Vladimir Ashkenazy

Jamie Walton is joined by the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of their conductor laureate Vladimir Ashkenazy for this new concerto recording of concertos and orchestral works by Dvorák and Schumann.

Jamie Walton has proved himself as a leading light in UK's musical life; as a performer in his widely praised concerto and sonata recordings, and as a festival director in his work as founder of the North York Moors Festival, which was shortlisted for an RPS Award in 2011.

After his acclaimed recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, for Onyx Classics, and current Gramophone CD of the Month [on Chandos], James Ehnes once again collaborates with Vladimir Ashkenazy for a Tchaikovsky programme, recorded live in Sydney. This CD contains Tchaikovsky’s complete works for violin and orchestra, plus a delightful bonus of the 'Souvenir d’un lieu cher' accompanied by Ashkenazy on piano.

Villa-Lobos's colourful and immediately ear-catching music is full of the rhythms and sounds of Brazil. The haunting soprano theme of the fifth Bachianas Brasileiras is one of the best-known melodies of all time, and the carnival atmosphere at the end of Momoprecóce is suffused with Brazilian sunshine.

Recording locations: Jesus Christus Kirche, Berlin, Germany, January 1996 (Schoenberg); Konzerthaus Schauspielhaus, Berlin, Germany, June/August 1995 (Mahler)

Two gargantuan late-Romantic Austrian works are coupled on this very rare recording by Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin. The recording had limited release in Germany and this is its first international release.

Mahler’s Third Symphony is the longest symphony by any composer to be part of the basic repertoire and, at first, had subtitles attached to each of the movements. But the composer had a distrust for programmatic music and by the time the symphony was published and premiered, these verbal explications had been removed.

Mahler and Schoenberg met in 1904 at a rehearsal of Schoenberg’s string sextet Verklärte Nacht. The older composer became a defender of Schoenberg’s work, conducting it when he could. Schoenberg, whose outlook on Mahler’s work was at first unfavourable, was bowled over by the Third Symphony and regarded it as a work of genius. His own Pelleas und Melisande based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play, is a gargantuan symphonic poem and was his first completed orchestral work. The orchestral forces (as with the Mahler Symphony) are huge, and although Schoenberg includes no vocal parts, the orchestra is handled with considerable bravura and includes 64 strings (plus two harps), 17 woodwinds, 18 brass and 8 percussion.