Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 & 3

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This is the final instalment of Andrew Litton’s Prokofiev symphony cycle, one of the most sonically sophisticated in the lists. Only don’t look to Bergen for the raw sonorities associated with... — Gramophone Magazine, December 2020 More…

Release Date: 30th Oct 2020
Catalogue No: BIS2174
Label: BIS
Length: 86 minutes

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Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 'Classical'

Work length14:11

$4.00

$5.20

$7.00

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Litton

I. Allegro

Track length4:19

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

II. Larghetto

Track length3:56

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

III. Gavotte. Non troppo allegro

Track length1:36

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IV. Finale. Molto vivace

Track length4:20

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40

Work length36:26

$9.55

$14.25

$19.25

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Litton

I. Allegro ben articulato

Track length12:09

$2.05

$3.85

$5.25

IIa. Theme

Track length1:51

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IIb. Var. 1

Track length2:08

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IIc. Var. 2

Track length2:50

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IId. Var. 3

Track length2:11

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IIe. Var. 4

Track length5:25

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IIf. Var. 5

Track length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IIf. Var. 6 - Theme

Track length7:05

$1.50

$2.60

$3.50

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 44

Work length35:49

$6.05

$10.35

$14.00

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Litton

I. Moderato

Track length13:53

$2.05

$3.85

$5.25

II. Andante

Track length7:04

$1.50

$2.60

$3.50

III. Allegro agitato

Track length8:17

$1.50

$2.60

$3.50

IV. Andante mosso - Allegro agitato

Track length6:35

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

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As a composer Sergei Prokofiev was so versatile that audiences never quite knew what to expect. As a strategy, this could misfire but with his first symphony he got things just right. He once described what he had wanted to achieve: ‘If Haydn had lived into this era he would have kept his own style while absorbing things from what was new in music.’ The ‘Classical’ symphony has been a true classic since its first performance in 1918 and is one of the few genuinely witty pieces in the twentieth-century orchestral repertory. A few months after the performance, Prokofiev left Russia for the USA where he remained for some years before settling in Paris in 1923. It was here that he composed the Second Symphony. The first audience in 1925 was more bewildered than enthusiastic, however, and Prokofiev himself came to have doubts, wondering whether in this symphony ‘made out of iron and steel’ he’d overdone the rough counterpoint and density of texture. He now returned to a project he had been working on for several years – the opera The Fiery Angel. In 1928, when he began to think that no opera house would take it up, Prokofiev decided to reuse the music and found that ‘the material unexpectedly packed itself up into a four-movement symphony’ – his Third, characterised by an overwhelming sense of anxiety and tension. The present disc is the fourth and last in a symphony cycle which has earned the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton critical acclaim worldwide.

Reviews

December 2020

This is the final instalment of Andrew Litton’s Prokofiev symphony cycle, one of the most sonically sophisticated in the lists. Only don’t look to Bergen for the raw sonorities associated with those old Prokofiev LPs emanating from communist Russia. For all that his sequence opts for the later, Soviet incarnation of the Fourth, Litton is closer to Marin Alsop in rendering this music as full-blooded mainstream fare...the present issue takes its place at or near the top of a growing pile.

Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 & 3

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