Jazz
Derrick Gardner
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Walton: Viola Concerto, Sonata for Strings, Partita / Gardner, BBC Symphony

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
Janacek: Orchestral Works Vol 1 / Bavouzet, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
That said, this release represents an auspicious beginning to a new series of Janácek orchestral works. Gardner really is a good conductor. He plays the Sinfonietta swiftly and, happily, without an inappropriate effort to polish the music’s rough edges. There are a couple of quirky touches. The second movement starts quickly and then settles down to a marginally slower tempo for the rest. The fourth movement, too, after those two sudden eruptions towards the end, is taken very slowly for the last appearances of the main theme. I’m not sure that I like it because it sits oddly with the overall spunky tenor of the performance, but it’s not wrong, and it may improve on repetition.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays a mean Capriccio, another swift performance, especially in the third movement, which the brass handle with aplomb. This is such a weird piece that you can do almost anything with it (or to it) and have it come out successfully, but Bavouzet’s fluidity in the spiky solo part, and the excellence of the ensemble generally, disarm criticism. Finally, Mackerras’ version of the Vixen suite is surely the way to play it, and Gardner doesn’t put a foot wrong. The SACD sonics are quite good–occasionally a touch low level, perhaps, but that’s easily remedied.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 1 – Nos. 3, 5 & 8
Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle / Relyea, DeYoung, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Following acclaimed performances around the globe, John Relyea’s interpretation of Duke Bluebeard now appears on record, with Michelle DeYoung as Judit and Edward Gardner leading his Bergen forces with aplomb. John Relyea continues to distinguish himself as one of today's finest basses. Mr. Relyea has appeared in many of the world’s most celebrated opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien, and the Mariinsky Theater.
GREAT OPERATIC ARIAS (Sung in English), VOL. 22 - Finley, Ge
Szymanowski & Karlowicz: Violin Concertos
Holst: The Planets - Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra / National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
For its very first album on Chandos, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain devotes its characteristic energy and musical mastery to an explosive program that transcends daily life and earthly experience. It is helped by the enthusiastic, encouraging and experienced baton of Edward Gardner as well as by the sumptuous yet detailed acoustic of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, all fully revealed in this surround-sound recording. Their performance of Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst's The Planets is already a point of reference in the UK after the immensely successful Prom concert that preceded the recording. The concert's five-star review in The Daily Telegraph praised in particular the orchestra's "great attack and complete absence of anything routine", while The Guardian emphasized the great performance of the orchestra in this "graceful and evocative programme", especially the "depth and richness of sound that belied their youth". This unique album is a first milestone in what promises to be a superb discography for the NYO.
Mendelssohn in Birmingham, Vol. 4 / Pike, Gardner, City of Birmingham Symphony
Review:
Pike allies the luminous beauty of her tone to her innate musicality and mercurial technique to produce an exceptionally lyrical interpretation of the evergreen Violin Concerto in E minor.
– Guardian (UK)
Szymanowski: Stabat Mater & Harnasie (Muzyka Polska, Vol. 7)
With this new release Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra continue their critically acclaimed series exploring Polish music for Chandos. It features two large scale works by Karol Szymanowski, the expressive Stabat Mater and the vigorous and colorful ballet Harnasie. The Stabat Mater, recorded here in its 1965 revised version, features a cast of internationally acclaimed soloists: Lucy Crowe, Pamela Helen Stephen, Robert Murray and Gabor Bretz.
Mendelssohn in Birmingham, Vol. 5
Britten: Cello Symphony; Symphonic Suite From Gloriana; Four Sea Interludes From Peter Grimes

These are outstanding performances, as good or better than the composer's own. Edward Gardner tears into the Four Sea Interludes with uninhibited excitement. It's great to hear the high violins and flutes in "Dawn" swooping and soaring like the gulls that they're supposed to be evoking. "Sunday Morning" has an infectious bounce, while "Moonlight" casts a rapt stillness abruptly shattered by perhaps the most vicious storm on disc. It's one of those versions you will listen to and say, "Finally, that's the way it should go!"
The suite from Gloriana is still a comparative rarity, which is a pity, as the music really is first-rate Britten. But then, so is the opera; why anyone cares that it flopped at its premiere is beyond me (the Queen allegedly was not amused, as if her opinion matters). The Lute Song is very nicely sung by Robert Murray, but the version for oboe rather than voice strikes me as more appropriate within the context of the symphonic suite as a whole. Granted, Britten used Peter Pears, but that was an opportunity for him to give his partner something to do while on tour.
Finally, there's the Cello Symphony: a tough, somewhat gnarly work that receives a performance every bit as fine as Britten/Rostropovich, which still remains the benchmark version. Paul Watkins and Gardner somehow make music out of the low, grotty opening, pacing the movement as unerringly as did Britten himself. The finale works its way up to a wonderfully life-affirming conclusion, and Watkins does a wonderful job with the lengthy preceding cadenza. In short, this release is a major entry in the Britten discography, and the sonics are every bit the equal of the interpretations.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Berio: Orchestral Realisations - Schubert, Mahler, Brahms / Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Berio had an abiding fascination with reconciling the past and the present, which can be seen in his orchestral realisations of works by Mahler and Brahms, and most notably, in Rendering (1990), his typically creative completion of unfinished symphonic sketches by Schubert. In Rendering, Berio - in his own words - sets himself the target of 'following those modern restoration criteria that aim at reviving the old colours without, however, trying to disguise the damage that time has caused, often leaving inevitable empty patches in the composition'. In the 'restoration', Schubert's sketches have been beautifully orchestrated in period style, and the 'empty patches' have been filled with music composed by Berio himself, in his own voice - thereby successfully combining the musical worlds of the early nineteenth and late twentieth centuries into one convincing whole. The Clarinet Sonata by Brahms embodies the composer's taut and concentrated compositional style. In transcribing the work, Berio felt that, when experienced in the less intimate surroundings of today's concert halls, the extreme compression of Brahms's late chamber music style was in need of some additional support, and his version, recorded here, includes a fourteen-bar orchestral introduction to the first movement, leading into Brahms's own, much shorter opening phrase, as well as five additional bars at the beginning of the second movement. Berio completed his orchestration of six early songs by Gustav Mahler in 1987, and conducted the first performance with the Toscanini Orchestra on 7 December that year,with Thomas Hampson the baritone soloist. The six songs in this orchestrated set are 'Hans und Grete', 'Phantasie', 'Scheiden und Meiden', 'Erinnerung', 'Frühlingsmorgen', and 'Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald'. The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Edward Gardner, with Roderick Williams the baritone soloist in the songs by Mahler and Michael Collins the soloist in Brahms's Clarinet Sonata.
Elgar: Symphony No. 2 & Serenade for Strings / Gardner, BBC Symphony
Following a highly praised recording of Symphony No. 1 last year, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony present here an electrifying interpretation of Elgar’s Symphony No. 2, with the addition of one of his most performed works: the Serenade for Strings. Having now become experts in British repertoire with highly lauded series of Walton and Britten, they reveal all the aspects of Elgar’s masterpiece in this surround sound recording. Symphony No. 2 is richly orchestrated and skillfully constructed, drawing on hugely varied resources of harmony, rhythm and melody, and making considerable use of thematic transformation as a unifying technique. While the Symphony No. 2 is one of the greatest products of Elgar’s maturity, the Serenade in E minor for Strings is perhaps the most charming product of his youth. In this three-movement piece dominated by a deeply passionate Larghetto, the strings of the BBC Symphony superbly encapsulate all the emotions offered by this graceful work: tender lyrical and intense.
Mendelssohn in Birmingham Vol 2 / Gardner
Among the fruits of his prodigiously gifted youth were thirteen string symphonies, which Mendelssohn composed privately as ‘practice’ pieces. At age fifteen he returned to the last of these, expanded the orchestration, and published it as the first of his mature numbered symphonies. As heard here, this energetic work, bursting with youthful high spirits, shows the influence of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber, but that influence is always absorbed in a personal way.
Although numbered as the third of five, the ‘Scottish’ Symphony was actually the last which Mendelssohn composed. Inspiration for it had come while Mendelssohn was visiting Edinburgh in 1829. He was immediately moved to compose the brooding melody that begins and ends the work, but not until 1842 did he actually finish this masterpiece.
No such time span was needed to complete the Overture to Victor Hugo’s tragedy Ruy Blas, which was commissioned only three days before the production’s opening night. Mendelssohn loathed Hugo’s drama and though the opening is suitably sombre, the rest of the overture disregards the play’s form and character, concluding in celebration where Hugo’s story culminates in murder and suicide.
Review:
Gardner conducts these pieces with a highly satisfying blend of freedom and discipline. In some of Mendelssohn's more lyrical moments you need a metronome to judge his rhythmic flexibility, so naturally does he apply it, and throughout the disc the strings articulate with splendid vigor.
– BBC Music Magazine
Holst: Planets - Strauss: Zarathustra / Gardner, Great Britain National Youth Orchestra [Vinyl]
This is the eagerly awaited LP release of an already highly successful SACD, ''Album of the Week'' on Classic FM, praised by BBC Music for its ''zest and freshness'', by The Guardian for its ''warmth and intensity'', and by Gramophone for its ''combustible power, enormous physical impact and technical accomplishment''. For its very first album on Chandos, the National Youth Orchestra of Grea tBritain devotes its characteristic energy and musical mastery to an explosive programme that transcends daily life and eathly experience. It is helped by the enthusiastic, encouraging, and experienced baton of Edward Gardner as well as by teh sumptuous yet detailed acoustic of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, all fully revealed in this recording. Their performance of Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst's The planets is already a point of reference in the UK after the immensely successful Prom concert that preceded the recording. The concert's five-star review in The Daily Telegraph praised in particular the orchestra's ''great attack and complete absence of anything routine'', while The Guardian emphasized the great performance of the orchestra in this ''graceful and evocative programme'', especially the ''depth and richness of sound that belied their youth''.
Musgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots / Mark, Gardner, Putnam, Virginia Opera
Thea Musgrave writes of her work “Mary Queen of Scots”: Mary has been a fascinating subject to work with. It was interesting and challenging to find a path through all the well-known facts about her life, in order to be able to envision her with fresh eyes and gradually to shape my own portrait of her. My interest in her as a subject was first aroused by a basic idea of Amalia Elguera, (who had written the libretto for my previous opera The Voice of Ariadne) and on whose play Moray the opera is based. Here the emphasis lies, as the title implies, on Mary’s half brother James Stewart. I soon decided that in the opera, although the chief protagonist would be James, the central character must be Mary herself.” This recording is of a live performance on 2 April, 1978 in Norfolk, Virginia, at the gala performance for the Metropolitan Opera. Lyrita is proud to present this re-issue of Mary, Queen of Scots to coincide with Thea Musgrave’s 90th Birthday celebrations.
Britten: Phaedra - A Charm of Lullabies - Lachrymae - Two Po
Schoenberg: Erwartung & Pelleas und Melisande /Jakubiak, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
REVIEW:
Gardner keeps the music’s sumptuousness on a tight rein, favouring faster tempi than most other interpreters. But he makes sure the shape of the huge musical structure is never compromised, and there’s no lack of tonal weight when required from the Bergen Philharmonic. Jakubiak is a compelling soprano soloist too, far less histrionic and squally than some.
– Guardian (UK)
Lutoslawski: Orchestral Works III
This is the fourth volume in Chandos’ series devoted to the music of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. Described by Gramophone as a ‘veritable dream team’, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform Symphony No. 2 and the Little Suite, and are joined by Paul Watkins as the soloist in the Cello Concerto and Grave.
Britten: Peter Grimes / Skelton, Wall, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Winner of the coveted Gramophone Record of the Year award!
‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison – The Times. This studio recording was made following the acclaimed production at Grieghallen, in Bergen, in 2019 (repeated in Oslo and London and reviewed above). Luxuriant playing from the Bergen Philharmonic and a stellar cast under the assured direction of Edward Gardner make this a recording to treasure.
REVIEW:
The net joy of this new recording is that Skelton, now a Grimes of considerable experience and range, has found in his vocalisation of the role a well-judged mixture of obsessive professional (sometimes rough) fisherman and troubled, confused and persecuted outsider. All this is precisely framed by Gardner’s conducting and his choice of cast. An exciting, committed, necessary and brilliantly recorded version for our times.
– Gramophone (Recording of The Month, October 2020
Szymanowski: Symphonies No 2 & 4 / Gardner
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
Sibelius: Orchestral Works / Davidsen, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Following their acclaimed recordings of Schoenberg with Sara Jakubiak and Britten’s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic turn their attention to the music of Sibelius. Written in 1913 for the diva Aino Ackté, the tone poem Luonnotar draws on text from the Finnish national epic poem, the Kalevala. Its virtuosic demands are ably met here by award-wining soprano Lise Davidsen, who also feature in the Suite from Pelléas and Mélisande, music re-worked by Sibelius from his incidental music written for the first performances of Maeterlinck’s play in Helsinki, in 1905, in Swedish. The tone poem Tapiola, from 1926, is Sibelius’ last great masterpiece and evokes the forests of his native Finland. The programme is completed by a pair of much earlier works, Rakastava (the Lover) and Vårsång (Spring Song).
REVIEW:
Here’s a mostly excellent disc, smartly programmed to offer an appealing mix of familiar and less-known music. Soprano Lise Davidsen seems to be all over the place these days. She’s the real deal, an intelligent and affecting singer with the vocal heft and secure technique to do justice to just about anything she tries. Let’s hope her current popularity doesn’t result in a premature vocal blowout. Her Luonnotar is beautiful, but just a hair too fast. This of course makes it easier to sing, but there’s more mystery and atmosphere in the music than Gardner and Davidsen realize here. It’s my only quibble about this otherwise wholly desirable program.
As for the rest: this Tapiola has all of the eerie strangeness missing in Luonnotar–and let’s face it: Is there a more alien and spooky sounding work out there, by anyone? Gardner is so adept at easing the music from one section to another that you have to wonder why he was in such a rush in Luonnotar? The Pelleas and Melisande music goes splendidly, each of its numbers played to the hilt, with Melisande at the Spinning Wheel and the following Entr’acte especially memorable. Rakastava (The Lover) is an odd arrangement for strings (with triangle and timpani) of an original vocal work. Seldom performed and melodically elusive, it’s good to hear a fresh new version. Spring Song is another rarity. It’s hymn-like opulence sounds strangely un-Sibelian, although it represents perhaps the most extended example of a very characteristic aspect of his musical personality. It’s splendidly done, its successive climaxes especially well-judged by Gardner.
As you might have guessed, the Bergen Philharmonic sounds terrific, as do the sonics. Never mind the unfortunately zippy Luonnotar. This is great stuff.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 2
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.
Szymanowski: Symphonies No 1 & 3 / Gardner, BBC SO
Reviews:
The performances are particularly cosmopolitan. And why not? The works here reflect influences from many nationalities. Johnson, whose relatively lean voice (in contrast with the Eastern European sopranos sometimes heard in this piece) is very much responsive to the text's meaning.
– Gramophone
“The BBC Symphony Chorus sings with languid exaltation, yet it is the orchestral detail that impresses most here, right from the still, mystery-laden opening. Gardner conducts with such conviction that it is impossible not to find beauty in [Love Songs'] potentially dense Reger-meets-Scriabin soundworld.
– BBC Music Magazine
Verklarte Nacht - Schoenberg, Fried, Lehar & Korngold / Gardner, BBC Symphony
Hot on the heels of their acclaimed recording of Britten’s Peter Grimes, Stuart Skelton and Edward Gardner join forces with Christine Rice and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for this fascinating programme of early twentieth-century works. Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht needs no introduction, but far rarer is Oscar Fried’s contemporaneous setting of the same poem. Composed in 1901 for soloists and orchestra, Fried’s version is a true setting of (as opposed to Schoenberg’s reflection on) the text by Richard Dehmel. Lehár wrote Fieber in 1915 as the closing part of his song cycle Aus eiserner Zeit – he then made the orchestral setting a year later. Korngold’s Lieder des Abschieds (Songs of Farewell) date from the early 1920s, whilst he was still in Vienna, and shortly after he had completed the opera Die tote Stadt. Setting poetry by Christina Rossetti, Edith Ronsperger, and Ernst Lothar, the cycle is a poignant reflection on the Great War.
