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Bax: Tintagel
Rachmaninov: Symphony 3
LPO-0036
Osmo Vänskä
Vänskä’s account of the Third Symphony is a marvel of measured, uninflated eloquence.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 23 November 2008
MacMillan: The Confession of Isobel Gowdie
Adès: Chamber Symphony
Higdon: Percussion Concerto
LPO-0035
Marin Alsop, Colin Currie
These live LPO recordings are the best possible advert for new classical music … Thanks to Alsop’s flair the MacMillan has unrivalled intensity, the Adès goes with a swing and Higdon’s flimsy concerto sounds like a joyride.
Financial Times, 1 November 2008
Shostakovich: Symphony 10
LPO-0034
Bernard Haitink
Haitink’s long-term vision of the music’s organic development comes across compellingly in this live recording. While there are distinct contrasts between the propulsive scherzo, the ghostly dance of the third movement and the inexorable force of the first movement and finale, the thread of the argument is sustained with probing power.
Geoffrey Norris, Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2008
… the London Philharmonic Orchestra manages to communicate an edge-of-seat tension that transcends national style, and sounds more energetic and intuitive than the Chicagoans, who fail to make a case for the Fourth as Shostakovich’s most ambitious symphony.
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, 15 November 2008
Mahler: Symphony 5
LPO-0033
Jaap Van Zweden
This performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony is as absorbing on CD as it was when I heard it live in the Festival Hall in January. …There is also a sweep to the performance, and plenty of energy, with the Adagietto played as a tender intermezzo rather than as a scene-grabbing indulgence. The whole orchestra plays magnificently, but it would be remiss not to commend the firmly focused solo trumpet and subtly inflected obbligato horn.
Matthew Rye, The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2008
The performance has a sense of purpose and excitement. Van Zweden, a former leader of the Concertgebouw, segues smoothly between moods, and though he almost lets the finale's bombast get the better of him, he delivers an account that is absorbing right into the tumultuous applause.
Rick Jones, The Times, 5 July 2008
Bruckner: Symphony 8
LPO-0032
Klaus Tennstedt
The performance testifies to his symbiotic relationship with an orchestra of which he was a notable principal conductor. More important, it shows that Tennstedt spread his personality over Bruckner as indelibly as he did over Mahler. Eschewing the slow, steady pulse of Bruckner tradition, he bathes the music in neurotic fervour, turning the first and second movements into an ecstatic trajectory and investing the slow movement with a rare intensity, at once nervous and luminous. He then crowns the performance with an ardent, opulent, incandescent finale.
Financial Times, 3 May 2008
Turnage: Twice Through the Heart, The Torn Fields, Hidden Love Song, LPO-0031
Marin Alsop, Sarah Connolly, Martin Robertson, Gerald Finley
The exemplary singing from Sarah Connolly and Gerald Finley reminds us how effectively Turnage writes for the voice, but his orchestral writing is always distinctive, too, and comes across vividly and with clarity in the LPO’s playing.
Matthew Rye, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2008
Striking performances of three of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s most powerful works, conducted by Marin Alsop … Those who say there are no heart and melody in contemporary music should listen to this eloquent composer.
Sunday Telegraph, 2 March 2008
Throughout the disc, the LPO responds to Marin Alsop’s direction with undeniable conviction.
International Record Review, April 2008
Classical CD
Elgar: Symphonies 1 & 2;
Violin & Cello Concertos; Falstaff; Enigma Variations;
etc; Campoli/ Tortelier/ Baker/ LPO/ Elgar/ Ronald/ Boult/
Solti/ Mackerras/ Handley
5 stars (LPO, five CDs)
Guardian
Friday March 30, 2007
By Andrew Clements
As this hugely enjoyable anniversary collection demonstrates,
the London Philharmonic has been associated with Elgar's music
since it was founded by Thomas Beecham in 1932. Some of its
earliest ventures into a recording studio were with Elgar
himself, and this set, which has been thoughtfully assembled
from the archives of several labels as well as the orchestra's
own, includes several pieces conducted by the composer at
sessions in London's Kingsway Hall in 1933 - the Overture
Froissart with just the right combination of swagger and nobility,
the Serenade for Strings, sweetly sentimental, the Elegy for
string orchestra, and one of the Three Characteristic Pieces
Op 10. There's another prewar performance, too - the Coronation
March, conducted by Landon Ronald in 1935 - but the rest of
the material dates from the 1950s onwards, and includes some
of the most important Elgar recordings ever made.
Many of those are conducted by Adrian Boult, who was the LPO's
principal conductor from 1950-56, and remained closely associated
with the orchestra until his death in 1983. Boult's 1956 account
of Falstaff is here - it's arguably the finest ever recorded,
distinctly more vivid than his later stereo version - as well
as the version of the Violin Concerto made two years earlier,
with Alfredo Campoli. It's by no means one of the best-known
accounts of the concerto on disc, but it wears extremely well,
just as Paul Tortelier's fine account of the Cello Concerto
from 1972, again with Boult, has been completely overshadowed
by Jacqueline du Pré's version with Barbirolli, yet
remains one of the finest memorials to a great cellist.
Some of Boult's greatest achievements with the LPO in Elgar
from the 1960s and 1970s aren't included here either, most
notably the two versions of each of the symphonies, made for
Lyrita and EMI respectively. But Boult's account of the little-known
ballet score The Sanguine Fan is included, as well as a wonderfully
spacious performance of the Introduction and Allegro for Strings.
For many of the most popular of Elgar's orchestral works,
the set uses performances conducted by Georg Solti (the First
Symphony and the overtures In the South and Cockaigne), Charles
Mackerras (Enigma Variations), and, most interestingly, Vernon
Handley. His superbly paced version of the Second Symphony
comes from an 1981 EMI disc, while the Sea Pictures (the only
vocal work included), with Janet Baker as the peerless soloist,
was taken from a Royal Festival Hall concert to mark the 50th
anniversary of Elgar's death in 1984 - which bizarrely was
recorded by Capital Radio. That's a real find, which every
Elgarian will want to hear. But the whole set is of exceptional
interest, even if it can only scratch the surface of what
the LPO has done for Elgar over 75 years.
For
more information about these recordings or to order online,
please click here >
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