Edward Gardner leads the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Schubert’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 in this second volume in the acclaimed series. Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra since October 2015, Edward Gardner has led the musicians on multiple international tours, which have included performances in Berlin, Munich, and Amsterdam, and at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival. He was recently appointed Principal Conductor Designate of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, his tenure commencing in September 2021. In demand as a guest conductor, during the previous two seasons he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker, as well as at The Royal Opera, Covent Garden in a new production of Káťa Kabanová, praised by The Guardianas a ‘magnificent interpretation’. He returned to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. In April 2019, he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Andris Nelsons, today simultaneously Principal Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, was discovered by Orfeo for the album. Christiane Delank, the long-standing artistic director of the label had taken him on to conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the recordings of the two violin concertos by Dmitri Shostakovich with Arabella Steinbacher and realized that in him one of the great conductors of his generation was maturing, a development that took place at breath-taking pace. When he was entrusted with conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, she won him over for the ambitious projects of a complete recording of the symphonies by Tchaikovsky (the first three symphonies were recorded, but no longer released following Nelsons’ departure to Boston) together with symphonic poems and other orchestral works by Richard Strauss and works by Stravinsky and Shostakovich. So, Orfeo had the privilege of documenting on album the Birmingham period, the first major international stage in Andris Nelsons’ career.

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set:

Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra; Don Juan; Till Eulenspiegel / Nelsons:

Don Juan has all the sparkle and the flood of testosterone that you might expect, dissolving into a string theme that is radiant with extrovert ambition. This is a reading full of passion and drive. Nelsons refuses to linger where some others do but keeps the adrenaline rushing throughout.

– MusicWeb International

Tchaikovsky: Francesca Da Rimini, Symphony No 4 / Nelsons:

In the last movement of the symphony Nelsons is just as blistering in tempo and febrile excitement as Svetlanov, and I never thought I would hear a living conductor equal that kind of intensity. These are great performances by a great conductor.

– Fanfare

Stravinsky: The Firebird, Symphony Of Psalms / Nelsons

Nelsons' interpretation of The Firebird has much in common with Boulez's New York recording for Sony--hyper-detailed (those three harps really tell), yet never at the expense of excitement. Emphasis on clarity also flatters the Symphony of Psalms, particularly in the central fugue. His fleet tempos come close to Stravinsky's own and project the quick outer movements with plenty of punch. This is a very good performance by any standard, and the sonics are impressively natural. If the coupling suits, then don't hesitate.

– ClassicsToday

When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “ORFEO 40th Anniversary” 2-album sampler well reflects these two sides of the label by combining highlight tracks of historical recordings with today’s global stars.

The Sinfonia Concertante for piano and orchestra, Op.38, was written in 1934-1936 and revised and rescored in 1942-1943. The composer himself was the soloist in the premiere which took place in a Promenade concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult on 10 August 1943. Rubbra also performed it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent on 4 July 1946 at the second Cheltenham Music Festival. The Prelude and Fugue on a theme of Cyril Scott for piano, Op.69, was composed in honour of Scott’s seventieth birthday in September 1949 and premiered by Margaret Good on 5 June 1950 in a BBC broadcast. It is based on three bars from the slow movement of Scott’s Piano Sonata no.1, Op.66. As part of the Northampton concert of Cyril Scott’s music which Rubbra organised in 1918, he programmed and performed four of Scott’s short solo piano works. Nearly fifty years later, he chose to perform another brief solo piano work by Scott to round off his BBC recital on 9 August 1967, Consolation. In his brief spoken introduction to the broadcast performance, Rubbra described this as ‘one of Scott’s maturest pieces’ written ‘at the height of his powers’ and characterised it as ‘a deeply felt ‘in memoriam’ written as a tribute to a close friend’. In 1958 he began work on the Violin Concerto, Op.103, finishing it in the summer of the following year. It was premiered at the Royal Festival Hall on 17 February 1960 when the soloist was Endré Wolf with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by its Principal Conductor at the time, Rudolf Schwarz. This first performance was relayed live and the BBC repeated the work in a Maida Vale performance three days later. A recording of that impressive second performance is presented here.

Shura Cherkassky was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1909 and died in London in 1995. He was initially taught by his mother who had played for Tchaikovsky, but when the family moved to the US in 1923, he studied with his long-time teacher and mentor, the legendary Josef Hofmann, before auditioning for Rachmaninov. Prior to World War II, he had made his name in the US but from 1945 he extensively toured Europe and settled in London in 1961. The last of the great Romantic tradition of pianists, Cherkassky was described by Bryce Morrison as a ‘mercurial genius’, a unique personality, blessed with an incredible technique, who delighted in defying convention as no performance was identical. For a musician reluctant to visit the studio, live performances were the showcase for his stunning virtuosity and creativity caught on the wing.

For the third volume in their cycle of Schubert’s symphonies, Edward Gardner and the CBSO turn to the first and fourth symphonies. Composed in 1813, when Schubert was just sixteen, the First Symphony admirably demonstrates the young composer’s grasp of symphonic form and technique, and whilst the influences of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven are clearly audible, the spirit of Schubert’s own distinctive voice is certainly in evidence.

Composed three years later, in 1816, the ‘Tragic’ Fourth Symphony is scored for larger forces and is much more ambitious in outlook – Schubert seemingly anxious to create a more substantial work. He took more trouble to unify his thematic material across the four movements, and the symphony is clearly closer to the style of his later works. The Overture to his opera ‘Fierrabras’ completes the album, which was recorded in Birmingham Town Hall

The idea of writing a cello concerto for Raphael Wallfisch was first mooted more than ten years ago at the Banff Arts Centre, Canada, where Jonathan Dove was composer-in-residence. The two men spoke of Dove’s interest in writing a piece for cello and orchestra, and after further meetings in London, the work began to take shape. Given the composer’s extensive experience of writing for the voice, it was decided that the score would be written for baritone singer and solo cello with orchestra with texts taken from poems by various writers. The subject matter was suggested by the Wallfisch family history. Raphael’s father fled, together with his mother and brother, to Palestine from Breslau in 1937, and his mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is a concentration camp survivor. She has written of the persecution of her Jewish family during the Second World War and her own incarceration in Auschwitz and Belsen, where her skill as a cellist saved her life.2 Knowing of these events, Jonathan Dove was inspired to base the work’s theme on the universal experience of refugees being exiled from their homeland.

Jonathan Dove writes of the piece, ‘In Exile moves through a day in the life of an involuntary exile: waking alone in a foreign land; remembering the moment of banishment, the moment of departure, the voyage; remembering the homeland. The Exile feels the pain of being so far away in his country’s time of need, unable to help his own people. He remembers all the names he has been called in this strange land. He thinks of all he has lost, and longs for home. In Raphael Wallfisch’s words: ‘the cello represents the soul and spirit of the Exile, the baritone is that person and sings the dramatic and often challenging texts. Jonathan’s lyrical style lends itself so naturally to the cello. He exploits every register from the lowest to the highest notes. The cello comments on the sung texts”. [Paul Conway] Night Song, a short piece for cello and piano is derived from the final section of ‘In Exile’. In the calm closing moments of the work the baritone sings of his loss in the words of the poet Douglas Hyde : My grief on the sea, / How the waves of it roll - / For they heave between me / And the love of my soul. Night Song was written partly at the request of the Rachel Baker Memorial Charity – who commissioned the orchestral work – and partly in response to the strong reaction of the first audiences who connected with this uncomplicated musical expression.

Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."