German: Seasons; Richard III Overture; Theme & Diversions / Penny, RTÉ Orchestra
Naxos
CD
$19.99Nov 18, 2022
Jettisoning the support of teaching and conducting appointments early in his career and working solely as a professional composer, Sir Edward German rose to prominence as a composer of orchestral music in the last decade of the 19th century. The popularity of his music resulted in prestigious commissions from festivals and theatrical producers, such as The Seasons written for the 1899 Norwich Festival, with its masterly evocations of nature, nostalgic yearnings and rustic festivities. The Theme and Six Diversions, one of the composer’s finest concert works, owed its inspiration to a suggestion by German’s friend and admirer Sir Edward Elgar.
Symphony 5 In C Minor 67 / Die Fledermaus Overture
NKB Record
CD
$18.99May 03, 2019
This recording, unlike the previous two albums, was made in the newly renovated Slovak Philharmonic Hall. Reflecting the bright and festive atmosphere of this hall, this performance changes the heavy impression of anguished "Destiny" which has prevailed until now. The progression of this symphony, starting with the first movement which inspires violent anxiety, to a reversal in the warm and friendly second movement, to the wrenching third movement, and finishing with the strong resoluteness of the fourth movement, is testimony to the lifetime of Beethoven. The two works of Johann Strauss let you enjoy the good old Vienna atmosphere, appropriate to the home of this orchestra. Without aggressive pressure, with a characteristic generous and spacious tempo, this performance dispels the stern image which tends to follow this work around.
This outstanding new release is Volume 12 in the Lucerne Festival edition produced by Audite. In cooperation with Audite, Lucerne Festival presents outstanding concert recordings of artists who have shaped the festival throughout its history. The aim of this edition is to rediscover treasures- most of which have not been previously released- from the first six decades of the festival, which was founded in 1938 with a special gala concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. These recordings have been made available by the archives of SRF Swiss Radio and Television. This edition represents a sonic history of the festival. This installment is a sensational archive discovery including two of Wilhelm Furtwangler’s favorites: a live recording of the Manfred Overture (1953), presumed lost until recently and now released for the very first time, alongside Beethoven’s Eroica and Schumann’s Fourth Symphonies, remastered for the first time using original tapes.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" / Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra
Channel Classics
SACD
$23.99Apr 26, 2024
Continuing his cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer releases Symphony No. 3, ‘Eroica’ paired with the Coriolan Overture. These warhorses of the symphonic repertoire showcase how Beethoven writes not only dramatically, but also profoundly lyrically. Fischer’s process of recording the cycle has been notably drawn out, having first insisted on performing and touring the music with his outstanding orchestra before committing to a studio recording. Previous releases feature Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7. They have been roundly praised, with The Guardian saying “the performance of the Seventh ranks, without question, among the greatest ever recorded. Utterly compelling.”
Ciurlionis: The Sea, In the Forest & Kestutis Overture / Pitrenas, Lithuanian National Symphony
Ondine
CD
$18.99Apr 03, 2020
This release by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Modestas Pitrenas includes the complete surviving symphonic oeuvre of the great Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875–1911) restored into their original versions. Ciurlionis was conceptually ahead of his time and the uniqueness and aesthetic value of his compositions have been fully understood only during the last decades. For the international audience ?iurlionisis particularly known as a painter who gave titles related to music to his paintings, but he wrote an impressive catalogue of at least over 340 music compositions, including10 orchestral works. ?iurlionis studied composition under professor Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. He submerged himself into investigation of orchestrations of Hector Berlioz and especially Richard Strauss. His symphonic poems In the Forest (1900–1901) and The Sea (1903–1907) remain the cornerstones of Lithuanian symphonic repertoire. In the Forest brought Lithuanian professional academic music into existence, while The Sea remains an unsurpassed peak in the history of Lithuanian symphonic literature. Sadly, both works were premiered only after the composer’s death, in 1911 and 1936.Although both works were published, it was only in recent years when they have been cleared of editions by other composers back into their original form finally bringing to the listener the way how the composer envisioned them. The 30-minute symphonic poem The Sea has particularly sad history of editions and ‘improvements’ by other composers, but this recording includes the work in its original form.
Live from Prague Spring Festival - Prague Spring Internation
ArcoDiva
CD
$18.99Jul 01, 2022
ArcoDiva's newest release presents works for oboe performed by Martin Danek, a graduate of the prestigious Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin and winner of the 2019 Prague Spring International Competition. He says: "I've been living abroad for a long time, and playing in my own country is always something special", says Mr. Danek. "This is especially true in the case of Prague Spring, with it's festive atmosphere, which I remember from my childhood. The combinations of instruments and works on this program will be unusual, so it will be a unique experience for both the audience and the performers."
World Orchestra For Peace - Valery Gergiev At The Abu Dhabi Festival
C Major Entertainment
DVD
$26.99Aug 30, 2011
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5. ROSSINI William Tell: Overture. PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, “Classical” • Valery Gergiev, cond; World O for Peace • C MAJOR 707008 (DVD: 104:00) Live: Abu Dhabi 1/4/2011
& SOLTI’S VISION—THE WORLD ORCHESTRA FOR PEACE: THE FIRST 15 YEARS 1995–2010
The World Orchestra for Peace was founded by Sir Georg Solti in 1995, incorporating players from around the globe. Solti’s successor as its conductor is Valery Gergiev, who leads the present concert at the Abu Dhabi Festival, the orchestra’s first appearance in the Arab world. The DVD contains a pleasant bonus feature about the history of the orchestra and its workings. One thing that this documentary makes clear is the affection between Gergiev and his players. With what essentially is a pick-up orchestra, Gergiev hones an ensemble of beauty and refinement, with a powerful sonority. I concur with the audience in Abu Dhabi; this concert is a resounding success.
The William Tell Overture receives beautiful playing from the solo cello, flute, and English horn, plus an incisive response by the trombone choir. The interpretation is unhackneyed—one hears Gergiev’s skill as an opera conductor in setting an atmosphere. His hands flutter to create tension. The Lone Ranger music possesses a fine edge and is very exciting; I couldn’t help but conduct along with it. Gergiev takes the first three movements of the “Classical” Symphony at a leisurely pace. He begins the first movement by making circles with his right hand, suggesting the long line of the music. Gergiev’s gestures remind me of a remark Leonard Bernstein made to Glenn Dicterow: “I’m not a time beater. I’m an inspirer.” The solo bassoon in this movement is suitably puckish. The second movement here reveals the strongest influence of Haydn, with exquisite playing. The Gavotte in Gergiev’s hands is like a slow, heavy-footed Russian dance. Gergiev’s tempo for the finale is quick but not breathless. In the witty exchanges between orchestral choirs, the 20th century greets the 18th.
In Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, Gergiev molds the rich sound of the orchestra with the curve of his arms. I heard Gergiev say in an interview with Gilbert Kaplan that Furtwängler is one of his idols, which helps explain the never-capricious freedom of tempo in this performance. The opening clarinet solo is dark and mellifluous. Inexorable fate dominates Gergiev’s conception of the first movement. Nothing is sugary here. Its coda has an unusually slow, slightly menacing tempo. The horn solo that opens the second movement is dusky and dreamlike. In the darkness and heaviness of this movement, the conductor provides a foretaste of Shostakovich’s slow movements. Gergiev here gets the maximum expressiveness out of his body, perhaps wishing he could do even more. He doesn’t signal an end to the slow movement, just letting it fade away. The waltz offers a nervous respite from the previous movement. The finale is not march-like or triumphal. Gergiev paints it on a huge canvas, even down to beautiful tuba playing. The final peroration seems Byronic in its suggestion of despairing heroism. In sum, this is an individual and striking Tchaikovsky Fifth, gorgeously played.
In the encore, Johann Strauss Jr.’s Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, the orchestra creates a completely different atmosphere, echt Viennese. The violin playing is especially lithe and sparkling. The sound engineering in stereo is very good, with just a hint of congestion in climaxes. I was unable to try out the surround-sound option. The director does a fine job, alternating not overbearing views of Gergiev with sensitively judged close-ups of the orchestra’s players. I enjoyed just listening to the DVD’s sound while lying down as much as I did viewing its picture. If you are looking for CDs of the primary works, I would recommend Sir Colin Davis for the Rossini, Masur and the London Philharmonic or Rostropovich in the Prokofiev, and in the Tchaikovsky Antal Doráti and the London Symphony or Leonard Bernstein on Deutsche Grammophon. Gergiev really presents a seminar on the conductor’s art on this DVD. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see how a major artist achieves his results.
FANFARE: Dave Saemann
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Gioacchino Rossini: Guillaume Tell: Overture Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, “Classical” Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Johann Strauss II: Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, Op. 214
World Orchestra for Peace Valery Gergiev, conductor
Recorded live from the Abu Dhabi Festival, 2011.
Bonus: - Solti’s Vision: The World Orchestra for Peace – The First 15 Years 1995–2010.
Picture format: NTSC 16:9 Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1 Region code: 0 (worldwide) Subtitles: German Running time: 83 mins (concert) + 21 mins (bonus) No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Gothenburg Symphony OrchestraNeeme Jarvi, conductor Symphony no 1 in G minor "Winter Dreams", Op. 13; Romeo &Â?JulietSymphony no 2 in C minor "Little Russian", Op. 17; Overture in FSymphony no 3 in D major "Polish", Op. 29; The Snow Maiden, Op.12Symphony no 4 in F minor, Op. 36; Symphony no 5 in E minor, Op 64Symphony no 6 in B minor "Pathetique", Op. 74; The Tempest;Overture on the Danish National Anthem; Voyevoda Dances;Dmitri Pretender and Vassily Shuisky; Serenade for N.Rubinstein;Capriccio Italien; Francesca da Rimini; etc.
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture - Violin Concerto - Symph
Belvedere Edition
Blu-Ray
$32.99Oct 26, 2018
The Cleveland Orchestra is the “aristocrat among American orchestras” (The Telegraph) and its sovereign, Franz Welser-Möst, rules his subjects with a velvet glove. Indeed, velvet and silk keep showing up in descriptions of the Clevelanders’ sound under its principal conductor. It is Welser-Möst’s nimble alternation between smoothness and a sound that’s as “sharp-edged as a skyscraper” (The Telegraph after the Brahms’ First at the orchestra’s London Proms concert). That keeps the ensemble and the audience figuratively on its toes. Brahms’ Fourth and last Symphony could be said to glow with autumnal colors. Endowed with a strong undercurrent of subdued melancholy, it seems to pine for an irretrievable past. Franz Welser-Möst offers a “lean, propulsive performance” (The Plain Dealer) of this work with his highly concentrated Cleveland Orchestra. The swift pace of the symphony in Welser-Möst’s hands reflects the conductor’s quest for a distinctive, far-from-the-mainstream interpretation. Written nearly contemporaneously in the late 1870s, Johannes Brahms’ rousing Academic Festival Overture and Violin Concerto op. 77 bear witness to a composer at the height of his abilities, a mature master of large-scale masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands extreme technical proficiency. As if to exemplify this, violinist Julia Fischer gears herself from the very start of this emotionally searing work to maintaining a restrained yet passionate tone.
Damrosch: Symphony in A Major; Festival Overture; Etc.
Toccata
CD
$20.99Aug 14, 2015
The ability of record companies to spring surprises on the public is always pleasant, and here Toccata Classics gives us the opportunity to hear what must be one of the very first American symphonies. Leopold Damrosch is almost unknown nowadays, but his son Walter was for many years the principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and the father himself also conducted that body giving the American premières of the Brahms First Symphony and the Berlioz Requiem. Damrosch left Germany for the USA in 1871 and remained there for the remaining thirteen years of his life, during which time he wrote this four-movement symphony; but he never heard it played, and it remained unpublished and in manuscript until 2005 when it was finally edited for performance. This recording was made immediately following the première on 8 February 2015, and it reveals a fascinating if uneven work.
It is unfortunate that the disc begins with the Festival Overture written immediately before Damrosch’s departure for America and dedicated to Georg II, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The booklet note discerns some influences of Wagner, especially Die Meistersinger; but any Wagnerian overtones are less than immediately apparent, bearing comparison (if at all) to some of the overblown marches that Wagner wrote for cash towards the end of his career. The tone is unremittingly loud and overblown; and that impression is reinforced by a closely observed recording in a claustrophobic acoustic which serves only to emphasize the thick brass writing and Damrosch’s reliance on busy string figuration which sometimes fails to achieve an ideal balance, shading into pure decoration. After the symphony the disc concludes with Damrosch’s orchestration of Schubert, a piece which the booklet informs us was popular with American audiences during the composer’s lifetime, but which rarely rises about the workaday.
No, the real piece of interest on this disc is the unpublished and previously unperformed symphony, and I mean no disrespect to the young players here when I say that one can imagine a better case being made out for the work. I have already noted the claustrophobic acoustic — like a confined broadcasting studio. We should also note the questionable balances which bring out the heavy brass at the expenses of the strings (and especially the violins), although these are not as serious in the symphony as in the more stridently scored other items on the disc. The playing is not always impeccable — there appears to be a split horn note very near the opening of the first movement, or at least an appoggiatura which fails to sound convincing — and although one can hear that the violins are working hard and achieving commendable degrees of accuracy they remain overshadowed by the sonorous trumpets and trombones. The woodwind playing, on the other hand, is superbly executed and well observed by the recording. Add to this the committed conducting of Christopher Russell, and booklet notes which are both informative and substantial, and we have here an issue which is of rather more than purely documentary interest. I am amazed that the composer’s son failed to program the symphony with the New York Philharmonic when he was their conductor – maybe he was unaware of its existence – but its revival is decidedly welcome. Perhaps American professional orchestras might care to look at it now that Azusa Pacific have broken the trail.
The conductor’s own booklet essay makes much of the parallels between the music of Damrosch and that of Wagner and Brahms, but the echoes seem to me to be much closer to Bruckner especially in the more atmospheric pages. The opening quiet string tremolos conjure up a definitely Brucknerian feel, and the episodic construction of the rest of the movement also has traces of that composer — but would Damrosch have heard any of the symphonies? The short second-movement Intermezzo is charming; and the solemn march of the third movement builds to a tremendous climax, crowned by a stroke on the gong, and including some positively manic episodes. After this lengthy movement, the most extended in the symphony, the finale is comparatively brief and conventional. As I have already observed Christopher Russell, whose explorations of rare repertory have included first American performances of symphonies by Havergal Brian and Robert Simpson, clearly relishes the music and manages to make it cohere even when it is at its most waywardly rhapsodic.
One more minor cause for complaint in this disc is the ridiculously short breaks between individual tracks – not just between movements in the symphony, but at the beginning and end of that work as well. The result is that the atmospheric slow introduction sounds almost like an odd sort of continuation of the raucous Festival Overture; and even more seriously, the arrival of the Schubert arrangement comes as a real shock immediately after the closing bars of the symphony’s finale. The listener will need to stand by the pause button at these points, but otherwise Toccata’s presentation is impeccable. This label’s restless exploration of the outermost fringes of the repertory is always fascinating, and the Damrosch symphony here deserves rather more than polite intellectual interest.
Considered by many to be Grumiaux's best recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto, this performance, by turn tender and muscular, receives it's first international release on CD. The Concertgebouw is in glorious form under Van Beinum and Aafje Heynis is an amber-toned soloist in the inspiring Alto Rhapsody.
Suppe: Overtures, Marches / Jarvi, Royal Scottish NO
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Jan 29, 2013
SUPPÉ Overtures: Leichte Kavallerie; Boccaccio; Pique-Dame; Dichter und Bauer; Das Modell; Isabella; Die schöne Galathée; Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Aband in Wien. Boccaccio-Marsch. Humoristische Variationen. Marziale nach Motiven aus der Operette “Fatinitza.” Über Berg, über Thal. Juanita-Marsch • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Natl O • CHANDOS 5110 (SACD: 79: 42)
If your familiarity with Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli (Franz von Suppé to most of us) is limited to the Overtures to Light Cavalry and Poet and Peasant, then this disc is for you. It can be summed up in two words: GREAT FUN! Thirteen numbers spanning half a century (1844-1895) make up this 80-minute program, and few will disappoint. Right from the opening trumpet fanfare of Light Cavalry—bright, boisterous, splendidly assured—one senses that this disc is going to be a total delight. Tight rhythms, crisp articulation, immense verve, and Chandos’s vividly brilliant sound inform every number.
Unless you are already a die-hard Suppé fan, there are bound to be joyful surprises at every turn. The coda to the Queen of Spades Overture will have you positively jumping out of your seat and cheering with exhilaration. The March after Motifs from Fatinitza (arranged by the 20th-century Max Schönherr) is curiously reminiscent of the March from Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens. Listeners who know Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture will recognize one of its themes in the Humorous Variations, although it should be remembered that Suppé’s overture preceded Brahms’s by more than 30 years. And make no mistake, there is humor aplenty in Suppé’s work.
Exclusively Suppé discs are not common. Those that exist are almost all devoted only to the overtures, and I haven’t found any released since 2001, when Marco Polo issued Vol. 6 of its Suppé Overtures series (Volumes 1, 2, 4, and 5 have been reviewed in Fanfare 18:4, 18:6, 19:4, and 22:6). That makes the present item under consideration all the more welcome as it includes four marches and a variation set in addition to eight overtures, some well known, others not.
Extensive program notes by Calum MacDonald about each work add further sparkle to this outstanding release. Definitely a Want List candidate.
Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 29-20 April 1989 and 30 April 1990 Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 19 October 1990 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Ben Connellan (Assistant) Jeffrey Ginn (Assistant) Peter Newble (Assistant)
