Neeme Järvi is back conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the third of four albums featuring Henk de Vlieger's bold arrangements of operas by Wagner. Of the first album (CHSA 5060), Classic FM wrote: 'Dutch composer Henk de Vlieger builds a penetrating symphonic poem that reflects the dramatic depths of The Ring.' In Volume 3, De Vlieger turns to Wagner's tragic romantic opera Tristan und Isolde, which is here treated symphonically. The key themes of anticipation, longing, rapture, separation, hope, death, and transfiguration are expressed solely through orchestral forces. A particularly striking feature of the lovers' duet, a movement entitled 'Nachtgesang', is the conspicuous presence of the violin and the clarinet, which pick out the sung parts of the two lovers. The movement ends on an unresolved chord followed by a compelling caesura, which symbolises the painful realisation that it will never be possible for them to fulfil their great love. This disc also includes the overture to Wagner's Die Feen. This was the composer's first great romantic, although less well-known, opera. The overall style of the work, based on La donna serpente by Carlo Gozzi, owes its essentials to Beethoven, Marschner, and Weber - something that Wagner himself never hid in the least. However, the opera also displays clearly audible foreshadowings of the composer's later works, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, in particular. Wagner based Das Liebesverbot on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and included on this disc is the overture to the opera. It is perhaps the most Mediterranean-sounding of the composer's operas, something especially apparent in the brimming vitality of the overture in which the tone is set straight away by the sparkling contributions of castanets, triangle, and tambourine. Described as a 'große komische Oper', it was composed in 1834, and Wagner conducted the premiere at Magdeburg in 1836. The first performance poorly attended and involving a lead singer who forgot the words and had to improvise, the opera was a resounding flop and its second performance had to be cancelled after a fist-fight broke out backstage between the prima donna's husband and a leading tenor before the curtain had even risen. The opera was never performed again in Wagner's lifetime.

This re-issue brings together the Violin Concertos of Prokofiev, along with Violin Sonata No.1, performed by Lydia Mordkovitch under Neeme Jarvi. 'Jarvi is an outstanding collaborator. His feeling for this composer's music is well established, and he brings out details that other conductors are content to overlook. Ms Mordkovitch has a powerful musical voice and a committed approach. I have returned to this recording with increasing fascination and would recommend it highly.' American Record Guide

Recent News Tasmin Little has scooped the Critics' Award at the 2011 Classic Brit Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London on 12 May, for her recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis Recent reviews The CD received a string of superlative reviews on its initial release: 'Little tantalises with a winning combination of heartfelt passion and engaging simplicity that radiates beguiling warmth.' Julian Haylock, Classic FM ***** 'For sheer beauty of tone and expressive nostalgia, Tasmin Little and Sir Andrew Davis out-Elgar their rivals.' Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph 'Tasmin Little's [recording] goes right to the top of the class.' David Mellor, The Mail on Sunday Edward Greenfield in Gramophone ('Editor's Choice') described Tasmin Little's playing as masterly'. The long-awaited and much anticipated recording by Tasmin Little of Elgar's Violin Concerto will be released this November, 100 years after the work's first performance. In concert Tasmin Little is closely associated with this concerto, having celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Edward Elgar with performances of it on a major tour to Southeast Asia and Australia in 2007; she has also performed the concerto extensively in London: at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, and with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall. What makes this recording especially interesting is that she has included the cadenza used in the work's first recording, made in 1916 with Marie Hall. For that occasion, Elgar, amongst other things, added harps to counter the sonic limitations of the acoustic recording process. For those used to hearing the standard version, also included, the result makes for fascinating listening, and the recording will prove a valuable addition to the Elgar discography. The 1916 version of the cadenza has been tracked separately. Tasmin Little: 'I have waited a long time to record the Elgar Concerto, a work that I have been playing for twenty years and one which is so close to my heart. In the inspirational Andrew Davis and the RSNO's commitment, I found exactly the right partnership for this monumental work.' The Violin Concerto is complemented by another piece for violin and orchestra, the charming Interlude from The Crown of India, as well as the rarely recorded but imposing Polonia, an inventive and colourful work incorporating much Polish melodic material. This was commissioned by the Polish conductor Emil Ml~ynarski in 1915 and dedicated to Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist composer and, later, Prime Minister of Poland. Since coming to prominence as a finalist in the string section of the 1982 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Tasmin Little has enjoyed an international career, making more than twenty recordings. Highly imaginative in her approach to classical music, she received the 2008 Classic FM / Gramophone Award for Audience Innovation in London for the project 'The Naked Violin'. Whilst she has made superb recordings of the great popular violin concertos, including those by Bruch, Brahms, and Sibelius, she has made a speciality of recording and performing less familiar repertoire, especially neglected British works. On Chandos, she has released a recording of Finzi's Violin Concerto to tremendous critical acclaim (CHAN 9888). Sir Andrew Davis is famous for his performances of British music in general, and of the music of Elgar in particular. Last year he had great success with the premiere recording of Elgar's The Crown of India on Chandos (CHAN 10570(2)). Chandos also has a long association with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Over the last thirty years the label, in partnership with the RSNO, has produced a string of award winning CDs, notable among much else for their sound quality. This new CD, recorded in five-channel surround sound, continues that tradition.

Almost forty years after his first recording on Chandos, this unique limited-edition release gathers some of the best and most-awarded recordings on the label by one of the most prolific conductors of all time: Neeme Järvi. It highlights a 200+ discography that explores an astonishingly wide repertoire, with selections from the legendary complete series of Prokofiev’s symphonies and Tchaikovsky’s ballets to the groundbreaking discoveries of composers such as Atterberg or Suchon. It features nearly a dozen of the numerous orchestras with which he has collaborated, including the RSNO, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all here celebrated at their best. Offered at a very special price and retaining the original covers, this product also includes very special notes by James Jolly, Editor in Chief of Gramophone, as well as exclusive photos and interviews with figures central to Järvi’s extraordinary musical life.

Past praise of previously released material included in this set:

Prokofiev: Symphony No 6, Waltzes Suite / Järvi, SNO

As in all of his Prokofiev symphony recordings–this was the first, by the way–Järvi really digs into the music. The engineering is as big and bold as the performances. This recording deserves classic status.

– ClassicsToday

Smetana: Má Vlast / Järvi, Detroit Symphony

Järvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra deliver an expansive reading of the complete work, and their feeling for the music's vivid imagery and richly Romantic expression is spot on.

– All Music Guide

The Concerto is a strong and compelling work. . . . The Scherzo is a brilliant affair and the slow movement is placed last, poetic and passionate, resolving some of the cogently argued conflicts of the first movement. Wallfisch's playing is first-rate throughout. . . . [The Third Symphony] is more of an orchestral song cycle than a symphony, although there is certainly a symphonic breadth and logic in the music. . . . The central setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem about Pan discovering how to make music from a reed is a brilliant achievement, with Neil Mackie an excellent soloist. . . . If you don't know [Leighton's] music, make a start with this disc. It is strongly recommended. -- Gramophone

This notable new compilation will be of special interest to Strauss fans for it contains some of the composer's earliest work. The charming, rarely recorded Second Symphony in F minor was premiered when the composer was just twenty and the rich and flowing Romanze in F major dates from a year earlier. It is generally acknowledged that Järvi's accounts of Richard Strauss's orchestral works ranks amongst the finest available and here he works his usual magic to provide readings that have sweep, atmosphere and grandeur.

This first-ever recording of the original version of Anton Bruckner's sweeping Symphony No. 1 marked the final great achievement of the acclaimed Bruckner conductor, Georg Tintner, who died in 1999. Following the premiere of the symphony in 1868, Bruckner's devoted conductor friends, all of whom were die-hard Wagnerians like Bruckner himself, championed the work (and Bruckner's other compositions) while subjecting it to their own modifications in order to make Bruckner sound more Wagnerian! Regrettably, the trusting Bruckner sometimes allowed and even abetted these interventions. With the advantage of twenty-twenty hindsight, one can see that Bruckner was, from the beginning, a majestically individual composer and should have been left to his own devices. Under the knowing hand of Tintner, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra reveals this symphony's sprawling orchestral architecture as it was first conceived. The first two movements are surprisingly novel for a fledgling essay in the genre. The second movement already sets the standard for those otherworldly adagio movements, with their glacially unfolding melodies, that populate Bruckner's symphonies.

Lyricism and obsessive patterns are finely realised by the RSNO, while conductor Marin Alsop shows a keen sensitivity to both scores and balances their rhetoric with the clean-edged clarity of their textures. In addition, her performance of the now-ubiquitous Adagio for Strings is a model of restraint, proving the saying that less equals more. Attractive sound, with a wide range and plenty of definition. - BBC Music Magazine