Nigel Short / London Symphony Orchestra / Tenebrae FAURÉ Requiem - J.S. BACH Partitas, Chorales & Ciaconna

 

REQUIEM

 

London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle JANÁČEK The Cunning Little Vixen - Sinfonietta

THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN - SINFONIETTA

London Symphony Orchestra / Gianandrea Noseda SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 4

LSO Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda continues his survey of Shostakovich with the monumental Symphony No.4. Extravagant and challenging in equal measure, it's a work of epic proportions, requiring over a hundred musicians - including large percussion and brass sections. Owing to Soviet censure, the work went unperformed for almost thirty years after it was completed, until in 1961 it was revealed as one of the significant milestones of the composer's output - the work that solidified his reputation as a master symphonist.

London Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Eliot Gardiner SCHUMANN Overture Genoveva - Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

'Every opportunity to perform the Schumann symphonies is an opportunity to marvel at their extraordinary profusion of ideas and poetic expression and to explore their kaleidoscopic originality. Each time it gives one a chance to vindicate Schumann as a master of symphonic form and instrumental colour, contrary to the dreary cliché that he couldn’t orchestrate.' (Sir John Eliot Gardiner)

Following the success of his Mendelssohn cycle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner turns to the music of Robert Schumann, launching an exploration of his symphonic works that begins with his Second and Fourth symphonies and a rare glimpse of his only opera.

London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle BRUCKNER Symphony No. 6

Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony is one of the most original of all the composer’s symphonic works. Its contrasting moods, and overarching theme moving from darkness to light, can be haunting one moment and ecstatic the next, culminating in one of the most enigmatic symphonic conclusions of the 19th century. 

For this recording Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs Urtext edition of the score.

London Symphony Orchestra / Bernard Haitink BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 2 - Triple Concerto

LSO Live celebrates the 90th birthday of one of the conducting world’s greats, Bernard Haitink. 

Few artists have a deeper understanding of the music of Beethoven than the celebrated Dutch conductor, who is known for his mastery of the great symphonic repertoire. This album focuses on Haitink's interpretations of Beethoven's concerto writing, coupling a new recording of Piano Concerto No 2 by Maria João Pires with a virtuosic performance of the Triple Concerto by Lars Vogt, Gordan Nikolitch and Tim Hugh, which was originally made alongside Haitink's now iconic cycle of the composer's complete symphonies.

Nikolaj Znaider, London Symphony Orchestra MOZART Violin Concertos 1, 2 & 3

This stylish and elegant modern-instrument recording rounds off Znaider’s cycle of Mozart’s complete violin concertos—the product of an audibly fruitful musical partnership with the LSO. A greatly slimmed-down orchestra plays with nimbleness and delicacy while Znaider—using his gorgeous-sounding “Ex-Kreisler” Guarneri violin (on which Elgar’s concerto was premiered)—gives these youthful works lightness and grace that melt the heart. The Third is the best-known work here and justifies its popularity with a performance of spirit and great charm.

London Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Eliot Gardiner MENDELSSOHN

LSO Live presents Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s award-winning Mendelssohn series together in its entirety for the first time. Captured over three seasons during critically-acclaimed concerts in the Barbican Hall, this box set offers listeners the definitive account of Gardiner’s unique take on Mendelssohn with the London Symphony Orchestra: a blend between the conductor’s wide-ranging expertise and the Orchestra’s signature sound.

This box set includes celebrated interpretations of the complete Mendelssohn symphonies, as well as three of the composer’s most popular overtures and Gardiner’s landmark version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all in ultra high-definition stereo and multi-channel audio across four Hybrid SACDs.

Reflecting on this exploration of the great German composer with the LSO, Gardiner said: ‘My admiration for Mendelssohn has gone up enormously as a result of this project... It’s so rewarding working with this group of players; they’re willing to go to the last nth degree, in terms of phrasing and articulation, and that’s a joy.’

London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle BERNSTEIN Wonderful Town

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra pay homage to former LSO President Leonard Bernstein with a new recording of Wonderful Town that captures the energy and excitement of sold-out performances from December 2017. 

Bernstein’s five-time Tony award-winning musical follows sisters Ruth and Eileen on their quest to make it big, pursuing careers in writing and acting from their cramped basement apartment in New York’s bohemian Greenwich Village. Fresh from rural Ohio, the sisters end up getting more than they bargained for, realising that life in the Big Apple is not as glamourous as it may seem.

A bright and cheery love letter to the city that never sleeps and the colourful characters inhabiting it, Wonderful Town draws on Fields and Chodorov’s 1940 play My Sister Eileen, which itself is based on a series of autobiographical short storied by the ‘real-life’ Ruth McKenney.

Bernstein’s infectious score includes classic numbers such as ‘Ohio’, ‘One Hundred Easy Ways’, and ‘A Little Bit in Love’, as well as a riotous conga that had delighted audiences dancing in the aisles of the Barbican hall.

London Symphony Orchestra / Valery Gergiev RACHMANINOV Symphonies Nos. 1-3 - Symphonic Dances

This box set brings together Valery Gergiev’s acclaimed cycle of the complete Rachmaninov symphonies, which were recorded alongside the London Symphony Orchestra across 2008 to 2015. These masterful accounts of the Russian’s complete symphonies are accompanied by his 1940 composition Symphonic Dances, while two symphonic poems by Mily Balakirev echo the luxurious textures present throughout Rachmaninov’s music.

Nigel Short / London Symphony Orchestra / Tenebrae FAURÉ Requiem - J.S. BACH Partitas, Chorales & Ciaconna

Even though Gabriel Fauré's Requiem in D minor receives top billing on this 2012 release from LSO Live, listeners may be excused if they find the performance of J.S. Bach's Partita in D minor with Chorales to be the most interesting part of the disc. Scholarship has revealed the Partita and its famous Ciaconna (Chaconne) to be connected to various funereal chorale melodies, which Bach wove into his music as a private tribute to his late first wife, Maria Barbara. To help illustrate this, Nigel Short and Tenebrae perform the chorales "Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein," "Christ lag in Todesbanden," "Den Tod niemand swingen kunnt," and "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden," between movements of the Partita and underscoring the Ciaconna where Gordan Nikolic's carefully phrased violin melody makes reference to the chorales. For musical sleuths, this is quite an exercise in detection, though the emotional impact of hearing the violin soaring and weaving through the choir's dirges is not to be underrated. The Bach certainly prepares the listener for the 1893 chamber version of Fauré's somber but soothing Requiem, in which the London Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble accompanies Tenebrae with strength and beauty. While the performances are admirable for their undeniable power to move, the super audio sound of these live recordings is uneven and disconcerting, falling short of the label's usual high standards by being either too thin, as in the Bach, or too booming, as in the Fauré. (Blair Sanderson)

Maria João Pires / Sir John Eliot Gardiner / London Symphony Orchestra MENDELSSOHN Symphony no. 3 - Overture: The Hebrides SCHUMANN Piano Concerto

My dislike for Gardiner runs so deep that a voice in my head says, “Give it a rest.” He has won every battle I wish he’d lost, from Bach devoid of spirituality to Beethoven without depth. But win the battles Gardiner did, and in England he’s a cultural eminence. This is the second release under his direction from LSO Live in a short period, the other one being of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Apollo (the latter in a very good performance). At 71, Gardiner has been on the musical scene for a remarkable 50 years, and one can only admire the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique founded by him—they raised period performance to an unprecedented level. But I never felt that Gardiner possessed the requirements of a good general conductor, a bias reinforced here by his rackety, amateurish Hebrides Overture . The London Symphony would play it better without Gardiner’s arbitrary tempo changes, bumpy accents, and mundane phrasing. It’s helpful for a conductor not to be an impediment.

Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony is harder to manage thanks to its tricky transitions, but what stands out here are the vibratoless strings—what else?—and occasionally scrawny sonority. The brass tend to be raw and punchy. This, at least, isn’t a battle Gardiner and the HIPsters have won, although they’ve had their influence, as witness mainstream conductors like Vladimir Jurowski and Simon Rattle adopting period gestures in Beethoven and elsewhere. To his credit, Gardiner leads a robust if unsophisticated account of the “Scottish.” The fast music is buoyant without running away with itself; the slow movement flows nicely, although I get little feeling from it. (Expressive vibrato and rubato exist for a reason.) A general air of rambunctiousness energizes the whole performance, if that’s what you want in place of musical finesse.

Gardiner’s contribution to the Schumann Piano Concerto exists on much the same level, which isn’t that of the acclaimed Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires. Pires is especially good in Schumann, as her highly praised DG recordings attest. When she is able to, she ignores Gardiner to inject her own cultivated style. I don’t mean to imply a shotgun wedding; the orchestral part blends well with the soloist, and in the best parts of the performance, especially the Andantino grazioso , Pires successfully leads the way. The few rocky passages—her awkward first entry in both the opening movement and finale—pass quickly. Pires’s delightful touch in the piano’s beguiling passagework makes the reading.

There’s a Leipzig connection between Mendelssohn and Schumann, and this may also account for why Gardiner has the LSO violins and violas stand for the “Scottish” Symphony. That was common practice in the past, in particular with Mendelssohn’s Gewandhaus when he was the city’s Kapellmeister. The violins and violas weren’t allowed to sit in chairs until the first decade of the 20th century. Today it’s a charming anachronism in limited doses. This CD has been announced as the first in a projected Mendelssohn symphony cycle from Gardiner and the LSO. I don’t shudder at the prospect. The concert was enjoyable, and the voice in my head is right about my Gardiner phobia. I should give it a rest (when warranted). (Huntley Dent)