Prices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Britten & Elgar: Works for Cello and Orchestra
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
| | | (also available to download from $21.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
This version is the jewel box one with a standard 12-page booklet only. The libretto is available to download from the EMI Classics website www.emiclassics.com | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | The Berliner Philharmoniker in SingaporeRecorded live at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 22 & 23 November 2010.
The Berliner Philharmoniker, one of the worlds leading orchestras, and their Artistic Director Sir Simon Rattle, are highly acclaimed all over the world. Their 2010 tour concluded with their first visit to Singapore. They present Mahler’s unique and breathtaking First Symphony – once dubbed “Titan” in homage to Romantic novelist Jean Paul – as well as Rachmaninov’s hugely evocative late Symphonic Dances. In this concert, the Berliner Philharmoniker beautifully capture Mahler’s love of nature and Rachmaninov’s nostalgic memories of Russia. Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9 Sound format DVD: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 120mins “The ironies of the middle movements are gently done, the finale's triumph not blaring but grandly affirmative in a way that, as Rattle remarks, Mahler would never recover.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013 | 
| | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Dances & Dreams: Gala from Berlin 2011Recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonic, 31 December 2011
In 2011 the Berliner Philharmoniker and their musical director Sir Simon Rattle welcomed in the New Year with a gala concert programmed with ‘Dances & Dreams’. Spinetingling and inspiring performances of music by Dvořák, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Brahms are complemented by the extraordinary talent of the multi-awarded Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin. Kissin’s musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have placed him at the forefront of today’s pianists, and his passionate performance of the renowned Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg is mesmerizing. Kissin's musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have placed him at the forefront of today's pianists. Picture format: NTSC 16:9 Sound formats: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0 Region code: All (worldwide) Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 89 mins “Where Rattle and company radiate love, Kissin gives us duty. Still, nothing else casts a chill. Hearing the orchestra's splendours, observing the smiles and eye contact, you'd never believe the past stories of turbulence between musicians and conductor.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2013 **** “It's party time. Everyone, not least the radiantly smiling conductor, is bent on enjoying themselves...This is among the most thoughtful and poetic accounts of the Concerto that I've heard. There's nothing superficial or preconceived...It is this performance which gives the DVD its raison d'etre, one which in half a century will be viewed with the same kind of interest as film of Moiseiwitsch, Cortot et al is viewed today.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Four-movement version
Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 including the world premiere of the latest scholarly revision of the fourth movement that the composer left unfinished at his death. Sir Simon and the Orchestra unveiled the new version at Berlin’s Philharmonie in early February 2012 and at New York’s Carnegie Hall the same month. “It was fascinating to hear this monumental symphony performed with [its new] final movement. After a quizzical opening and a strong statement of the main theme there are stretches of fitful counterpoint, brass chorales and ruminative passages that take you by surprise. Overall the music pulses with a hard-wrought insistence that crests with a hallelujah coda.” (The New York Times) On 11 October 1896, the day he died, Bruckner was still desperately trying to finish the final movement of his ninth symphony. He had completed and orchestrated one third of the movement and sketched the layout for the entire finale. Unfortunately, for scholars attempting to construct the remaining two thirds of the movement, many of the manuscript pages were subsequently stolen by autograph hunters. Some of these pages have resurfaced in recent years and several attempts have been made to complete the last movement, including four prior versions by the current musicological team of Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, John Phillips and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs. “From a fresh re-examination of the manuscripts it was possible to find some convincing new solutions, binding the music even better together.” (Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs). With the benefit of 25 years of scholarship, this latest version is arguably the most comprehensive realisation of Bruckner’s sketches. John Phillips adds, “The Finale is no musical curiosity, but an integral part of the work as its composer intended. Just as Beethoven designed his last symphony around its choral finale, Bruckner designed his Ninth around this huge, ultimately triumphant movement, synthesizing sonata form, fugue, and chorale. For the devoutly Catholic Bruckner, the symphony was to be his “homage to Divine majesty” […] The Adagio, his “Farewell to Life,” traces a gradual process of dissolution that leads us, spellbound, into the enigmatic music of the Finale [which] would end with a “song of praise to the dear Lord,” a “Hallelujah” borrowed from earlier in the work. And it is with this “Hallelujah” theme—the first entry of the trumpets in the Adagio—that the Ninth can so justly and so gloriously now conclude.” In an interview for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall, Sir Simon expressed his faith in the newly assembled four-movement version and begged audiences to be receptive to the new material. “There's a kind of myth that there are only sketches left of the last movement. In fact, there was really an emerging full score, complete almost to the end,” Rattle said, adding that Bruckner was writing in his most radical, forward-looking style in the Ninth, especially in the finale. According to Gramophone, ‘to help listeners understand just how ‘complete’ the finale actually was at the time of Bruckner's death, Rattle compared the composer to an architect designing a cathedral. Indeed, Bruckner had the rather unique composition method of deciding how long his movements should be and then putting all the bars on the manuscript, numbered and with phrase lengths, even before writing the first note. “So actually, even when there are some empty pages, we know exactly how many bars there were and what kind of phrases there were,” concluded Rattle, explaining how much of the manuscript evidence was strewn throughout various collections. He also said that had the composer lived another two months, the finale would have been complete.’ For music lovers who discount the validity of any fourth movement to the Symphony No. 9, there is much to enjoy in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s performance of the first three movements: “Mr. Rattle and the Berlin players deftly balanced elements of Schubertian structure and Wagnerian turmoil in the mysterious first movement. The brutal power of the scherzo’s main theme was chilling, with the orchestra pummelling the dense, thick, dissonance-tinged chords. And Mr. Rattle laid out the threads of chromatic counterpoint in an organic, glowing and, when appropriate, gnashing account of the Adagio.” (The New York Times) For those with the intellectual curiosity to hear how accomplished Bruckner scholars have most recently realised the unfinished movement, it is performed here by the world-renowned team of Sir Simon Rattler and the Berliner Philharmoniker. “The lustre of the Berlin Philharmonic’s horns and strings is marvellous to behold; phrasing often is velvet-smooth. Whatever the mood, Rattle’s players deliver with passion...At the same time, Rattle’s love of high drama may be indulged a fraction too much...Rattle conducts with missionary zeal, as if he believes in every note. And so he should.” The Times, 11th May 2012 *** “while there is undeniable logicality in the endless climbing repetitions and the echoes of the vaunting Wagnerian touches from the first movement, the added movement does tend to detract from the particularly fine treatment of the third movement Adagio” The Independent, 11th May 2012 *** “Rattle is less interventionist than one might expect and surer of the work’s structure. Bruckner’s harmonies were never so daring as they were here – the scream of pain in the Adagio really terrifies...But the effect [the finale] has on one’s perception of the earlier movements is harder to come to terms with. This is essential listening, though -the Berlin brass are stunning in the last few minutes” The Arts Desk, 19th May 2012 “Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic played it for the first time in February, and this recording is taken from those performances. Whether you like Rattle's approach or not – and sometimes, in the first movement especially, he pushes the music forward rather than letting it fill its natural space – the result seems authentic.” The Guardian, 24th May 2012 **** “an 82-minute work complete with a final movement of sufficiently convincing Brucknerian symphonic argument, sound and scale. In short, a revelation...Lingering doubts from earlier Brucknerian encounters with Rattle are swept away...Finer advocacy and a more transforming experience from these live performances are difficult to imagine.” International Record Review, June 2012 “the performance as a whole is utterly compelling. Rattle fully engages with the gripping drama of Bruckner's music...The climax is thrillingly majestic – the truly triumphant ending that Bruckner wanted. Rattle proves emphatically that there should be no more excuses for depriving the work of its resounding finale.” Graham Rogers, bbc.co.uk, 10th July 2012 “Rattle's performance is consistently involving. The vast arches and sudden climate changes in the Adagio third movement are particularly well handled...I can't think of many recent releases that are more musically important than this. If you love Bruckner's Ninth, you have a duty to hear it; and if you don't as yet know it and learn it from Rattle's recording, then you're in a very privileged position.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012 “Rattle assuredly paces the music's long paragraphs and musters a sense of the monumental...[His] interpretation...encompasses the full gamut of emotions from tenderness and nostalgia to some amazingly apocalyptic climaxes.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 ***** “Rattle gives the music the right amount of breadth but he also keeps it moving forward. It helps enormously that he has the peerless Berliner Philharmoniker at his disposal. The majesty of Bruckner’s great climaxes is enhanced by their sumptuous playing” MusicWeb International, June 2012 “[once you've] heard Simon Rattle and the BPO in their glowing recent recording of the completed work, you may never wish to listen to the three-movement version again. Even if you’re not sold on the completion, Rattle’s performance of the first three movements is excellent” MusicWeb International, 16th April 2013  BBC Music Magazine
Disc of the month - September 2012 |
| | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |  | EUROPA KONZERT 2011 from MadridRecorded live at Teatro Real, Madrid, 1 May 2011
For over 20 years, the Berliner Philharmoniker have celebrated their foundation on May 1st with the annual EUROPA KONZERT - this year’s event takes place at the magnificent Teatro Real in Madrid. The renowned orchestra, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, performs Joaquín Rodrigo's beloved Concierto de Aranjuez, Emmanuel Chabrier's exuberant España, and Sergey Rachmaninov's dramatic Second Symphony. It is joined for the Concierto by the famous flamenco guitarist Cañizares, whose virtuosity and sensitivity are given full opportunity to shine in this multi-faceted and subtle work. Bonus: Interview with Sir Simon Rattle Picture format: 1080i Full HD 16:9 Sounds formats: PCM 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio Surround Region code: All (worldwide) Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 105 mins (97 mins Concert, 8 mins Interview) German FSK: 0 “Flamenco star Cañizares brings nonchalant authority to the Concierto de Aranjuez in a concert fizzing with energy, from a playful Espana to the sweeps of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **** “for all the luxury of the performance, Rattle never milks it; and for all the attention to the music's larger paragraphs, he never scants the particulars of the moment...From first note to last, there's not a moment of questionable ensemble, not a moment of strain. Is this, however, an unmitigated virtue?...This is a first-rate release, made all the more welcome by the excellent engineering and by the tactful camerawork” International Record Review, January 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Ravel Meets GershwinRecorded 31 December 2003 at the Philharmonie Berlin
A true celebration is to welcome the New Year with one of the best orchestras in the world. The Gala from Berlin 2003 presents the outstanding Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle with works by Maurice Ravel (“Pavane pour une infante défunte”; “La Valse”; Daphnis et Chloé, Suite Nr. 2) and Songs by George Gershwin. Vocal soloist of this evening is the fabulous Jazz diva Dianne Reeves. Grammy Award-winner Dianne Reeves was born into a musically gifted family in Detroit. With her rich, expressive natural voice, her rhythmic Grammy Award-winner Dianne Reeves was born into a musically gifted family in Detroit. With her rich, expressive natural voice, her rhythmic virtuosity and improvisational ease, she was clearly born of jazz. Wonderful cross-over approach - an example of two musical worlds joined to truly entertain - at the highest level. Picture format: NTSC - 16:9 Sounds formats: PCM Stereo, 5.1 Surround (non-native) Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 91 mins German FSK: 0 “A curious hybrid. Easy-going Gershwin songs, accompanied by full orchestra, nestle amid the vibrant intensity of Ravel's distinctly unjazzy La Valse and Daphnis et Chloe.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Falla: Noches en los jardines de Espana
Joaquín Achúcarro (piano) The internationally renowned pianist Joaquín Achúcarro has been described as ‘the consummate artist’ and ‘the leading pianist from Spain’; he has won plaudits and prizes around the world. In 2000 he was named ‘Artist for Peace’ by UNESCO in recognition of his extraordinary artistic achievements. This DVD presents an evocative recital of Spanish-inspired music, given by Achúcarro in Madrid, and a triumphant performance of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle, recorded in Berlin. Including a note by Joaquín Achúcarro written for this release. “I have only heard this sound from Rubinstein” Zubin Mehta “There is something special with Achucarro. Very few musicians can extract this kind of sound from the piano” Sir Simon Rattle Sounds formats: PCM 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio Surround Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 27 mins (Berlin) + 75 mins (Madrid) FSK: 0 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Sophia – Biography of a Violin ConcertoA Jan Schmidt-Garre Film
In August 2007, Anne-Sophie Mutter performed the world premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina‘s 2nd violin concerto in Lucerne with conductor Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. This piece by the Russian composer (born in 1931) was an important event in many respects. Sofia Gubaidulina is one of the world‘s leading contemporary composers. Her international breakthrough came in 1980 with her first violin concerto, Offertorium, which she wrote for Gidon Kremer. To this day, it remains her most often performed piece. In spite of all the other pieces she has written in the meantime, it is her second violin concerto that violinists, conductors and orchestras around the world have eagerly been awaiting, especially since she was commissioned to write it in 1992 by Paul Sacher, the Basel conductor and patron of the arts. It was his wish that Gubaidulina‘s new violin concerto first be performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter. Fifteen years later, that dream finally came true. The film focuses on the piece - from its inception, through the many stages of the creative process to its world premiere but also features the many great expectations of the music world and the resulting pressure on Gubaidulina. It’s not the usual portrait of the composer but concentrates on the work in progress and documents the collaboration between Anne-Sophie Mutter, Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. "First I hear the end of the piece. I hear it all at once, all mixed up and hard to recognize. As if everything were tied in a knot. It‘s too complicated. I can‘t write that moment down. I have to make it clearer to eventually get back to what I originally heard." Sofia Gubaidulina "The most beautiful music film I have ever seen." Joachim Kaiser Award at the Columbus International Film Festival 2008, nominated for Prix Italia Sound Format: PCM Stereo Picture Format: 16:9 DVD Format: DVD 5, NTSC Subtitle Languages: DE, IT, GB, FR, ES, JP Running Time: 60 mins FSK: 0 “it's the polarity of composer and performer that is the kernel of the film: Mutter cool, sveltely glamorous and severely practical, Gubaidulina looking more and more like a rumpled Babushka but eloquent (in German and Russian) on matters spiritual...it's an absorbing, interesting, at times touching study of aspects of the creative process..I liked the piece anyway, but I felt I now had a greater understanding and appreciation of it” BBC Music Magazine, June 2011 **** “This documentary, which feels curiously like an old-school South Bank (and I mean that as a compliment), traces the progress of this new violin concerto...[Gubaidulina] wears her heart on her sleeve and has plenty to say about how she structured her new concerto around her proportion of a Bach chorale...And there are intriguing insights into other personalities” Gramophone Magazine, July 2011 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Building a Library
Gramophone Magazine
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2013
Gramophone Awards 2011