Premièred in January 1945, Sergei Prokofiev’s optimistic and heroic Fifth Symphony had seemed to herald the victorious end of World War Two. In stark contrast to this, his Symphony No.6, which received its first performance in 1947, is one of his deepest and most personal works. Although it was greeted with enthusiasm by the audience, the Soviet authorities were critical of the work and in 1948 a Party resolution singled it out as ‘abnormal’ and ‘repellent’. In fact, the first ideas for the symphony preceded those for the Fifth, and date from a period when the issue of the war was still uncertain. Early in 1945 the composer had suffered a collapse, from which he never completely recovered and which forced him to live the life of an invalid with almost constant headaches. In regard to the work, Prokofiev himself stated: ‘Now we are rejoicing in our great victory, but each of us has wounds that cannot be healed.’ This haunted symphony is here coupled with two works which illustrate a very different side of the composer, his gift for creating vivid musical images that can sum up a scene in a few bold strokes. These are the ever-popular suites from The Love for Three Oranges, the tragic-comical opera from 1921, and from the film score to Lieutenant Kijé, a light-hearted satire from 1934. The original film score included two songs, which form the second and fourth movements of the concert suite. Often performed in a version for solo saxophone and orchestra, these are heard in this recording in their original vocal form, performed by the Ukranian baritone Andrei Bondarenko. With acclaimed previous recordings of music by Prokofiev, as well as by Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, Andrew Litton and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra are a tried-and-tested team in this repertoire, and once again make the most of the enormous palette of colours and moods provided by these three scores.

Chamber orchestra Schubert, but with plenty of bite.

Having greatly enjoyed Thomas Dausgaard’s Schumann symphonic recordings, I was more than delighted to find this Schubert disc amongst my allocation. This is still part of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s ‘Opening Doors’ collection, though the logo isn’t being paraded with quite as high a profile as previously and my copy had no extra cardboard slip for the standard jewel case. Schubert’s 8th and 9th Symphonies are already available in this series on BIS-1656. BIS already released some Schubert Symphonies with Neeme Järvi in the 1980s with nice performances from the Stockholm Sinfonietta, but Dausgaard’s recordings, while drier in acoustic, are more distinctive in terms of style.

My last encounter with Schubert’s symphonies via these pages was with Herbert Blomstedt’s fine Berlin Classics set with the Staatskapelle Dresden. The orchestral sound is inevitably grander than with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, but timings with each movement are not so very different, and I still like Blomstedt’s lightness of touch with these works, even if the wobbly vibrato to the flute sound is bothersome. There are no such quibbles with the orchestral sections with this BIS recording. The music is played expressively but without any kind of over-emphasis, the actual recording not terribly spectacular but nicely detailed and realistic.

Performing Schubert symphonies with a chamber orchestra should hold few if any real surprises, unless you are only used to the likes of Herbert von Karajan, whose Berlin Philharmonic recordings on EMI Gemini are a rich and refined sonic feast but of a distinctively mid to late Beethovenian flavour. Schubert’s symphonies were never performed publicly in his lifetime, and the Symphony No. 6 was the only one he heard played in rehearsal with an amateur orchestra. This is a youthful work which makes tribute to the likes of Rossini, and the orchestra of the time would have been more comparable with those used by Mozart and Haydn than anything particularly Romantic. Chamber orchestra forces do not however result in Schubert-lite, and you only have to listen to the tremendous accents of the Scherzo to be made aware of the hard-hitting possibilities of such an ensemble. Fewer strings make for a more equal partnership between these and the wind sections, and the sense of inner dialogue is a strong aspect in this recording. As far as I am concerned there is nothing anaemic about this performance, and it ticks all the boxes for radiant joy and underlying drama.

Six years on from the Symphony No. 6 saw Schubert involved in Rosamunde, a play which promised much but ended in humiliating public failure, Schubert’s excellent incidental music unable to lift the audience’s indifference to the theatre experience, but strong enough to become popular in its own right. The sections presented here are Entr’actes 1, 3, and 2, and the Ballet Music No. 2 and No. 1 in that order. This is a more complete set than most ‘filler’ movements added to orchestral recordings, and with the famous tune of Entr’acte No. 3 played with warmth and affection, the two ballets given perfect energy and tempi and plenty of atmospheric dramas elsewhere I can find nothing to complain about. You won’t find the orchestral opulence of recordings such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado on Deutsche Grammophon, and this is still one of your best bets if looking for the complete Rosamunde, choir and all. Listening to this BIS recording does however make one realise how idealised such performances can become, and it is Thomas Dausgaard who brings us closer to the earthy reality of an orchestra in something approaching a theatre setting.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Includes cantata(s) by Johann Sebastian Bach. Ensemble: Bach Collegium Japan. Conductor: Masaaki Suzuki. Soloists: Peter Kooij, Robin Blaze, Yukari Nonoshita, Andreas Weller.

Includes song(s) without words by Felix Mendelssohn. Soloists: Leo Eide, Håkan Sund.

The arresting clarinet glissando at the start of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is probably the most famous opening in American music. It also serves as a symbol for an important current in 20th century music - that of merging popular genres and art music into something wholly new - and as such becomes even more significant through the fact that it wasn't even in the score when the composer first started rehearsals with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, before the première in 1924: this particular feature, oozing of smoky jazz clubs, was arrived at in collaboration with the clarinettist of the orchestra. At the time, Gershwin was was a mere 25 years old, but already a celebrated jazz pianist and songsmith, with a string of hits to his name. Due to a lack of time, he entrusted the orchestration to Ferde Grofé, the regular arranger of Whiteman's jazz band. The immediate success of the work created a demand for a version for symphony orchestra, however, and for a long time that was the one most usually heard in concert and on disc. On the present recording, Freddy Kempf and the conductor Andrew Litton - himself a noted soloist in Gershwin's works for piano and orchestra - have opted for the original orchestration, allowing the musicians of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra to revel in the role of a classic American big band. Following the première of Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin was commissioned to write a 'proper' piano concerto. He did so the following year, this time providing his own orchestration. Also highly successful with its original audience, Concerto in F employed the rhythms, melodic structures and bluesy harmonies of popular music, but its form is resolutely classical. Also included on the disc are Gershwin's two remaining works for piano and orchestra, the Second Rhapsody (here in his own, original orchestration) and the infectious Variations on 'I Got Rhythm'. The performers on this disc have previously collaborated in a highly acclaimed recording of works by Prokofiev - a disc shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2010. The reviewer in International Record Review found it 'an exciting performance, with soloist and conductor working as one' with 'wit as well as virtuosity in Kempf's playing' - qualities that are in rich evidence in this new release too.

Classical Music

The Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä first came to my attention with the superb series of Kalevi Aho recordings he made for BIS. I came to his Lahti Sibelius a little later and, more recently, I heard his Minnesota remake of the Second and Fifth symphonies. At the time of writing the Minnesota Orchestral Association’s lock-out – which began in October 2012 – has resulted in the cancellation of all concerts and recordings until at least the end of April 2013. That’s very bad news for Vänskä, the orchestra’s music director since 2002, and for BIS; the latter are also affected by the turmoil at the Malaysian Philharmonic, with whom they’ve already made a brace of fine recordings.
 
Given that Vänskä’s Lahti Sibelius set was so well received one might wonder why BIS deemed it necessary to embark on a second one. For the most part concertgoers and music buyers have responded well to Vänskä’s latest thoughts on the Second and Fifth symphonies; indeed, my colleague William Hedley made the SACD a Recording of the Month. No question, these are supremely assured performances and, in the case of the Second, very spacious too, yet for all that they miss the fallible, all-too-human perspectives that inform the earlier cycle.
 
To a certain extent it’s about the orchestral ‘sound’; on both new discs the Minnesota band are highly polished – chromium-plated, even – but these dry, not very tactile Orchestra Hall recordings lack the warmth and breadth of the Ristinkirkko, Lahti, ones. Balances are rather different too, so that the gorgeous harp figures that start around 8:08 in the first Andante of No. 1 – Lahti version – are not so easily discerned in Minnesota. That said, Vänskä is never less than thrilling, and in both versions of this symphony it’s clear he has a rare and wonderful sense of the work’s architecture. What pulls me back to Lahti though is the conductor’s proselytizing zeal – a fire in the belly – that makes the music burn with a magnesium light and heat.
 
There are many instances in the Lahti First where one is drawn deep into the music – from the eloquent clarinet solo at the outset and those sheer cliffs of brass to that powerful accelerating passage at the end of the first Andante – a feat the Minnesotans can’t begin to emulate. Take the sense-alerting start to the second Andante of the Lahti version; such eloquence and inwardness are absent from the new recording, as is the timbral sophistication and presence of the older CD. In short – and thanks in no small part to a very well engineered, sympathetic recording – the Lahti performance breathes and palpitates in a way that the cooler, more metropolitan Minnesota version never does.
 
I didn’t intend this to be a panegyric to Vänskä’s earlier reading of No. 1, but hearing it in this comparative context underlines just what a superbly realised and deeply affecting version it is. The Minnesota sound – both the orchestral sheen and the closer recording – drains all the colour and character from the gloriously emphatic Scherzo. Not only that, but the unfolding narrative of the last movement is so much easier to grasp in the Lahti performance; also, at the close of the latter the athletic, forthright Lahti timps strike just the right note of finality.
 
If you must have Vänskä’s Sibelius in multichannel – it seems many die-hard SACD fans across the pond simply don’t listen in stereo any more – this new First will be a no-brainer. However, if performance is the most important part of the audio equation the Lahti recording wins hands down. In fact, I’ll wager that in years to come this landmark recording of the First – made in 1996 – will be regarded as a classic.
 
That said, the Minnesota Fourth has an unexpected trenchancy and power that is very persuasive, and there’s a glow to the sound that I don’t hear in their version of the First. Moreover, the weight and amplitude of this fine orchestra seems better caught than before. In the opening Tempo molto moderato I was transfixed by the quality of the Minnesotans’ yearning strings and louring bass, not to mention those Brucknerian brass chorales. As for the Allegro molto vivace it’s darkly skittish, and the In tempo largo is winningly phrased and remarkably well sustained. As fine as the more pliant Lahtians are in the Fourth they don’t always have the seamlessness and focus of their American counterparts.
 
The concentration of the Minnesotans really pays dividends in those long, gyre-like unwindings of the Largo; and for once I can’t fault the recording when it comes to nuance and detail. Perhaps the pared-down textures of this symphony – it’s central tranquillity and poise always a joy to hear – are much better suited to BIS’s recording set-up in Orchestra Hall. It’s only in the big moments that the lack of depth and ‘air’ had me longing for the fullness and three-dimensionality of the Lahti Fourth. I daresay the multichannel layer offers more spatial information, and that the sound is more immersive, but given that the vast majority of listeners are still wedded to two channels I’d welcome a more natural, involving stereo mix.
 
Anyone hoping for a neat either/or choice here will be disappointed, for the honours are quite evenly divided; the Lahti First is a clear winner, but despite the felicities of the earlier Fourth the formidable focus of the newer one makes it a front-runner too. That means serious Sibelians will have to own both. Now we can only hope that the hiatus in Minneapolis comes to an end soon, so that this impressive – if not always supplanting – cycle can be completed.
 
Vänskä’s latest thoughts on Sibelius are certainly worth hearing, but the splendid Lahti cycle remains his greatest achievement yet.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

There are few collections of works that better fit the expression 'a musical universe' than the Choros of Villa-Lobos. Composed between 1920 and 1929, these works were scored for various forces - from solo guitar (Choros No.1) to choir and symphony orchestra (No.10) - with durations ranging from three (No.2) to sixty minutes (No.11). In terms of style they are equally diverse. Villa-Lobos himself described them as 'serenades' and cited the influence from the music of the chorões, Brazilian popular musicians of the period. But in several of the Choros, for instance Nos 3 and 10, there are also reminiscences of the indigenous cultures of the Amazonas, and in others it is plain to hear that they were composed during Villa-Lobos's years in Paris, where he enjoyed access to the most avant-garde circles. The previous two discs in this series have received great acclaim in the music press, for instance in Le Monde de la Musique: 'John Neschling, his soloists and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra defend this music with great energy and precision - a music which is eclectic without in any way being superficial, and whose rich and complex textures merit being rediscovered.' Other distinctions include an Editor's Choice in Gramophone and top marks on the website Classics Today, whose reviewer described the recordings as 'performances that offer the last word in glittering color and rhythmic exuberance, engineered with maximum realism and impact.' The present disc completes the cycle, which consists of the 12 extant Choros (according to Villa-Lobos himself another two were completed, but the manuscripts were lost before publication), a prologue (the Introduction to the Choros, incidentally composed almost last), and the Two Choros (bis) - an 'after thought' in which a violin and a cello are left to sum up the cycle.

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Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) for ob and org by various composers. Ensemble: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gordon Hunt. Soloists: Gordon Hunt, Leslie Pearson.

Internationally, Lahti Symphony Orchestra is closely associated with the numerous Sibelius recordings released on BIS, conducted by their long-time chief conductor Osmo Vänskä. These recordings have received an overwhelming international welcome among reviewers, but also among record-buyers: as of August 2009 more than one million Lahti discs released by BIS have been sold! As many already know, the orchestra does not only play works by Sibelius - its recordings of music by contemporary Finnish composers such as Rautavaara, Kalevi Aho and Joonas Kokkonen have all met with critical acclaim. Led by Jukka-Pekka Saraste, its present chief conductor, the orchestra now takes a step eastwards, and performs two symphonies by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. Having as a student absorbed the music of Webern, Scriabin and the new Polish school, in the 1970s Silvestrov moved away from avant-garde techniques and became increasingly involved with the idiom of 19th-century song: 'It seems to me that music is song in spite of everything, even when it is unable to sing in a literal sense. Not a philosophy, not a system of beliefs, but the song of the world about itself, and at the same time a musical testament to existence.' To date, Silvestrov has composed seven symphonies, of which the Fourth (1976) and the Fifth (1980-82) are both dominated by a longing for a beauty that used to be, but is no longer within reach. Considered by some to be his masterpiece, Symphony No. 5 has for instance been described as 'an epilogue or coda inspired by the music of late Romantic composers such as Gustav Mahler.'