Benno Moiseiwitsch was one of the many great Russian pianists born in Odessa. He recorded prolifically from 1916 until just before his death and was particularly highly regarded for his Chopin, Schumann and Rachmaninov. Moiseiwitsch met Rachmaninov at his American debut in 1919 and the composer praised Moiseiwitsch's interpretations of his works and even claimed the recording of the Piano Concerto No.2 presented here was superior to his own. All these recordings present Moiseiwitsch at the height of his powers.

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D-minor Gerd Schaller, conductor, London Philharmonic Orchestra With a final movement, drawn from original sources and supplemented and completed by Gerd Schaller 'My work on completing the symphony drew upon compositional principles characteristic of Bruckner's later style. From the Seventh Symphony onwards, and certainly by the Eighth at the latest, this particular late style that he had developed became increasingly evident. I applied these principles by analogy and developed them further. Further sources of inspiration were Bruckner's 'Psalm 150' and his symphonic choral work 'Helgoland'. Ultimately, my decades of experience as a conductor and Bruckner exponent also found their way into this performance, although it should be noted that I had already performed an initial version of my completed work in concert and recorded it on CD in 2016. This experience gave me the opportunity to review the piece once again from a practical perspective.' Gerd Schaller

Available for the first time in the United States, this set from the Sony Classical Masters Series features Leonard Slatkin conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (featuring Pinchas Zukerman on violin) in the works of Elgar including Symphonies nos. 1 & 2, Violin Concerto, Cello Concerto, and “Enigma” Variations.

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Leonard Slatkin's Elgar recordings are among the best recordings of the works in the past 20 years. Slatkin's understanding of Elgar's music and his ability to articulate both its grandly monumental and deeply intimate qualities is unsurpassed among his contemporaries and his interpretations are marvelously controlled and wonderfully expressive. Of course, Slatkin is aided by the strong and sympathetic playing of the London Philharmonic and by the soulful virtuosity of violinist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Janos Starker. And RCA does capture all their performances in clear, deep, and warm digital sound. While no one who loves Elgar's music should be without Barbirolli and Boult's recordings, anyone who loves Elgar's music would like Slatkin's recordings.

– All Music Guide

This album is one of a pair of distinctive Saint-Saëns recordings, made with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It features several rarely-recorded works, alongside the premiere recording of Saint-Saëns's arrangement for tenor and orchestra of the iconic Danse macabre - which was originally a song for voice and piano to a poem Henri Cazalis before it's expansion into a celebrated tone poem. Australian conductor Geoffrey Simon is resident in London and has appeared there with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, and English Chamber Orchestra. Internationally he has appeared with the Adelaide, Atlanta, Israel, Moscow, and American Symphonies, among others. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Northwest Mahler Orchestra in Seattle, with which he has conducted the Mahler symphonic cycle and Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony. He is Consultant for Classical Special Projects for Arts Global, and has served as a jury member for Young Concert Artists, PianoTexas, Australian Cello Awards and Royal Over-Seas League.

I am absolutely delighted to have these fine works by a beloved composer back in the catalogue, especially in such beautifully committed readings as these.

Elizabeth Maconchy was a most distinguished composer, whose music is still under-represented in terms of commercial recordings, although her present discography is far from negligible. The complete recording of her string quartets (possibly her greatest achievement) is – fortunately enough – available again at bargain price (on Regis) as are her Clarinet Concertinos and Clarinet Quintet (on Helios, if I am not mistaken), which on the whole is not too bad, but there is so much that is still awaiting recording. Good news to know that Odaline de la Martinez is apparently busy committing some hitherto unrecorded works to disc for Lorelt. This is something to watch for indeed. Appropriately released in the composer’s centenary year, this Lyrita disc is thus most welcome since it restores one of Maconchy’s masterpieces back into the current catalogue, namely her magnificent Symphony for Double String Orchestra, and offers the first commercial recording of another major work, the Music for Strings of 1983.

The earliest work here is the overture Proud Thames composed in 1952, some sort of English Vltava, although “the Thames is shorter by many hundreds of miles than the Vltava” (Hugo Cole). The music is simple, direct and colourfully scored. A very fine concert opener all-too-rarely heard.

The Symphony for Double String Orchestra is a fairly substantial work in four neatly contrasting movements. The first movement opens with a vigorous call to attention (a five-note figure that will reappear later in the work, actually in the final movement). The two string ensembles are used either antiphonally or in unison, with some forceful contrapuntal writing (actually one of Maconchy’s strengths). The second movement opens with “a rocking figure” paving the way for a richly melodic, impassioned theme, that momentarily gives way to the sole violin’s reverie, but the music moves irrepressibly forward towards a mighty climax subsiding then into the opening mood before dissolving into thin air. The third movement is a light-footed Scherzo with the flavour of some rustic dance. The final movement is a concise, but none the less imposing Passacaglia. After the climax, the music again dies away calmly with a quiet, slow restatement of the very opening of the first movement. As already mentioned earlier in this review, I firmly believe that this is one of Maconchy’s greatest achievements and a magnificent work that should have earned a permanent place in the repertoire.

The very title of the Serenata Concertante clearly suggests that much emphasis is laid on the symphonic nature of the argument, which is possibly tighter than in the Symphony. Indeed, the first movement opens with a short introduction stating some basic material that will keep reappearing during the course of the work. The introduction leads into the animated Allegro main section. The second movement is a Scherzo. If Bartók is often – and rightly – mentioned as an important influence on Maconchy’s music, it is now Martin? who sometimes comes to mind, at least in this particular movement. The slow movement is a richly melodic and warmly lyrical arch supported by soft brass chords, over which the soloist freely muses. The work ends with a fairly extended Rondo, in which material from the preceding movements is briefly restated, thus emphasis the symphonic structure of the whole. It nevertheless ends with a beautiful, calm coda, as did the Symphony.

The Music for Strings, too, is in four movements. The dark-hued introduction of the first movement sets the predominantly sombre mood of the entire movement. The movement is another fleeting Scherzo ending “in a wisp of sound”. The dark, elegiac mood suggested by the viola in the first bars of the third movement is sustained throughout the Mesto that reaches an eloquent climax. The music slowly subsides leaving the viola alone. The tense mood prevailing in the preceding movements eventually brightens in the final that concludes with “an insouciant throw away ending”. On the whole, Music for Strings is a much sterner, rather more understated work than the Symphony, but one that any composer less modest than Maconchy would have proudly called Second Symphony for Strings. Another splendid piece of music, and a most welcome addition to Elizabeth Maconchy’s discography.

I am absolutely delighted to have these fine works by a beloved composer back in the catalogue, especially in such beautifully committed readings as these. This generous release is a must for all lovers of Maconchy’s music; others will find much beautiful music to enjoy here.

-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International

After two initial chamber music albums recorded with Helen Huang, violinist Paul Huang, recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2015, confirms in the concerto repertoire his strong affinity for the lyrical qualities of his instrument. He chose to record the concertos by Barber and Korngold for their broad, expressive melodies, their sumptuous harmonic language, and their climaxes of great emotional transparency, which echo the spirit of late Romanticism associated with Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Bruch. Korngold himself said that he had composed his concerto "for a Caruso of the violin rather than for a Paganini." This is sure to appeal to the thirty-something violinist, who was drawn to his instrument at a very young age "because of it's singing tone, a sound that resembles the human voice." These two American concertos, dating from the mid-twentieth century, offer him the stimulating challenge of painting worlds that are both luxuriant and intimate, using the refined palette of a chamber musician. To meet this challenge, he is joined by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Jun Markl, a conductor with whom he frequently collaborates in concert. Korngold, an Austrian composer who fled to America in 1936 under pressure from the rise of Nazism and whom Mahler described as a "musical genius," composed extensively for Hollywood. Here, he notably draws his thematic material from several of his earlier film scores. The American composer Barber, for his part, captures the atmosphere of the United States in the 1930s, while also evoking the vast American landscapes and the industrial dynamism of New York. "A profound vulnerability also emerges from these two works, particularly in their sublime slow movements," the violinist notes. The slow movement of Barber's concerto expresses a deep sense of dismay, uncertainty, and despair characteristic of the Great Depression. The luxuriant Romantic language of old Europe, transformed through Korngold's experience in cinema, and Barber's lyrical voice - marked by great emotional sincerity and deeply rooted in the American soil - represent for Paul Huang two complementary visions of American musical identity. They take on particular meaning for him, a Taiwanese-born musician

This release marks the 29th on the LPO label conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, and is the first Jurowski-conducted Richard Strauss release to date. Vladimir Jurowski has a strong affinity with Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), and chose to conduct a selection of orchestral highlights from the opera rather than the composer's own published Fantasie. He went on to conduct the complete opera at the Metropolitan Opera in 2013. "If the evening can boast a hero, the honor must go to Vladimir Jurowski, who conducts with abiding passion, sensitivity and propulsion." (The Financial Times) The performances of the three works on this release were also critically well received, with the soloists within the Orchestra noted for their 'poise' and 'exquisite handling' of Die Frau ohne Schatten and Jurowski's 'perfect blending of rich textures' in Eine Alpensinfonie. The Dance of the Seven Veils was performed as part of the opening concert of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's critically acclaimed The Rest is Noise festival of music which shaped the twentieth century. "Jurowski and the LPO set the scene with an outstandingly delicate performance of the Dance of the Seven Veils." (The Financial Times)

Rare treasure

Thirty-five years ago all I knew about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was that he wrote Hiawatha. My father told me he had heard it in Manchester during the nineteen thirties; in fact my grandfather may have been conducting it. I knew a few piano pieces and the ubiquitous Demande et Réponse from the Petite Suite de Concert. That was it. A few years later I was browsing some old music magazines and was amazed to read that Coleridge-Taylor had written a Symphony: I was convinced that I would never get the chance of hearing it. It was some time during the mid ’nineties that I was chatting to the manager of a well known provincial record shop. We were enthusing about rare English music: he rather confidentially told me that a recording - this one - had just been made of Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto. However he could not tell me when it was about to hit the streets …

I guess that I forgot all about it until one day I heard the ‘Andante semplice’ on Classic FM. This was from the Philippe Graffin version with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Unfortunately I had not heard the presenter’s introduction and had eight or nine minutes of guessing what the work was – but I was impressed. When announcer announced I was amazed that such a gorgeous piece had lain dormant for so long – and immediately went out and bought the CD (Avie AV0044 - see review)! Two subsequent recordings later I have not changed my view. In fact having heard all three versions of this Concerto I am convinced that this is an essential addition to the repertoire – both for the violin and for English Music.

To be fair there is no way that it can be compared to Elgar’s masterwork: and I do have to admit that I personally prefer the Somervell Concerto that is coupled on the Hyperion release (CDA67420- see review). However, Coleridge-Taylor’s Concerto is a work that is full of sunshine and light and colour: it is a descriptive work, not a confessional one. It must rate as one of the composer’s masterpieces.

The work is written in three contrasting, yet well balanced and consistent movements. The opening ‘allegro’ is a modified sonata form and commands our attention and our interest from the first bar to the last. Perhaps Dvorak and Mendelssohn are never too far away but Coleridge-Taylor has made this music his own. This is not a pastiche: it is an impressive exploration of the violinist’s technique and expression using a musical language that was appropriate to the period.

The slow movement is lovely – and although I loathe excerpting movements from symphonies and concertos I can see that this one will be heard ‘stand alone’ for some time to come. The programme notes point out that it is in the nature of a ‘love poem’ – which nods back to Hiawatha.

The last movement is perhaps the best – although I can hear some people saying that it is derivative. There is a good balance between the various episodes of the ‘rondo’ – including some wistful or reflective moments. However, the work concludes with an “impressive peroration [and] a triumphant conclusion.”

It would be wrong to regard the Legend and the Romance as makeweights – they are not. Both pieces are delightful miniatures that are definitely ‘children of their time’, but have a sufficient air of timelessness about them to make them worthy of the occasional airing in the concert hall and on CD.

The Romance shares the same melody as the posthumous Sonata for Violin and piano in D minor – and I imagine that musicologists will have their views on precedence – although the present work would appear to be a reworking of the Sonata which is likely to be a ‘student’ work.

Both the Romance and the Legend are easy on the mind and the ear and are well written and totally memorable.

I am delighted that Bredon Hill - a rhapsody for violin and orchestra has been given another outing on this CD: recently Dutton issued a fine performance of this work on CDLX 7174. I have written extensively about this work elsewhere on MusicWeb so I will make just a few comments here.

This is quite definitely - and deliberately - a ‘retro’ work – harking back to an earlier English Pastoral tradition exemplified by Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and George Butterworth’s Shropshire Lad Rhapsody. However, the reason why Julius Harrison chose to evoke a musical landscape from the past is complex. It had much to do with the wartime mood of nostalgia – seeking to preserve an icon of an England that probably never existed – except in the mind of poets, musicians and filmmakers – but was important to the concept of a country that was worth fighting for. It was widely broadcast to service people across the world with considerable success.

It is a work that demands our attention and certainly will appeal to all listeners who enjoy ‘landscape in music’. A beautiful meditation that explores considerable depths of feeling, it is introspective but at the same time inspiring. Bredon Hill must count as one of the finest musical portrayals of the English countryside. It is unbelievable that it remained unheard for so many years.

Perhaps the last word ought to go to Gordon Bottomley. Commenting on this piece, he wrote that “the dew was so fresh and undimmed by footsteps. Some of the harmonies came from further off than Bredon: perhaps there had been footsteps on them that did not show on the dew.”

It is a rare treasure and deserves due respect.

The question is begged as to what version of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto to buy. The short answer is that it depends! I feel that all three recordings are impressive and provide first class performances of this work. However I do have a sneaking preference for this present interpretation that is hard to put into words. Perhaps I feel that Lorraine McAslan manages to get to the core of the piece and to sympathise with the Edwardian musical language?

So deciding on the disc to buy devolves to other considerations. Firstly, couplings. The Avie disc has the Dvorak Concerto as its stable mate. The Hyperion introduces the listener to the fine Violin Concerto by Arthur Somervell. The present disc includes the two minor works (unheard by most listeners for nearly a century) by Coleridge-Taylor and what is probably Julius Harrison’s orchestral masterpiece. It is horses for courses – but my personal choice would be to own all three! However if I was pushed, well the Somervell is too important a work for me to ignore.

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Famous for his role as the keyboard player in rock band Genesis and as a solo artist, Tony Banks was always fascinated by the idea of writing orchestral music. His success incomposing for films led to the acclaimed Seven - A Suite for Orchestra. The intense orchestral sound pictures in Seven, Six and Five rank among some of Banks's most accomplished works, marrying experimentation with form and structure, and a trademark melodic character which powerfully conveys both melancholy and joy. Originally released on individual discs as 8.57414, 8.572986, 8.557466

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

English-speaking audiences have always found Die Meistersinger to be a life-enhancing celebration of wisdom, art and song. So it proves in David McVicar's production – the first at Glyndebourne – which is updated to the early-19th century of Wagner's childhood. At the centre of a true ensemble cast is Gerald Finley, a 'gleamingly sung', 'eminently believable' Sachs (The Independent on Sunday), supported by the dynamic conducting of Vladimir Jurowski which, like McVicar's production, uses Glyndebourne's special intimacy to bring sharp focus to bear on the subtlety of Wagner's musical and dramatic counterpoint.

McVicar has put on a great show with style, intelligence and insight. -- The Telegraph

Musically, it was judged faultlessly for the scale of the theatre by Vladimir Jurowski, who conjured playing of mercurial clarity not the first words one would normally choose for this gargantuan score from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, sustained with unfailing vigilance and concentration. -- The Guardian

Richard Wagner
DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Walther von Stolzing – Marco Jentzsch
Eva – Anna Gabler
Magdalene – Michaela Selinger
David – Topi Lehtipuu
Veit Pogner – Alastair Miles
Sixtus Beckmesser – Johannes Martin Kränzle
Hans Sachs – Gerald Finley
Kunz Vogelgesang – Colin Judson

The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor

David McVicar, stage director

Recorded live at Glyndebourne, Lewes, July 2011

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German
Running time: 300 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

R E V I E W:

WAGNER Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg • Vladimir Jurowski, cond; Anna Gabler ( Eva ); Michaela Selinger ( Magdalene ); Marco Jentzsch ( Walther von Stolzing ); Topi Lehtipuu ( David ); Gerald Finley ( Hans Sachs ); Johannes Martin Kränzle ( Sixtus Beckmesser ); Alastair Miles ( Veit Pogner ); Glyndebourne Festival Ch; London PO • OPUS ARTE OA 1085 D (2 DVDs: 300:00) OA BD7108 (Blu-ray) Live: Glyndebourne 6/2011


John Christie, Glyndebourne’s founder, was Wagner-obsessed and would have dearly loved to present one of the composer’s operas early-on in the Festival’s history. But such an undertaking was not a reasonable possibility in Glyndebourne’s original 300-seat theater. As John Christie’s grandson recounts in one of this Blu-ray’s “extras,” an early Glyndebourne conductor commented “if you put on Wagner, you’ll need to put the audience on the stage and the stage in the auditorium.” Glyndebourne got a new opera house in the 1990s, seating 1,250, and Wagner finally came to East Sussex in 2003 with a production of Tristan und Isolde. This David McVicar-directed Meistersinger represents Glyndebourne’s second Wagner staging, and it’s something special.


Die Meistersinger , at one level, is about intergenerational conflict and being able to cast younger singers as the quartet of lovers is a real plus. (The recent PentaTone Meistersinger on SACD succeeds, in part, because those singers at least sound youthful.) At Glyndebourne, McVicar notes, he could “cast singers that are appropriate to the ages of their characters and are physically convincing.” Marco Jentzsch, the strapping Walther, has got to be 6’3” or 6’4”—a far cry from the all-too-common fireplug Stolzings, whose boots come up most of the way to their protuberant abdomens. If Jentzsch can’t belt out the Prize Song as powerfully as a Ben Heppner or Peter Seifert, he’s fully up to the lyrical requirements of the role and his voice has a pleasant timbre. The Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu handles the part of David very effectively, both his character’s palpable horniness and, more critically, the act I exegesis on song writing. Anna Gabler is a complex and passionate Eva, as confused as Nuremberg’s shoemaker about the possibility of a future as Mrs. Hans Sachs. Michaela Selinger, the Magdalena, is perky and vocally appealing.


Alistair Miles portrays a Pogner that is Sach’s equal in intelligence and integrity, despite his fat-cat status; Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Beckmesser executes the requisite physical comedy and manages just the correct amount of pedantry and pride to define the town clerk’s obvious short-comings while leaving him a sympathetic character. Beckmesser, here, is a victim of his own personality failings rather than a fundamentally bad person. Any Meistersinger, of course, depends on its Sachs to keep our interest up for five hours, and Gerald Finley is a superb one. He happens to be the best singer here, but his acting is what makes this production so compelling. Finley’s character, we know from the outset, is thoroughly engaged with the dual goals of achieving artistic progress and promoting Stolzing’s romantic efforts—but is also a very conflicted human being. When the curtain goes up for act III, it’s clear that Sachs has been drinking all night and he kicks some furniture around. He uncovers a portrait of his late wife. And just before Walther enters to compose his song, we see Sachs pick up a pen to write something—presumably a contest song to compete for Eva himself. The Knight comes into the workshop and Sachs backs away from the abyss.


It’s that sort of theatrical detail that makes this production exceptional. The size of the stage and hall is still small by Metropolitan Opera or Covent Garden standards and allows for a high level of intimacy. As McVicar tells us “Everyone on stage is a character and has a story.” Watch the Masters as they congregate in acts I and III, especially the guy with the ear trumpet. That’s “Ulrich Eisslinger,” not exactly a major role—he has one line in the act I roll call. The part is positively savored by Adrian Thomson, who responds to every event on stage with facial expressions and body language that are alone practically worth the price of admission. And look at the Masters’ faces when Walther’s final version of the Prize Song takes an unexpected harmonic turn. These guys—the singers and their characters—are really listening deeply.


McVicar moves the action from the 16th century to the early 19th, the era into which the composer was born. In a second extra feature, Die Meistersinger —An Opera with Baggage, the director reminds us that the 1820s and 1830s were a time before Unification when Germans “could point to their culture as an expression of their national identity.” By considering Meistersinger in the context of this time frame, McVicar doesn’t need to directly address the future commandeering of this work for the vilest of nationalistic purposes. I like any Meistersinger where Beckmesser stays on stage after his humiliation. He’s not the “other”—he’s still part of a community.


The production is sumptuously lit and filmed, in the same league as the Met’s venerable Otto Schenk version—and the meadow scene is a real eyeful. The sound is richly detailed with excellent vocal/orchestral balances. (In multichannel, the “auf den theater” brass fanfares are definitely coming from afar.) Subtitles are offered in English, French, and German. Glyndebourne’s Meistersinger goes straight to the top of the heap among the eight video versions in my collection. It registers here, to use David McVicar’s words, as “a profoundly human, wise, warm, loving work.”


FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Friedrich Gulda was born in Vienna on May 16, 1930. He began his musical education at the Grossmann Conservatory and subsequently took private lessons from Felix Pazofsky. From 1942 to 1947 he studied piano at the Vienna Academy of Music under Bruno Seidlhofer and Music Theory and Composition under Joseph Marx. He gave his first public performance in 1944 and, two years later when just 16 years old, won the Geneva International Music Competition. Starting after the Second World War, as a 20-year-old, Gulda established himself as a piano soloist with an excellent international reputation and even performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1950. In the 1950s he was celebrated and considered the leading interpreter of Beethoven in his generation. He founded his own Klassische Orchester Gulda for chamber music with members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to Beethoven, Gulda’s repertoire encompasses works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss, whose Burleske in D minor and lieder are included in this release, with Gulda accompanying soprano Hilde Güden. Gulda was essentially an out-and-out contrarian who showed that a great genius can sometimes be only a step away from a certain madness. While Karl Böhm or Rubinstein admired him as a magnificently talented interpreter of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Gulda could also be provocative – including inciting his fellow concert pianists. Asked about Vladimir Horowitz, Gulda once responded: “Horowitz is a master. Because he is able to do – whatever he wants,” but also added: “But what he is after doesn’t interest me” (Joachim Kaiser).

REVIEW:
Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) was certainly never a conformist pianist. But he was less flamboyant in his youth than in his later years, and he did present new perspectives at the beginning of his career, which helped to provoke a change in thinking. The recordings in this CD box set date from this period.

He recorded the freshly perky Mozart Sonata K. 576 in 1948, and both Concertos K. 503 and 537 in 1955 with the New Symphony Orchestra under Anthony Collins. Gulda’s fresh yet nuanced playing compensates for the weak orchestra’s playing. The Beethoven sonatas Nos. 4, 7, 8 and 19 show the still searching Gulda of 1955 on his way to the 1967 complete recording. The 3rd CD includes the concerto piece by Carl Maria von Weber and the Strauss Burlesque, as well as a set of Strauss songs that Gulda recorded with Hilde Güden in 1956. These are wonderful interpretations of rare freshness and suppleness. Güden’s silvery timbre and her confidently controlled, light vocal line coupled with Gulda’s spontaneous and sensitive playing make for an uncommonly natural performance.

Recorded in 1954, Chopin’s compositions, the 4 Ballades and the 1st Piano Concerto, are among Gulda’s ‘immortal’ recordings. In the 1st Piano Concerto, Gulda collaborates with the more traditional Adrian Boult, but it is precisely the contrast in temperament that leads to special tension and dynamics. This recording has been available several times on various labels, but here it definitely sounds in the best quality so far. Also very exciting are the four ballads, which he plays dramatically and narratively.

Debussy and Ravel, the composers represented on CDs Nos. 5 and 6 of this box, have been Gulda’s recurring preoccupation. The early recordings from 1953 and 1955 may not yet be as stylistically tested on the hard, sharp and pithy of jazz as the late recordings, but their analytically modern style, with clear, precise lines and contours and good transparency, shows the intellectual brilliance of these interpretations.

The bottom line is that this encounter with the young Gulda is a very important one that should help one understand the older musician and could help bring respect to Gulda among those who did not appreciate his later work as much.

-- Pizzicato

I still remember how exciting it was to discover these marvelous tone poems: the mysterious darkness of November Woods, the watery depths of The Garden of Fand, and of course the magnificent vistas revealed in Tintagel. This last was the most familiar, from a classic Barbirolli recording for EMI of English overtures and symphonic poems, but I suspect that this was the next Bax disc that most collectors added to their libraries, assuming they could find it. The performances remain all that one could want: atmospheric, very well played, and beautifully engineered. We've come a long way in our knowledge of this fine composer since the days when Lyrita alone carried the torch for Bax, but these recordings wear their years very lightly and still offer as much listening pleasure as when they were new. For a single-disc collection of the major tone poems, you can't do better than this. [1/10/2007]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

A fascinating assembly of Holstiana. Three of these pieces have already appeared on record before, two of which—the colourful 1921 ballet, The Lure, and Dances from The Morning of the Year (an effective concert suite edited by Imogen Holst and Colin Matthews from Holst's 1926-7 choral ballet)—were available on an earlier Lyrita compilation from 1982, coupled with the ambitious 1904 scena for soprano and orchestra, The Mystic Trumpeter. David Atherton was the admirable conductor on that occasion, with the LSO enthusiastic protagonists and the engineers on top form. Wisely, then, this enterprising label has invited the same conductor (this time with the LPO) to continue the good work, and the result is this notably generous collection of absorbing rarities.

Just one work offers the chance for comparative listening, the haunting Invocation for cello and orchestra from 1911. Imogen Holst has observed that, from a textural point of view, this music presages many features of ''Venus'' from The Planets (indeed, if I'm not mistaken, the cello's opening senza misura passage even quotes a turn of phrase later used in that selfsame movement). Memorably recorded for RCA by Julian Lloyd Webber and Vernon Handley in 1983, this often magical creation is equally well served by these newcomers: perhaps Alexander Baillie is the more hyper-sensitive and tonally beautiful of the two soloists, whereas Handley is a rather more imaginative partner than Atherton. Its companion opus, A Song of the Night for violin and orchestra, was composed in 1905: a less characteristic essay, its central climax glows with romantic fervour, especially in a performance as passionately dedicated as this one.

From 1899 to 1906, Holst worked on his large-scale opera based on Indian mythology, Sita. Colin Matthews has put together this brief orchestral interlude containing music from Act 3: its excitable, very Wagnerian manners are striking, as, for that matter, is Holst's beautifully judged orchestral writing at the hushed conclusion. There's plenty more Wagnerian spectacle in Holst's earliest completed Indian-inspired creation, the 12-minute tone-poem, Indra, from 1903. This colourful, enjoyably rhetorical portrait-in-sound of the god, Indra, and his battle against the drought, again reveals a confident, assertive master of the orchestra, if not without an occasional touch of vulgarity in some of the more over-blown tuttis. The heartfelt, if not especially memorable Elegy in memoriam William Morris in fact comprises the slow movement of Holst's Cotswold Symphony from 1900. To begin with, Holst's processional is momentarily reminiscent of Magnard's glorious Chant funebre, though, as the music progresses, the comparison quickly becomes a cruel one! Finally, there's A Winter Idyll which, although the earliest work on this CD (it dates from 1897, when the composer was still a student at the Royal College of Music), is scored with no little aplomb; certainly, Holst's teacher, Stanford, would have approved of the felicitous transparency and sure design of this, his pupil's very first orchestral work.

In all, a most rewarding survey, handsomely played and engineered, and graced by extensive and knowledgeable booklet-notes from Lewis Foreman.

Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [6/1993]

This final volume contains the recording of the world premiere of Mambo, Blues and Tarantella with soloist Christian Tetzlaff, as well as the first released recordings of on Opened Ground and Texan. "After three years working with Turnage, their composer in residence, the LPO speak his language brilliantly."

John Ireland was another one of those high-quality composers who avoided large forms, and so will always rate as (at best) a "minor master". But his Piano Concerto is an early 20th century masterpiece, a real crowd-pleaser in a Prokofiev-meets-Gershwin sort of way. Eric Parkin is the pianist most closely associated with Ireland's work, and this recording of the concerto is the finest available. Parkin re-recorded the piece for Chandos, but that version is comparatively labored and heavy-handed, as well as glaringly recorded. Here, Parkin plays with an ease of rhythm, a flexibility and flow that makes the music swing as it must, and (as usual) Lyrita's sonics are terrific.

The remainder of the program is scarcely less attractive. These Things Shall Be is an optimistic choral paean that packs a lot of musical material into 20 scant minutes. Satyricon, an overture that for some reason never gets played these days, once again reveals Ireland's high level of melodic inspiration and sheer craftsmanship in those few works he composed with orchestra. The Legend for piano and orchestra has Parkin once again in top form, and all of this music benefits from Adrian Boult's authoritative but unobtrusively sensitive podium guidance. So many of these Lyrita discs are true "building a collection titles"--the one disc you must have if you want the best and most representative selection of its respective composer's work. Here is another in that distinguished line.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This live 2011 concert recording from Royal Festival Hall features two of Britain's finest soloists: tenor Toby Spence and mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, who is particularly renowned for her Mahler interpretations. LPO Principal Guest Conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin has a great affinity with the German Romantic repertoire. His previous LPO Label disc, Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, received great critical acclaim and is one of the most popular discs on the label.

Christoph Eschenbach has a longstanding association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and this release adds to critically acclaimed recording of Bruckner Symphony No. 6 released in 2011. a prolific recording artist over five decades, Eschenbach has recorded as both a conductor and a pianist on labels including Deutsche Grammophon, Sony/BMG, Decca, Ondine, Warner and Koch. The stellar quartet of soloists includes the great lyric soprano Anne Schwanewilms, who enjoys an unparalleled reputation for her performances of Strauss and Wagner, and tenor Nikolai Schukoff who is destined to become a leading voice of his generation.

For collectors of Tchaikovsky Symphonies these recordings of Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3, taken from the Complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies box set are available as a separate release for the first time on the LPO label and along with this re-release of the Manfred Symphony join previous releases of the numbered symphonies as a complete set. Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski is a renowned conductor of Tchaikovsky. The previous release of Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 was a Gramophone recording of the month, number 19 in the Sunday Times 100 best records of the year, a Classic FM album of the week, and one of the Arts Desk's Top Classical albums of 2012. Jurowski's Tchaikovsky has been praised for it's nuance, musical empathy and intelligent phrasing.