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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Dvorak: Symphonic Variations & Symphony No. 8Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 24 April 1992
Sir Charles Mackerras and the London Philharmonic Orchestra shared a musical heritage spanning 45 years and this live recording of Dvorák’s Symphonic Variations and Symphony No. 8 from 1992 pays tribute to a partnership that exuded a joy and vivacity in music making. There is no shortage of fine recordings of these two wonderful Dvořák works and Sir Charles Mackerras has recorded Dvořák’s complete orchestral oeuvre first with EMI Eminence (copies of which are now hard to find) and over the years for Supraphon. More recently he also recorded a selection of Dvořák with the Philharmonia Orchestra. What these performances benefit from is the spontaneity of the live concert environment. Originally recorded for archive purposes by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, such recordings are impossible to overlook when the music making is as fine as it is here. Mackerras had a gift for uncovering the individual DNA in a composer’s music; he did this with aplomb with Dvořák. The Symphonic Variations show Mackerras’ complete understanding of Dvořák. The subtly and lightness of touch he brings to the waltz episode contrasts with the control and care of the percussion balance in the Scherzo capriccioso. His conducting of Symphony No. 8 is sublime. Conductor and orchestra are at one and here Mackerras shows the ability to seemingly turn every phrase into a symphonic essay. This recording is a fine exponent of Mackerras’ renowned conducting of Dvořák and gains an enormous amount from the spontaneity of the live concert environment. The disc pays tribute to a musical partnership that spanned 45 years. This recording comes from possibly his strongest years artistically. As a recording conductor Mackerras had a unique understanding of the process. His recording career spanned the latter years of the 78 format through mono, stereo, LP, cassette, CD, through to SACD (surround sound CD) - few conductors can claim this! “Mackerras's reading of the Symphonic Variations would stand up well to any competition...In the wrong hands these 27 variations can seem bitty. Mackerras underlines the bigger picture with flawless handling of the tempo relationships and by building a powerful sense of expectation in the approach to the fugal finale.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 *****/*** “This live 1992 recording from Festival Hall shows Mackerras at the height of his powers. It is a joy from beginning to end. The Eighth has had many notable interpreters, but none knew better than Mackerras how to pace and colour this magical work...The Variations, too, receive a vivid, richly expressive performance, making you wonder why it is so rarely played.” Sunday Times, 31st July 2011 **** “Sir Charles Mackerras's way with Dvorak's Eighth Symphony was invariably unaffected, bracing and energetic, and this live relay is no exception...Mackerras always directed [the Variations] with consummate mastery, edging from one variation to the next with evident ease, making the work sound the compelling entity that it is” Gramophone Magazine, September 2011 “The performance of the Symphony is truly exceptional: besides the fabulous lyrical flair and poise of the playing, Mackerras finds an interplay of darkness and light in the slow movement that's genuinely spine-tingling to listen to. Only very special conductors can come up with performances like this where, even with such a much-played symphony, it's as if you're hearing it for the first time.” Classic FM Magazine, September 2011 ***** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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Britten’s operas have an interesting history at Glyndebourne beginning with the premiere of The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne (1946) with Kathleen Ferrier as Lucretia. Glyndebourne also premiered Albert Herring (1947) then 34 years of the Glyndebourne Festival elapsed until another of Britten’s operas, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was staged in 1981. It took over 50 years to stage The Turn of the Screw, which after a touring production in 2006 transferred to the Festival in 2007, from where this recording is captured. Every role is beautifully cast through tenor William Burden, as both Prologue and Peter Quint, and Camilla Tilling as the convincing troubled Governess. Anne-Marie Owens is an extremely affable Mrs Grose, her voice endearing and warm. Joanna Songi is a feisty and resentful Flora; Christopher Sladdin’s boy treble voice is hauntingly beautiful, and Emma Bell is a sure-footed Miss Jessel. This recording is aided in no small part by conductor Edward Gardner whose intense understanding of the score is made all the more satisfying by the faultless playing of the ensemble from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This recording is certain to leave listeners troubled. It would not be the recording it is if it did not do so; the mood dark and chilling while maintaining an element of thrill. Edward Gardner appears courtesy of Chandos Records Ltd. “this version has the advantages of being taken from live performances and electrifyingly brilliant playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner...Christopher Sladdin and Joanna Songi are both innocent and creepy as Miles and Flora” The Telegraph, 9th June 2011 **** “The recording splendidly captures the breath and the pulse...conducted with a thrilling precision of rhythm, transparency of texture and horrifyingly inexorability of momentum by Edward Gardner. From the first frisson of Andrew Smith's potent, later demonic, piano playing, we are drawn into the plight of every character...This will be a superb aide-memoire for anyone who saw Jonathan Kent's production; and a revelatory sound-drama for all” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 **** “Edward Gardner, conducting the London Philharmonic, makes the score tingle ...Camilla Tilling’s lyric soprano stresses the Governess’s virtue over neurosis. Emma Bell is the suitably scary Miss Jessel...the children are excellent.” Financial Times, 25 *** “Everything is brilliantly executed - the pacing taut, the feeling for Britten's sound world instinctive and the instrumental playing well-nigh unsurpassed. Like the production, Gardner peers fearlessly below the score's surface...Camilla Tilling gets right under the skin of the Governess...William Burden and Emma Bell put flesh on the ghostly couple, with Burden hitting a conversational tone in the Prologue.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2011 “Everything is in place, especially the rhythmic vitality so crucial to this score. The LPO in chamber-style mode plays gloriously, especially the individual wind instruments...[Gardner] manages the vital transitions from scene to scene with absolute seamlessness...Burden confirms that he was seemingly born for the Britten repertoire...Through the vocalism there also emerges an unmistakably sexual allure in this Quint that I have not heard matched by others in this role” International Record Review, July/August 2011  BBC Music Magazine
Opera Choice - July 2011 |
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| |  | Arnold: Symphony No. 3 & Four Scottish Dances
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John Mark Ainsley (Captain Vere), Jacques Imbrailo (Billy Budd), Phillip Ens (Claggart), Iain Paterson (Mr Redburn), Matthew Rose (Mr Flint), Darren Jeffery (Lieutenant Ratcliffe), Alasdair Elliott (Red Whiskers), John Moore (Donald), Jeremy White (Dansker), Ben Johnson (Novice), Colin Judson (Squeak) & Richard Mosley-Evans (Bosun) The Glyndebourne Chorus & London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor) & Michael Grandage (director) Glyndebourne has a proud association with the operas of Benjamin Britten, however until 2010 had never staged Billy Budd. The all-male opera with a libretto co-written by EM Forster, is based on the battle between pure good and blind evil, and is set on a British man-‘o-war ship. Michael Grandage, Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, chose this work to make his long-awaited operatic debut. Sir Mark Elder returned to conduct, marking the 100th opera production in his illustrious career. Extra features: Introducing Billy Budd Designs on Billy Budd Running time 200 mins Region Code All regions Picture format 1080i High Definition / 16:9 Sound format 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS Menu languages EN Subtitles EN/FR/DE/ES “none of the camera’s interventions disturb the sweep of Michael Grandage’s carefully realistic production...you’re still sucked inside the drama, especially if you watch on a widescreen TV...[Imbrailo] is as ardent and puppyish as you could wish...the London Philharmonic revel in the baleful drums, salty woodwinds, and dark beauty of Britten’s score. On DVD as much as in the opera house, this is a Billy Budd to remember.” The Times, 29th April 2011 **** “[Elder paces] the developing tragedy with airily lyrical detail and brooding, ominous power. John Mark Ainsley' s plangent, dark-toned tenor and intense diction show us a more neurotic Vere than usual...Phillip Ens's Claggart maintains a chilly calm, sadistic philosopher rather than snarling bully...[Imbrailo's Billy] is no plaster saint but gauche, hyperactive and open-hearted...this is the most compelling Billy Budd on video, and superb in Blu-ray.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 ***** “Truly, we live in a golden age of great opera recordings where a performance of Britain’s masterpiece -- perhaps his greatest operatic achievement outside Peter Grimes -- can be set down in an edition as exemplary as this. Singing, staging and recording are all non-pareil.” london24.com, 17th June 2011 “Elder's unerring sense of theatre puts him absolutely at one with the stage in every episode. He's clearly the guiding spirit of this Billy Budd. The production has been directed with laudable unobtrusiveness by Michael Grandage. Everything is executed with the utmost sensitivity, and there are some telling original touches...Video director Francois Rousillon does exceptional work here, with the precision of HD a constant pleasure. Opus Arte's recorded sound is superb” International Record Review, July/August 2011 “Jacques Imbrailo fields just the right youthful lyric baritone and sings Billy's solo below decks beautifully. John Mark Ainsley gets to the heart of Vere, every close-up showing an artist immersed in his role, and Phillip Ens sings gravely as a Claggart who seems sadly resigned to his lot, rather than an active force of destruction” Gramophone Magazine, September 2011 “the realisation of the decks of a man-o’-war seem even more claustrophobic than it was at Glyndebourne. The casting is immaculate, the choral singing is overpowering, and you can almost feel the salt spray flying off Mark Elder’s magnificent conducting.” The Telegraph, 2nd December 2011 BBC Music Magazine DVD Choice - July 2011 |
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plus: RACHMANINOV/ RESPIGHI Cinq Etudes-Tableaux
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Montserrat Caballé (Mimi), Plácido Domingo (Rodolfo), Sherrill Milnes (Marcello), Judith Blegen (Musetta), Ruggero Raimondi (Colline), Vincenzo Sardinero (Schaunard), Noel Mangin (Benoit), Nico Castel (Alcindoro), Alan Byers (Parpignol) London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis Choir, Wandsworth School Boys' Choir, Sir Georg Solti | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 21 January 1991
Popularly known as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’, in this live recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 from 1991, over 528 singers and musicians are led in a vibrant, life-affirming performance by one of the greatest interpreters of Mahler’s music, Klaus Tennstedt. The soloist line-up includes some of the most celebrated operatic singers of the twentieth century including sopranos Júlia Várady and Susan Bullock and American tenor Kenneth Riegel. This double disc CD features the combined choral forces of the London Philharmonic Choir and the London Symphony Chorus as well as 50 boys from Eton College Boys’ Choir. ‘It was an inspired a Mahler performance as Tennstedt has ever conducted, with an inevitability, a sense of spiritual grandeur and adventure, that renewed all one’s youthful faith in a work which one feared might have lost its power, thrill and surprise for ever’. Daily Telegraph on the recorded live performance of Mahler Symphony No. 8 in 1991. “There have been more refined, and more shapely accounts of this gargantuan work put on disc, but few with the sense of excitement and physicality that this one generates. From the first moments of the opening Veni Creator Spiritus hymn, to the final orchestral outburst...Tennstedt maintains the performance on a knife-edge of excitement” The Guardian, 3rd March 2011 “Even in the hour-long second movement, Tennstedt sustains such a high level of concentration and intensity that the attention is riveted throughout, culminating in a ecstatic peroration that overwhelms the senses...[His] probing energy and profound wisdom prove a winning combination in this epic trailblazer.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 **** “As always, Tennstedt gives an impression of living by the skin of his teeth, but with a flexibility and freedom of expression that consistently draw sustenance from roots of the music...The whole opening hymn blazes with urgency...every performer's possession by the music is never in doubt...the exhilaration and spiritual reach of the performance are immense.” International Record Review, April 2011 | | | (also available to download from $21.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 28 November 2009
Most often performed in an arrangement for string quartet, this recording of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross is a unique proposition – offering Haydn’s original instrumental meditations alongside their choral counterparts. Vladimir Jurowski writes ‘I felt it was important to hear the music first in its original shape, and then what it has become…the words are no longer the central focus, but a variation, another layer of pre-existing material.’ This series of seven Easter meditations includes some of Haydn’s most intense and inventive music, evoking the struggle of Christ’s final hours and the solemnity of the church’s Holy Week services. Recorded live in 2009, the reduced string forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra combine really well with a lovely sense of ensemble. ‘…a performance of real integrity, Vladimir Jurowski pacing perfectly this predominantly slow, often gravely beautiful music, the use of non-vibrato strings adding a terse, authentic edge.’ Classical Source on The Seven Last Words at London’s Royal Festival Hall, 2009 “Jurowski, with the LPO and its fabulous choir, offers the best of both worlds, juxtaposing the original instrumental movements with the later choral versions. The result is unexpectedly satisfying: we are never made to feel that the music is “doubling up” in any way...this is a full-bodied performance which nevertheless behaves itself with admirable restraint” Financial Times, 5th February 2011 **** “ it's nicely done, with some finely detailed playing and choral singing of great warmth and beauty. The quartet of soloists are led by Lisa Milne, suitably ecstatic, and by Christopher Maltman, intense and expressive as always.” The Guardian, 10th February 2011 *** “[Jurowski shows] a vital sense of motion in presenting this music - an essential challenge, given its predominant slowness - as well as pointing up the work's intensity and revealing its inner parts. A strange and solemn extra movement Haydn added for the choral version is particularly potent in his hands.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2011 **** “Jurowski's feeling for musical architecture and care for surface detail, matched by his spiritual engagement with Haydn's score, are served by world-class playing and singing of transcendent beauty.” Classic FM Magazine, April 2011 ***** “Jurowski takes several movements provocatively fast...[his] urgency is vindicated in the despairing fourth Word, with its grinding suspensions, and the violence of No. 5 "I thirst". Here and elsewhere the orchestral palette is aptly lean and astringent, with pared-down string tone and louring natural horns. A word, too, for the superb LPO wind, including a wonderfully pungent contrabassoon.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2011 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Sir Thomas Beecham, Vol. 1 (1912-1939)
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| |  | Hamilton Harty (1929-1935)
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BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012
Gramophone Awards 2011
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