one hears a very strong Sibelian reference in the horns in the final variation.

In the end, this is an extremely successful release, and one can’t help but be impressed with Ruders’s mastery of whatever medium he puts his mind to. Having said that, I must close with one reservation. The recent works, despite their confidence and technical bravura, somehow feel a little hollow in comparison to the composer’s earlier pieces. To take one example, his orchestral piece from 1982, Manhattan Abstraction, is absolutely thrilling and overwhelming in its energy, but there’s also something profound there, a linkage between the sonically brilliant surface and a rigorously logical architecture. Of course, these newer orchestral pieces are lighter by virtue of their commissioning circumstances, so I don’t want to rush to a judgement based solely on them. I was sensing this same unease in my review of the previous release in this series (Fanfare 26:6). Indeed, it may be that Ruders’s imagination has moved more into the world of music drama and these instrumental works are partaking thereof, relinquishing that more Germanic devotion to the transcendentally abstract. I said in that earlier review I probably needed to hear the recording of his opera The Handmaid’s Tale, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t. This review makes it particularly obvious I have to do so.

But this more general critique doesn’t take away from the worth of this release, which is recommended, nor from my admiration and encouragement to Bridge to stay their course and their continued advocacy of composers in whose mastery they trust.

Robert Carl, FANFARE

This is Garry Walker's third CD for Toccata Classics after two well-received releases of Havergal Brian works with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. On this recording he explores Matthew Taylor's Viola Concerto, a work that "reinforced his status among the most significant living composers for string quartets" (International Record Review).

The relationship between Hans Werner Henze and Oliver Knussen was one of great mutual respect. The German composer admired the British conductor and composer for electrifying performances of Henze's own and other composers' works. Knussen was an untiring and enthusiastic champion of his friend Henze's music. The recordings collected here display Knussen's deep understanding of Henze's music. Knussen conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in sensitive and meticulous performances of compositions ranging from the composer's middle period to his last completed work. Los Caprichos transforms the bitterness and sarcasm in Francisco Goya's famous series of etchings into a tender and melancholy "Fantasia per orchestra" that makes only sparing use of contemporary stylistic devices. The large orchestral work Heliogabalus Imperator - a programmatic depiction of the life and death of the notorious Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - also provides evidence of Henze's self-assured and idiosyncratic interpretation of modern music idioms. The Englische Liebeslieder for solo violoncello and orchestra express a wide range of emotional states, which are brought to life by cellist Anssi Karttunen.

The great French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) was naturally considered a specialist of his native country’s music, though he would never allow this to restrict him. This new set of previously unpublished recordings seeks to set the record straight, with a strong representation of German repertoire, notably Brahms’ Symphony No.3 with the Boston Symphony, which he never recorded commercially, in a rare ‘live’ performance from the 1956 Edinburgh Festival. More Brahms featuring two celebrated virtuosos –the Violin Concerto with the French violinist Zino Francescatti, and the Double Concerto where he is joined by his compatriot Pierre Fournier, both ‘live’ recordings from the Royal Festival Hall in 1955. Both selections featured here are previously unpublished.

This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive of 'live' recordings. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market. Following the archive's launch in October 2017 with releases featuring Beecham, Bohm, Cantelli, Karajan, du Pre, Klemperer and Rostropovich, it has received universal praise from both the classical media and record collectors for the excellent sound and performances. Robert Casadesus was a renowned 20th century French pianist and composer who knew and worked with Ravel. He was especially known for his celebrated performances of the Mozart Concertos accompanied on record by George Szell- the Gramophone called it 'exquisite Mozart playing,' as well as his recordings of Ravel, Faure and Debussy. He recorded Beethoven's First, Fourth, and Fifth Concertos, the latter two multiple times, though these were all made in the studio. He also extensively recorded the Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Zino Francescatti, who also appears in ICA Classics' Pierre Monteaux set.

This previously unreleased live recording of Jacqueline du Pré playing the Schumann Cello Concerto is her first public performance of the work, given in the Royal Festival Hall on 12 December 1962 with Jean Martinon conducting the BBCSO. She had worked intensively on the concerto with Paul Tortelier in Paris prior to this concert. When Du Pré studied the Schumann with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1966, he exclaimed, ‘This is the most perfect Schumann I have ever heard’. The 1962 live performance of the Dvorák Cello Concerto by Rostropovich has also never before been released. He is partnered by Carlo Maria Giulini, who went on to to make a studio recording of the same concerto with him in 1977. The Times critic described this Edinburgh Festival performance as an ‘exciting’ and ‘emotionally supercharged interpretation’ with Giulini’s reading ‘full of finely wrought points of detail’. The attractive bonus features Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya in the Ária from Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras.

Who is Nikolai Korndorf? Have no fear, if the name is unfamiliar to you at present the ensuing popularity (which I’m sure this disc will attract) will have it tripping off the tongue as readily as Gorecki, Part, Schnittke or Tavener. For the uninitiated (and that included myself prior to hearing this release) Korndorf was born in Moscow in 1947 and started out as an 'avant-garde' composer, but (and here’s where he shares similarities with the names listed above) he suddenly changed to a more tonal, simple and above all spiritual style in the early 1980s. In 1991 he moved to Vancouver, Canada, and since then his music has been steadily gaining admirers and exponents in the West.

Sharing the same title, and possibly general sentiments, Korndorf’s three orchestral Hymns would appear to constitute a cycle but, as Korndorf himself has said, he prefers that they should not be performed or considered as such. However, this debut disc offers us Hymns II and III, though I would strongly echo the composer’s wishes and urge listeners to program a suitable break before moving from Hymn II to III. In terms of musical style the works presented on this disc share much in common with Gorecki’s Third Symphony – slow moving, seamless textures, minimal material, peaking climaxes and, in Hymn III, an ethereal, wordless soprano part. If anything Korndorf’s music is even more static than either Gorecki or Part, and generally the impression is of vertical rather than linear movement – walls of ‘bell-like’ pulsating chords dominate and seem to suggest a kind of ‘summoning prelude’ to a great event – Korndorf himself would suggest perhaps the dawning of a new spiritual age.

Hymn III was composed in response to a commission by the Kohler-Osbahr Foundation for a piece in honour of Gustav Mahler, and there are certainly Mahlerian echoes to be found here – not least the off-stage trumpets heard at the beginning and the high sustained string texture which recall the First Symphony. Generally speaking, if you have enjoyed the sound world of Gorecki and Part then you will probably enjoy discovering Korndorf too. As for the performances, the BBC Symphony Orchestra play this music with great conviction and the soprano solo in Hymn III is beautifully delivered by Catherine Bott.

-- Michael Stewart, Gramophone

The recording of Eliott Carter's "Boston Concerto" on this album was nominated for the 2007 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition."

This set of ‘live’ authorized recordings featuring the highly distinguished conductor Bruno Walter with the BBC Symphony Orchestra comes from the BBC’s annual May Festival, held in London in 1955. None of these recordings has been published before, and in the case of Wagner’s Faust Overture, this is Walter’s only post-war account. The mid-1950s saw Walter at the height of his powers, and the ‘live’ recordings here are very focused, having a great sense of forward movement and excitement – most notably in Haydn’s Symphony No.96 and Mahler’s Symphony No.1 – compared to some of the studio accounts in the early 1960s when Walter was well into his 80s. The set also contains Walter with the great German soprano Irmgard Seefried in ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which illustrates both her superb artistry and his genius as a Mahler conductor. Brahms’s Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied), a Walter favorite, completes the set. All recordings have been sourced from the Richard Itter archive, as Beecham caught ‘live’ often showed the mercurial side of his character, and no performance was the same either in the studio or in the concert hall. All the performances included here from the Edinburgh Festival, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and the BBC Studios are from Beecham’s final years, from 1954 when he had fully established the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and himself as central figures in England’s musical life, to 1959 when he conducted an extraordinarily memorable account of Brahms’s Symphony No.2. Every broadcast is captured here in exemplary sound for the time.

This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive of 'live' recordings. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market. Following the archive's launch in October 2017 with releases featuring Beecham, Bohm, Cantelli, Karajan, du Pre, Klemperer and Rostropovich, it has received universal praise from both the classical media and record collectors for the excellent sound and performances. Celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin was very familiar with the Mozart Concertos, and played all seven including the spurious No. 6. These 'live' performances reflect Menuhin's Mozart playing during a single month in 1956 where he performed all the composer's major works with orchestra. Menuhin brings great insight and experience to every concerto and his intonation which became a concern in later life is spot on with these performances.

Boult was very closely associated with Elgar's music throughout his career and recorded the Second Symphony five times. This live Proms performance recorded in stereo from 1977 'shows Boult in his late 80s working with the passion and energy of a much younger man' (Martin Cotton). His relatively fast tempi are closer to his first recording made in 1944 with the BBCSO. The Overture and Venusberg music from Wagner's Tannhauser are a new addition to the Boult discography and come from a live studio performance in stereo from the Maida Vale Studios in 1968. These are world premier recordings.

This is the second volume of Otto Klemperer’s ‘live’ authorized broadcasts from 1955 and 1958. None has ever been published before. When comparing the conductor’s studio accounts, Rob Cowan in Gramophone magazine said of the first set: ‘Viewed overall, what we have here is the Klemperer we already know and love, but granted wings and, trust me, you can tell the difference almost straight away’. Klemperer had a great affection for Mozart’s Symphony No.25, here almost a minute faster than his 1956 account. In his booklet note, Richard Osborne describes the performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 from the 1958 Edinburgh Festival as “a performance that genuinely gathers itself to greatness.” Klemperer’s performances of the Brahms Requiem were justly famous, and this 1955 ‘live’ account precedes his acclaimed 1961 studio recording and is almost five minutes faster. Gramophone described the latter as follows: “Klemperer’s reading of this mighty work has long been famous: rugged, at times surprisingly fleet with a juggernaut power.” In this ‘live’ performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Klemperer is joined by the baritone Hans Wilbrink from the Munich State Opera and the German lyric soprano Elfride Trötschel, a protégée of Karl Böhm. The Mozart and Brahms recordings have been sourced from the Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust, while the authorised BBC broadcast of Beethoven Symphony No.5 is from another collection.

Classical Music

Sir Andrew Davis continues to champion the lesser-known works of Sir Arthur Bliss with this coupling of The Enchantress, Mary of Magdala and Meditations on a theme by John Blow. Dame Sarah Connolly and James Platt are the soloists, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The three distinctive works by Sir Arthur Bliss (1891 – 1975) on this recording span his sixties and early seventies, from 1951 onwards, the year of his sixtieth birthday, during which he composed The Enchantress for Kathleen Ferrier.

The BBC Symphony Chorus was founded in 1928 and its early appearances included the UK premieres of Bartók’s Cantata profana, Stravinsky’s Perséphone, and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Each year it appears regularly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre, as well as performing at the BBC Proms, frequently at the iconic First and Last Nights. It maintains an undiminished commitment to new music, performing a wide range of challenging repertoire, often with the BBC SO, most of which is broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

REVIEW:

Here are three contrasting works of Bliss’ later years. The two vocal pieces set Greek pastoral poetry and words from St John’s Gospel. The theme in question is Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd. The programming of these three pieces makes for a satisfying experience, highlighting the inventiveness and flexibility of Bliss, still an underappreciated composer.

-- Lark Reviews

Classical Music

A broad and meticulous selection of orchestral works and concertos by Gerald Finzi is here matched by a first-class cast of soloists, supported by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Andrew Davis, expert in British repertoire and conducting this year’s Last Night of the Proms. Paul Watkins displays exhilarating virtuosity in the Cello Concerto, a central work on this album, composed in the wake of the devastating news that Finzi was terminally ill, but yet filled with ‘vigorous, almost turbulent thematic material’, as he wrote in the programme note for the work’s premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1955. Louis Lortie, for his part, tackles the high-spirited and majestic Grand Fantasia and Toccata, the Fantasia originally conceived as part of a concerto for piano and strings and first performed on two pianos. This contrasts with the more restrained Eclogue for Piano and Strings, timeless, and blessed with a mood of benediction. This album also features the orchestral Nocturne (subtitled ‘New Year Music’), dark, misty, and at times ironic.

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REVIEW:

Sir Andrew Davis’s feeling for the composer’s sensitive, harmonically conservative language is abundantly clear in these vivid readings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Soloists too are well chosen. Cellist Paul Watkins proves a master of expressing powerful feelings through the prism of British reserve. Admirers of Finzi’s music can buy without hesitation.

– BBC Music Magazine

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.

Distinguished British music interpreter Sir Andrew Davis joins forces with the BBCSO once again, this time with acclaimed soloists Dame Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples, in this thoughtful presentation of the last two substantial choral works of Sir Edward Elgar. The matury of Elgar as an orchestrator is obvious in both works on this album, notably, in ‘The Music Makers’ (1912), during passages in which he quotes from ‘Sea Pictures’ and the Violin Concerto, and in representing the sound of aircraft in ‘The Spirit of England’ (1917). Elgar uses self-quotation to reflect: ‘The Music Makers’ is a canvas of self-reflection, written quickly following a period of illness. The orchestral introduction is introspective, melancholic, and noble, before the words of Arthur O’Shaughanessy’s poem and much self-quotation within the music offer an insight into the sense of nostalgia and awareness of the loneliness of the creative artist felt by the composer. ‘The Spirit of England’ reflects on the sadness and desolation of war felt by a nation, with the inclusion of quotations from ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ in some of the more negative stanzas that Elgar found harder to set. Specified in the score for tenor or soprano, all three movements are sung here by a tenor in a recording first.