For this their fourth album of music for string orchestra, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London present a programme of works by three composers from the Franco-Belgian school of string pedagogy, who were all themselves virtuosic string players. George Enescu studied in Paris and Vienna, spent much of his life in France, and was internationally lauded as a concert violinist and conductor in both Europe and America. Much of his music remained unknown after his death – a situation improved thanks to some high-profile champions of his work, not least his most famous pupil Yehudi Menuhin. When Enescu supplied a preface for a new edition of his Octet, in 1950, he sanctioned its performance by a full string orchestra, the form in which we hear it on this recording. Completed in 1924, Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir is scored for string quartet and string orchestra, enabling Ysaÿe to exploit the contrast between intimate and full string sound, a technique inspired by Vaughan Williams in his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. Affectionately known as the ‘First Lady of Polish Music’, Grazyna Bacewicz was an outstanding virtuoso violinist, a formidable pianist, and ground-breaking composer. A great deal of her output was written for strings, including the Concerto for String Orchestra, written in 1948. Often described as neoclassical, the work takes some inspiration from the baroque concerto grosso, but is distinctly modern in its harmonic language and was particularly admired by Lutoslawski.

The three composers whose works appear on this album are interconnected: Ravel was a mentor to Lennox Berkeley, and Berkeley to Pounds. Le Tombeau de Couperin marks Ravel’s movement towards neoclassicism, its forms and style a re-invention of ones from the French baroque.

Originally written for solo piano, the movements of the suite were dedicated to friends whom Ravel had lost in the First World War. In 1919, he orchestrated four of the six movements (the version performed here). Berkeley met Ravel a number of times in the 1920s, working as an interpreter and tour-guide whilst Ravel was in London. Ravel advised him to study with Nadia Boulanger, which he did, between 1926 and 1932.

Commissioned by Sir Arthur Bliss for the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1942, the Divertimento initially received a mixed reception, but has since found many supporters (including Pounds). The critic Peter Dickinson felt it showed an ‘instinctive and unimpassioned creativeness associated with the French aesthetic, but by no means restricted to it’.

Adam Pounds studied privately with Berkeley in London during the late 1970s, and in his own music has perpetuated the firm commitment of the two earlier composers to clarity and accessibility in everything they wrote. His Third Symphony was written in 2021 and is a response to the national lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pounds states that the piece captures the ‘sadness, humor, determination, and defiance’ which everyone faced at this time – not least musicians. Scored for relatively modest orchestral forces, the work is dedicated to Sinfonia of London and John Wilson who here give the work its world première recording.

During the 1930s, Bliss, Britten, and Berkeley all contributed major works to the repertoire for string orchestra, following in the footsteps of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. They are joined on this album by Frank Bridge whose Lament was composed during the First World War. This is the fourth recording by John Wilson with his award-winning Sinfonia of London. Bliss composed Music for Strings after he had completed the film score for Korda’s Things to Come, driven by his desire to compose a piece of ‘pure music’, expressing his own ideas rather than those of others. Commissioned in May 1937 by Boyd Neel for the Salzburg Festival that summer, Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge was composed at great speed, and helped to establish the young composer’s international reputation. Dedicated to his teacher, Frank Bridge, the theme is taken from the second of Bridge’s Three Idylls for string quartet. Lennox Berkeley composed his Serenade for Strings at Snape Maltings, where he was living with Britten in 1938 / 39. By the time of its completion the nation was at war and the music seems to reflect the composer’s anxious mood as the world faced an uncertain future.

REVIEWS:

The players may have changed since Barbirolli but the spirit has not. And the sound. Sumptuous is one word – but because this is Wilson that goes hand-in-hand with the keenest articulation. There’s a rosiny immediacy about it all, like being on the podium, or better yet inside the sound.. Wilson’s way with strings has come a long way from Hollywood – but the lustre is inescapable.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, February 2021)

Here in the Bridge Lament is a prime example of the heartfelt precision and beauty of tone that typifies John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London. There’s plenty of heart, too, in their superlative treatment of Britten’s marvellous Bridge variations, warmly delivered even during the parody character pieces clustered together in the first half. Wilson’s team prove equally adroit in Berkeley’s Serenade.

– BBC Music Magazine

Following the success of their previous album, English Music for Strings, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London turn their attention to the music of Henri Dutilleux. His ballet Le Loup was composed as a commission for Roland Petit’s dance company and premièred in Paris in March 1953. Rarely recorded – this is the first recording by a non-French orchestra – the work unfolds in three tableaux and tells a convoluted tale of a bridegroom who jilts his bride (to run away with a gypsy) by persuading her that he has been changed into a wolf. Over time she discovers that the wolf is real, but her feelings turn from terror to love and when the alarmed villagers hunt the wolf, she defends him and dies at his side. The album is completed by three world première recordings of new orchestrations (by Kenneth Hesketh) of wind solos written for the Paris Conservatoire in the 1940s. Both the Sarabande et Cortège and Sonate pour hautbois are virtuosic tours de force for their soloists, as is the Sonatine pour flûte, which displays the lyricism, agility, and sparkling incisive qualities of the flute in what became Dutilleux’s most-performed work.

John Wilson comments: My Fair Lady is the quintessential American London musical. There is not a semiquaver or a semi-colon in the wrong place. Steven Wilkie, one of the fiddle players in my orchestra, describes it as The Marriage of Figaro of the twentieth century. And when I asked the great opera conductor Richard Bonynge what the finest post-World War Two operas are, he said, 'My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!... they're the great operas that will live on'. We have recorded every note, including underscoring, plus all the music written but cut before opening, with the instrumentation exactly as it was on opening night. Also, thanks to recent research, we have the restored original orchestrations. The reason I want to record everything the composer, lyricist, book-writer, and orchestrator did is that I believe it is a piece of significance by people who were masters of their art and craft. This was not written in an afternoon; it was chiselled away for months. They were ruthless in excising anything they felt would not make the grade. We have a duty to set down as closely as we can their final thoughts on what they created.

One of the New York Times' 5 Classical Albums to Hear Now

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards

Perhaps nobody since John Barbirolli has been able to make strings sing like the brilliantly talented John Wilson.

Following their critically acclaimed album of English Music for Strings, Sinfonia of London and John Wilson turn to Germany and three outstanding works for string orchestra. Franz Schreker’s Intermezzo, the oldest piece here, was composed in 1900, before Schreker’s rise to fame in the opera houses of Germany and Austria, but shows strong indications of what was to follow. Korngold composed the Symphonische Serenade following his return to Vienna from Hollywood after the Second World War, and shortly before he wrote his Symphony in F sharp. Korngold effortlessly conjures a vivid range of colors and textures from his large forces (32 violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos, and 8 basses) in a work that explores the virtuosity of the players to the full. Composed in 1945, as a reaction to the horrors of the war, and the desecration of German culture, Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings seems to look backwards to the German Romantic tradition (a trait even more evident in his Four Last Songs, of 1948). The moving final passage, marked ‘In Memoriam’, leaves the listener to contemplate in silence.

"Wilson’s release wins hands down. Part of the victory is due to the conductor and string players’ panache…whatever the mood, the Sinfonia’s tone stays full-blooded and refulgent, just like Chandos’s recording." -Times of London

REVIEW:

What a fine and stimulating recording this is. Perhaps nobody since John Barbirolli has been able to make strings sing like the brilliantly talented John Wilson. Franz Schreker’s “Intermezzo” here has a sheen to it that is intensely delicate one minute and impossibly sumptuous the next. Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” has rarely had such an agonizingly drawn out, lovingly burnished performance as this. Even better is the rarity that accompanies it: Korngold’s Symphonic Serenade, a disfigured, difficult recollection of all that poignantly easygoing light music in the Austrian tradition, written when he returned to Vienna from Hollywood. The hush that Wilson finds for its slow movement is indescribably haunting.

-- The New York Times

Since relaunching Sinfonia of London in 2018, John Wilson's hand-picked orchestra has attracted the highest critical acclaim from both national and international press, performed at the BBC Proms every year since 2021 (their live d�but), and made their international d�but at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam in 2025. Regularly touring in the UK, they have also released 25 albums (this is the 26th), covering a wide range of repertoire, including works by Korngold, Respighi, Ravel, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Britten, Walton, Bliss, and Rodgers & Hammerstein. The album opens with Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice, followed by Debussy's Clair de lune (orchestrated by John Wilson). Chabrier's Joyeuse Marche and Ravel's Une Barque sur l'oc�an (orchestrated by their composers) are followed by Saint-Sa�ns' symphonic poem Danse macabre. The programme ends with all of the movements from Bizet's two Carmen Suites, but in John Wilson's preferred order!

John Wilson and Sinfoina of London complete their set of Rachmaninoff symphonies with this recording of the First Symphony and the Symphonic Dances. Rachmaninoff hoped that the First Symphony, composed in 1895, would build on the reputation of his graduation opera Aleko, which had proved a great success. The premiere, in St Petersburg in March 1897, was, however, a disaster. Rumour had it that the conductor, Alexander Glazunov, was drunk: true or false, it seems clear that he had little interest in the piece, leading to a raft of scathing reviews. This setback hit Rachmaninoff very deeply, and is considered by many to be the reason for the following three-year creative block only lifted by a course of hypnotherapy. Rachmaninoff left the score in Russia when he fled the revolution in 1917, and it was subsequently lost. Two years after his death it was reconstructed from a set of orchestral parts in the Leningrad Conservatory, and given it's second performance, in Moscow, in October 1945, since when it has gained it's place as standard orchestral repertoire around the world. The Symphonic Dances were written towards the very end of the composer's life, and started out in a version for two pianos, which Rachmaninoff performed with Vladimir Horowitz. He then set about orchestrating the work, which was first performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy in January 1941. Set in three movements, the Symphonic Dances reference the theme from the final movement of the First Symphony. In this recording, Sinfonia of London plays from John Wilson's own performing edition of the work.

John Wilson and Sinfonia of London release their second album of Rachmaninoff. The Second Symphony was mostly composed in Dresden – where Rachmaninoff was escaping the political and professional pressures of Russia – in 1906 – 07. An hour’s worth of music, the symphony is one of his largest works after the operas, and is widely viewed as one of his greatest works. It was possibly of some significance to the composer, following the less than auspicious début of his First Symphony (which he withdrew after the première). First performed in St Petersburg and Moscow, conducted by the composer, the Second Symphony was an immediate success with audiences and critics alike, and remains a mainstay of the orchestral repertoire to this day. Rachmaninoff dedicated the score to his teacher Sergei Taneyev, who was a pupil of Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff composed the Prélude in C sharp minor in 1892, originally for piano, at the beginning of his career. Stokowski’s orchestration, performed here, whilst not the only one in existence, is certainly the best known and arguably the most successful.

Rachmaninoff’s tone poem The Isle of the Dead was composed in Dresden in 1908 – 09, inspired by the 1880 painting of that name by the Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin. The painting depicts a ferryman rowing a coffin towards the Isle of the Dead, and Rachmaninoff, unusually setting the piece in five beats to the bar, captures the atmosphere and the motion of oars in the water in the most extraordinary detail. Dedicated to the outstanding Ukrainian-born coloratura soprano Antonina Vasilyevna Nezhdanova, the ‘Vocalise’ was first performed, by her with the composer, in January 1916. After creating a version with orchestral accompaniment, Rachmaninoff then produced the version heard here, for orchestra alone.

Following the Russian revolution and his exile to the USA, the compositional output of Rachmaninoff declined dramatically. In great demand both as a virtuoso performer and as a conductor, he toured extensively, but struggled to incorporate ‘modern music’ into his compositional style. In the mid 1930’s he acquired a holiday villa in Lucerne, and surprised the world with his ‘Paganini’ Rhapsody, quickly followed by the Third Symphony. Sinfonia of London and John Wilson demonstrate exceptional ensemble playing throughout, and their glowing string sound suits this repertoire perfectly.

REVIEW:

John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London here deliver an authoritative version of Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony, in impressive SACD surround sound. For those who want an SACD take on the work, this will become the gold standard.

-- Classical CD Choice

Puccini is renowned as one of the greatest opera composers of all time, and his early works - before Manon Lescaut catapulted him to international fame - offer a fascinating insight into his development as a composer. John Wilson and Sinfonia of London explore this repertoire with characteristic style and commitment, leading us on a journey through student compositions and orchestral extracts from his earliest operas. Studying under Amilcare Ponchielli at the Milan Conservatory from 1880 to 1883, he created the Preludio sinfonico (loosely based on Wagner's Prelude to Lohengrin), the Scherzo, Trio, and Adagetto, and Capriccio sinfonico, his graduation piece, which famously pre-echoes the opening of La boh�me by a decade. The one-act opera Le villi was composed for a competition launched by the publisher Sonzogno (Puccini didn't win), whilst themes from the contemporaneous Tre minuetti and Crisantemi (both for string quartet) were subsequently re-cycled in Manon Lescaut. Verdi's publisher, Ricordi, bought the rights to Le villi, and commissioned a new work at the same time: Edgar, which, largely owing to the absurd plot, is arguably Puccini's only failure, despite some fully mature music easily the match of the more celebrated scores.

Ravel’s early masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloé, was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes, and was premièred in the Théâtre du Châtelet in July 1912. Described by Ravel as a ‘symphonie chorégraphique’ (choreographic symphony), the work was performed just twice in that 1912 season, and was given only three more performances the following year. Press reaction was muted, and it is now much more often performed as a concert work than as a ballet. Daphnis, a shepherd, and Dorcon, a cowherd, dance for the privilege of a kiss from Chloé. Daphnis wins the contest and Chloé’s kiss leaves him in ecstasy. Chloé is kidnapped by a band of pirates; Daphnis prostrates himself before the god Pan. The pirates are celebrating their successful raid in their camp when Pan appears and frightens them all away. Some shepherds find Chloé (with Pan’s help) and reunite her with Daphnis.

This recording uses John Wilson’s new performing edition of the work, a project which Wilson took on during the pandemic lockdown in 2020. He writes: ‘The standard performing materials for Daphnis et Chloé have long been the subject of much discussion among orchestral players, conductors, and musicologists. Aside from a mass of errors in the 1913 published full score, the orchestral parts contain many hundreds of inconsistencies, omissions, and wrong notes. It became apparent that numerous changes made by Ravel in rehearsals were transferred directly into the parts but not carried over into the full score. I have tried to rationalise such (and other) inconsistencies as best I could to arrive at what is, I hope, a useful practical performing edition in which the parts match the full score in every detail and – crucially, for a work of such complexity – everything is carefully laid out and easy to read.’

New York Times Best (Classical Tracks) of 2022 - Korngold: ‘The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex’ Overture

Gramophone Magazine's Editors Choice - Awards Issue 2022

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson present an album that celebrates the golden age of Hollywood. Sinfonia of London rose to fame in the 1950s as the leading recording orchestra of the day, appearing in the musical credits of more than 300 films, including the 1958 soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann for Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Reformed by John Wilson in 2018 as a recording orchestra, and made-up of some of London’s finest orchestral musicians, their first recording of Korngold’s Symphony in F# won the orchestral award from BBC music magazine, and drew critical acclaim worldwide. Korngold’s Overture from the private lives of Elizabeth and Essex which opens the program is an excellent demonstration of his rich, chromatic sound-world that set a blue-print for the Hollywood sound and so many composers that followed. Although the songs were written by Harold Arlen, it was Herbert Stothart’s score for The Wizard of Oz that won the Oscar, and it is his suite from the movie that features here. There are also suites from Max Steiner’s Now, Voyager and Franz Waxman’s Rebecca (receiving here it’s premiere recording). Shorter pieces from David Raksin, Frederick Lowe, Johnny Mandel and Alfred Newman complete this rewarding program.

REVIEWS:

It would be easy to argue that a track from any of the five sensational recordings John Wilson and his elite Sinfonia of London have released this year should be on this list, but every time I play this Korngold, I find it hard to move on to anything else. The virtuosity Wilson lavishes on a composer he is determined to restore to stature is stunning, no matter how many times you hear it.

-- New York Times

Wilson has listened long and hard to the way the Hollywood studio orchestras played this music and has recreated it to the manner born for our technologically advanced times.

-- Gramophone

The recognizable yet well-curated repertoire, along with the instrumentalists’ enthusiastic performances will certainly elicit a sense of nostalgia—and maybe a desire to rewatch—the films themselves. A refreshing album that makes for a delightful listen.”

-- The Classic Review

I enjoyed this album very much indeed. The playing is superb from start to finish…But it’s the composers who must take the final bow. This programme demonstrates in spades the invention and craftsmanship of some of the composers – and arrangers – who were at the musical heart of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The music sounds superb on this disc. Treat yourself to an hour of pure musical pleasure.”

-- MusicWeb International

Few film soundtracks these days can compare with Hollywood’s heyday, and few soundtrack albums have ever sounded as good as this. Anyone with even the slightest interest in the period needs this magnificent recording.”

-- Limelight (Editor’s Choice)

An exercise in unapologetic nostalgia, this lovely celebration of classic Hollywood film scores is delivered with deep care and affection by Wilson and his dependably excellent players…

-- Times of London

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Following their second BBC Music Magazine Award (for Respighi’s Roman Trilogy) and universal praise for their first concert (at the BBC Proms in 2021), Sinfonia of London and John Wilson turn to the orchestral works of Ravel for this their 6th studio album. Not only an outstanding pianist and one of France’s greatest composers, Maurice Ravel is acclaimed as one of the greatest orchestrators of all time. His unique ability to conjure the widest possible range of colors and textures from the orchestral palette is amply demonstrated on this album. The program opens with La Valse, conceived as a snapshot of 1850’s Vienna. The continuous sequence of waltzes becomes increasingly insistent until the sound is almost utterly overwhelming. Other ballets also feature – Ma Mère L’Oye (Mother goose) and the infamous Boléro, both recorded here for the first time in their original versions. Ravel’s orchestrations of his own own piano works complete the program: Valses nobles et sentimentales, Pavane pour une infante défunte and Alborada del gracioso, which demonstrates both Ravel’s fascination with Spanish sounds and culture, and the sheer virtuosity of orchestral playing from the Sinfonia of London.

REVIEW:

What really shines here is the illumination of so many coloristic permutations, sounding for all the world as if Ravel had just in this moment heard them.

-- Gramophone (Editor's Choice, March 2022)

John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London shine in an all-Korngold programme full of wit, romanticism, sensitivity, and virtuosity – an orchestral tour de force! Conductor John Wilson has earned a reputation for his interpretations of British and American repertoire in particular. He is a favourite of many of the UK’s orchestras and festivals including the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Festival and is currently Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. John is also in demand across the world at the very highest level, conducting the major orchestras of Sydney, Berlin, Budapest, Amsterdam, Oslo amongst many others, and has a large and growing discography, covering a wide range of repertoire.

-----

REVIEW:

Wilson's performance of the symphony is one of the most athletic on record. Rhythms are springy and purposeful; the great Adagio really strives, as well as sings, and I’ve rarely heard it probe deeper. Every phrase speaks; textures are translucent and detailed (even at the dizzying speed of the Scherzo), and the string sound glows from within, with portamento very much at the service of expression. Wilson clearly sees Korngold’s Symphony (rightly) as part of the Viennese classical tradition. The result is both gripping and sincerely moving.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

The British soprano Linda Richardson has performed extensively across the UK and continental Europe under conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Edo de Waart, Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Rustioni, Libor Pešek, and Carlo Rizzi. Her extensive repertoire includes roles ranging from Monteverdi and Mozart to Janá?ek, Britten, and Wagner. Linda Richardson writes: ‘I have had the privilege of performing many of the great leading soprano roles in the operatic repertoire, but as my career progressed, I found a special love and affinity for the roles that stood as pillars in Italian opera. The beautiful melodic lines, dramatic language, and the overall musical craftsmanship of these Italian composers make their characters especially thrilling. I chose these particular arias because they show the huge variety of heroines that can be found in the greatest Italian operas. Although most of the arias are expressions of love and loss it is the individual emotional journey of each character which I find so compelling.’

Henry James’s novella has become notorious as at once the most stylish and elusively ambiguous of all nineteenth-century ghost stories. In June 1932, the eighteen-year-old Benjamin Britten heard a radio adaptation of James’s story and noted in his diary that it was ‘wonderful, impressive but terribly eerie & scary’. He read the novella for himself in January the following year, telling his diary that he still found it ‘glorious & eerie’ and judging it to be an ‘incredible masterpiece’. His subsequent operatic setting is unequivocally a masterpiece, and here receives a first-class production made for television with an outstanding cast led by Robert Murray and Rhian Lois, accompanied by Sinfonia of London and conducted by John Wilson.

British conductor Sir John Barbirolli is remembered most for his relationship with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, having saved the ensemble from dissolution in 1943. He spent the rest of his life with this ensemble. This two disc set features Barbirolli conducting the Halle Orchestra, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Sinfonia of London. The works on this release are all by English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, and were recorded between 1957 and 1962.

Following the widespread critical acclaim of their first two recordings – including a BBC Music Magazine Award – John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London turn to Respighi’s Roman Trilogy for their third release. Born in Bologna in 1879, Respighi trained as a violinist and composer, and travelled extensively. His influences are therefore wide-ranging, from Richard Strauss and Debussy to Rimsky-Korsakov (who taught him orchestration) in addition to a love of – and fascination with – Plainsong and music of the Italian baroque. Fountains of Rome was the first of these three great tone poems, composed between 1913 and 1916, and inspired by a series of photographs given to him by the artist Edita Broglio. Intensely programmatic, the work sees Respighi setting out to evoke ‘sentiments and visions suggested… by four of Rome’s fountains contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer’. Pines of Rome was completed in 1924 – a particularly turbulent time in Italy, following Mussolini’s appointment as Prime Minister, in 1922. Like Fountains, the work is explicitly programmatic, set in four sections, and calling for extremely large orchestral forces – including a gramophone recording of a nightingale in the third movement. Roman Festivals was premiered in 1928 by the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, who was a great supporter of Respighi and regularly performed his works throughout his career. Again, in four parts, Festivals calls for the largest orchestration of all, including a vast array of percussion as well as organ, four-hand piano and mandolin. Despite some negative criticism when they were first introduced, these works have found favor with concert goers around the world and been regularly performed ever since.

John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London release their second album, following widespread and universal critical acclaim for their first recording, of Korngold’s Symphony in F sharp. This new recording explores the unique sound world of French orchestral music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The programme juxtaposes well-known favorites, such as Debussy’s Prélude àl’après-midi d’un faune, Massenet’s ‘Méditation’ from Thaïs, with pieces far more rarely heard, for example Duruflé’s Trois Danses and Saint-Saëns’s Le Rouet d’Omphale). Whether specifically evoking the ‘exoticism’ of Spain or North Africa (as was the fashion in French music of this era), or creating a less defined, impressionistic atmosphere, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London capture the mood and spirit of these pieces with consummate skill and outstanding musicianship. Originally formed in 1955, Sinfonia of London was re-established in 2018 by the British conductor John Wilson to devote itself, at least initially, to recording projects, of which this is the second album.

REVIEW:

Wilson has the ability to make familiar music sound wonderfully fresh and new-minted, all the while carefully judging and calibrating the sound world of each piece. The enthusiasm that he elicits from his orchestra is very much apparent on every track, though what really impresses is the finesse as well as the virtuosity of the playing, the refinement of detail, the subtlety of texture and color.

– Gramophone

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson start a new series of recordings of works by Sir William Walton with this album featuring Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in the Violin Concerto. Lovell-Jones has soloed with major orchestras internationally, broadcasting on radio and television. As leader of the multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London, he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded numerous albums, and is the winner of a number of significant international competitions. Commissioned by Jascha Heifetz, the Concerto was premiered in 1939, in America, and was enthusiastically received. Inspired by Walton's friend and lover Alice Wimborne, the work is extremely lyrical and passionate in nature, sporting a wild, virtuosic Tarantella as the second movement. Alice was also a driving force behind the inception of Walton's first grand opera, Troilus and Cressida, composed over almost a decade, largely after her untimely death. Here we hear the four-movement orchestral suite compiled in 1987 by Christopher Palmer, at the instigation of Lady Walton and his lifelong publisher OUP. Walton's overture Portsmouth Point is the earliest work on the album, premiered in 1926.

Following the success of last year's release of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London turn their attention to Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel. As in the case of the previous release in the series, this world premiere recording of the complete score features every note of music played at the first Broadway performance, here in the full thirty-five-piece orchestration made by Don Walker for the original production. The outstanding cast, led by Nathaniel Hackmann (Billy Bigelow), Mikaela Bennett (Julie Jordan), Sierra Boggess (Carrie Pipperidge), and Julian Ovenden (Enoch Snow), also features Francesca Chiejina (Nettie Fowler) and David Seadon-Young (Jigger Craigin). The extensive chorus material is sung by the 'Carousel' Ensemble - twenty-four young singers all currently working on stage across London's West End. John Wilson comments: 'Carousel is Rodgers & Hammerstein's greatest achievement. In it, Rodgers manages to create a score with operatic aspirations and dimensions. Everything in the score serves a dramatic purpose. Even in it's texture you can hear orchestral effects that are there to underline the drama's emotions, whether that's unease or joy or whatever. The drama is amplified by what's happening in the music.' Recorded in Surround Sound and Dolby Atmos, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel will be available on Hybrid SACD and in spatial audio.

The First Symphony was largely inspired by the composer's tempestuous love affair with the widowed Baroness Imma von Doernberg, whom Walton met in 1929 and with whom he was living on the Continent in the early 1930s. Although the work was long in gestation, with a particular delay in the composition of the finale, the result was universally acclaimed as an outstanding success, with John Ireland commenting "unlike any other English symphony, this is in the real line of symphonic tradition. It is simply colossal, grand, original, and moving to the emotions to the most extreme degree... It has established you as the most vital and original genius in Europe". Walton's star was in the descendent through the 1950's, with a poor reception to his opera Troilus & Cressida, and equally negative comments for his Cello Concerto, which was widely considered to be embarrassingly old-fashioned in it's essentially neo-romantic idiom. Commissioned by Gregor Piatigorsky (at the suggestion of Heifetz), the work was first performed in Boston under Charles Munch in January 1957, with the UK premiere under Sir Malcolm Sargent following a month later. Walton was unable to attend that concert as he was hospitalised following a car accident on the journey to London from his home in Italy. Now widely perceived as one of Walton's most important late scores, the work is performed here by Sinfonia of London's principal cellist Jonathan Aasgaard.

Sinfonia of London's second album of works of Kenneth Fuchs features four world premiere recordings. Two of the works feature soloists: the Bass Trombone Concerto loosely follows sonata form whilst utilising the full range of the instrument, and revelling in it's lyrical side. Eventide, for alto saxophone and orchestra, is a re-working of an earlier concerto that Fuchs wrote for cor anglais. Described by the composer as a set of 'fantasy variations based upon the simple triadic intervals typical of spirituals', the alto saxophone version was composed for this album's soloist, Tim McAllister. Point of Tranquility was originally composed for wind band, but Fuchs then prepared this orchestral version at the request of JoAnn Falletta for her Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece is inspired by Fuchs's reaction to the eponymous painting by Morris Louis. The orchestral suite Light Year is also inspired by a series of paintings, these ones by Helen Frankenthaler. Cast in six movements, the extremely evocative work captures the breath-taking scale and mysterious nature of the universe. Light Year was composed for and dedicated to John Wilson and Sinfonia of London.

Grammy-Award-winning Kenneth Fuchs (born 1956) is without doubt one of American music’s leading orchestral composers. His orchestral output has grown and developed to encompass a wide range of genres, from overtures and tone poems to suites and concertos (ten to date, including ones for string quartet, electric guitar, and piano, the last entitled Spiritualist), inspired by a diverse range of subjects, testimony to his wide sympathies and fields of knowledge. His output includes chamber music (including five string quartets), solos and duos, vocal and choral music, and four chamber musicals. Cloud Slant is a virtuoso orchestral concerto based on three of Helen Frankenthaler’s canvasses: Blue Fall (1966), Flood (1967), and Cloud Slant (1968)–not just musical depictions of them but also the composer’s reactions to their artistic sweep and power.

The flute was Fuchs’ first instrument, so it was inevitable that he would compose a flute concerto. However, it was not until 2019 that he set about the task – for the flautist Peg Luke, to whom the concerto is dedicated. As is customary of compositions by this composer, the concerto carries a descriptive title, Solitary the Thrush, a reference to lines from Whitman’s elegy for Abraham Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d'. Commissioned by the Californian Musique Sur La Mer Orchestras, Pacific Visions is scored for string orchestra, and is a single, dynamic movement sub-divided into five sections. Quiet in the Land, a Poem for Orchestra is a revision of a chamber work Fuchs composed in 2003, inspired by the rolling prairie of the Midwestern United States and the ‘immense arching sky’ under which it sits, cast against the impact of the Second Gulf War which had then recently broken out. The orchestral version heard here was composed in 2017 for the Phoenix Symphony. The album was recorded in Surround Sound, and is available as a Hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

REVIEW:

The scores, as heard here in gloriously deep-staged and brilliant sound, are awash with oxygen and rich in melody. The players and conductor are celebrities and their playing is of a piece with that hard-won status.

The sound style of these four pieces, written between 2016 and 2021, is inviting; there are few complexities of texture. The scores are oxygen-rich and their skies are blue Californian or Mid-West vaults. The explosion of cornflower blue is that of Hockney’s A bigger splash and almost has you reaching for the aural equivalent of Ray-Bans. His sound signature is stable and uniform without being tedious. Allowing for passing echoes of others, like Martinů, he has his own sound and you can almost hear him intoning his article of faith: to thine own self be true.

The first piece is a concerto for orchestra in three movements: Cloud Slant (2020-2021). Impressions flood in: a Bernstein brilliance, succulent softness, very exposed Britten-like writing, as in the Grimes Interludes. It’s all superbly recorded[.]

The booklet notes are by Guy Rickards – so we are in safe hands – and are in English, German and French. They tell us much of what we need to know. Even so, I would have liked a lot more about what the music meant to the composer, a fuller biographical setting and what stung Fuchs into creating the music.

Fuchs has a brilliant tonal voice and here it is heard through a medium that equates to un-smeared dustless glass.

-- MusicWeb International

The Forgotten Rite, from 1913, is one of Ireland's earliest orchestral compositions. The symphonic rhapsody Mai-Dun was inspired by the Dorset countryside – Thomas Hardy Country – a landscape that exerted a lifelong influence on Ireland. While it was commissioned for the national Brass Band Championships in 1932, Ireland later arranged the central two movements of A Downland Suite for strings. The first and last movements were later arranged by his pupil Geoffrey Bush. The overture Satyricon was one of Ireland’s final large-scale works, and is based upon texts by the Roman writer Gaius (or, in some sources, Titus) Petronius Arbiter, a courtier of Nero. A London Overture and the Epic March were both commissioned by the BBC – the latter as a morale-booster during World War II. It was during this period that Ireland orchestrated The Holy Boy – a piano piece composed on Christmas Day in 1913. John Wilson and Sinfonia of London present these works with care and conviction, revealing the great quality of this unjustly neglected composer.

REVIEW:

I am very enthusiastic about the recorded quality we get here. A mildly reverberant acoustic gives a perfect cushion for the orchestra, and the strings in A Downland Suite are splendid in their unanimity and fullness of tone. The rest of the very fine orchestra play as expertly as one would expect given that the Sinfonia was re-established in 2018 as a recording orchestra, staffed by top players from British and international ensembles. It has also given public performances, and is scheduled to appear at the BBC Proms on July 16^th, in an all-English program of Elgar, Vaughan Wlliams and Bax, amongst others.

I am also enthusiastic about the performances, conducted with the necessary verve or gentleness as appropriate.

The presentation is up to Chandos’s normal high standards, with a very detailed analysis of each work and a history of the orchestra, accompanying a brief biography of John Wilson, all in English, French and German."

--MusicWeb International (Jim Westhead)

This keenly anticipated album from Sinfonia of London and John Wilson features two of the greatest British works for string orchestra: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. Elgar’s ground-breaking work, commissioned for the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra and premièred in 1905, is inspired by the baroque concerto grosso, and features a solo string quartet contrasted with the full symphonic string section. These orchestral forces were also adopted by Herbert Howells in his Concerto for String Orchestra, from 1938. Delius’s Late Swallows is the only piece not originally composed for string orchestra; it was arranged (from the slow movement of Delius’s String Quartet) by his amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD, and digitally in Spatial Audio.

REVIEW:

As ever, the brilliance of the playing makes this essential listening, the precision and attention to detail alive and exhilarating. The entire disc holds the listener in its grip, but the last movement of the Elgar, urgent and impassioned, has you on the edge of your seat: a tour de force.

-- Guardian (UK)

A MusicWeb International Recommended Recording

I think that this is tenth disc to be issued by Chandos in their series of recordings by The Sinfonia of London under John Wilson. All are Super Audio CDs recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz, and in order to appreciate the full glory of the sound, it is necessary to play them through an SACD player, although I hasten to add that they will reproduce at CD quality when played through a standard CD player. If you have multi-channel Hi-Fi, the extra fullness of surround sound can also be experienced.

Given that the Sinfonia of London was re-established in 2018 as a recording orchestra, staffed by top players from British and international ensembles, the superb ensemble playing is not surprising, and the Chandos recording engineers have given it the very fullest of service...A mildly reverberant acoustic provides a perfect cushion for the orchestra, and, as elsewhere, the strings in the vigorous outer movements of the Howells Concerto are splendid in their unanimity and fullness of tone. The necessarily less aggressive playing in the slow movement has a lovely bloom to the playing.

The disc closes with a fine performance of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, and as in the Tallis Fantasia, I soon became aware of the extremes of dynamic achieved. This lovely, utterly memorable work is so familiar that I just sat back and let it wash over me.

The presentation of the SACD is up to Chandos’ normal high standards, with a detailed analysis of the gestation and structure of each work (particularly of the Howells) and a history of the orchestra, accompanying a brief biography of John Wilson, all in English, French and German.

-- MusicWeb International (Jim Westhead)