 |
Elgar’s Symphony 1 and Sea Pictures
LPO-0046
Vernon Handley, Dame Janet Baker
Elgar fans should rush to buy this live recording of an LPO Festival Hall concert from 1984. Vernon Handley’s eloquent account of the First Symphony, restrained yet generously abandoned, is one to treasure. But the plum is Janet Baker’s Sea Pictures … Her glorious, rich contralto voice, soaring and floating, is made for this music …
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian 9 May 2010
More details and buy CD >
Mahler: Symphony No 2 conducted by Klaus Tennstedt
LPO-0044
Awarded a Diaspason d'Or, June 2010.
"The brass section is positively heroic in the outer movements, the woodwinds in the scherzo are an unalloyed delight. Jard Van Nes offers one of the best accounts of "Urlicht" on disc--full of feeling and a keen sense of the text. " classicstoday.com, 2010
"The playing and singing are excellent, and the recording, made by the Music Performance Research Centre, is near-faultless. Those curious about the "Tennstedt effect", what Andrew Mellor in the sleeve note describes as "living art of the most acute profundity", should investigate without delay. " The ArtsDesk
Brahms: Symphonies 1 and 2
LPO-0043
Vladimir Jurowski
BBC Music Magazine disc of the month - June 2010
"Conductors, buy this and learn; the rest of us can just enjoy" *****
'This is round, full, beautiful Brahms that never neglects the letter and gives full rein to the spirit. Everything is delivered in that blended, golden London Philharmonic sound, its permutations of light and shade seemingly infinite....The Jurowski/LPO marriage abundantly exudes that rare joy in corporate music-making all too seldom encountered in this day and age. I can only wish my fellow music lovers in London the profoundest pleasure at the miracle occurring in their midst'
International Record Review, April 2010
This pair of budget-priced CDs on the LPO’s own label demonstrate how, in the right hands, the first two symphonies can thrill and delight … exquisite wind playing …genuinely exciting …
Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk, 22 February 2010
More details and buy CD >
Dvorak: Requiem
LPO-0042
Neeme Järvi with Lisa Milne, Karen Cargill, Peter Auty, Peter Rose and the London Philharmonic Choir
Neeme Järvi leads a sturdy, evocative performance graced by gorgeous singing from the London Philharmonic Choir.
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 March 2010
More details and buy CD >
Tchaikovsky Symphonies 1 & 6 conducted by Vladimir Jurowski
LPO-0039
The secret to Jurowski's success in both works lies in his ability to give the music time to achieve the maximum intensity while using pointed rhythm and characterful phrasing to avoid any suggestion of sluggishness. The result is the sheer brute force that we have every right to expect, without a trace of vulgarity or straining after effect...If you love Tchaikovsky, then you'll love this release. It's hot--really hot.
David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com 10/10
Recorded at Festival Hall in October (No 1) and November (No 6) last year, these performances demonstrate the strides the London Philharmonic has made under the inspired direction of its young, Russian-born principal conductor... the playing is so good that it rivals some of the great studio recordings.... The strings caress the strange five-beat waltz, the brass strut their stuff militaristically in the march and the performance is rounded off with a heartbreakingly poignant adagio lamentoso. Unmissable.
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times, August 2009 *****
Both are exceptional performances, superbly recorded with a breathtaking range of dynamics. Taking pride of place is the wonderfully bright, buoyant account of the First Symphony, the so-called "Winter Daydreams". But that's only because outstanding recordings of that work are rarer than those of the Pathétique, in which Jurowski never allows the pathos to tip over into self-pity. In both works, the playing of the LPO is world class.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, September 2009 ****
More details and buy CD >
John Ireland 70th Birthday Concert
LPO-0041
[Eileen Joyce] delivers a lovely, crisp, sensitively romantic interpretation of Ireland’s 1930 Piano Concerto, a delightful piece that owes a lot to Prokofiev’s Third Concerto but which has Ireland’s own strand of wistful, gentle longing running through it… hearing her here makes one wish that it would re-emerge in concert from time to time. The same is true of the other, once-familiar, stirring pieces on this disc. The sound quality is of its age, but the tingle of nostalgia counts for a lot.’
Geoffrey Norris, Telegraph, August 2009
More details and buy CD >
Mahler - Symphony No. 6 conducted by Klaus Tennstedt
LPO-0038
'Tennstedt exposes every nerve-ending of the piece from start to finish...big-boned and punchy with snappy trombone accents. Alma's theme burgeons, the Albert Hall acoustic accentuating the bigness with strident clarinets and the ripest horns. Big sounds. big rubatos, big everything....
So, it's a corker, this performance...'
Edward Seckerson, Gramophone Magazine, August 2009
This live recording of a 1983 performance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony might not be at the cutting edge of modern digital technology, but musically it sweeps away everything before it..... Tennstedt and the LPO pull out all the stops.
Classic FM Magazine, July 2009
. ..the combined adrenalin of passion and mounting terror courses through the live event with sustained power and impact. Rarely can Mahler's epic vision have been presented with such visceral energy and emotional turmoil.
International Record Review, June 2009
More details and buy CD >
Britten - early works conducted by Vladimir Jurowski
LPO-0037
It’s great to see someone giving some attention to Benjamin Britten's early years. Britten often seems to be sidelined from discussions of serious 20th-century music, largely because he stuck to a basically tonal compositional language that was, in the 1950s and '60s, seen as old-fashioned, even effete... Recently released on the London Philharmonic Orchestra's in-house label, this disc of three of his early works shows some of his big exuberant brashness.
Washington Post, April 2009
Taken from the London Philharmonic's concerts at the South Bank centre in 2006 and 2008, this neat assemblage of early Britten contains wonderful things. The LPO responds marvellously to Vladimir Jurowski, and the depth of tone and fluency in the Variations On a Theme of Frank Bridge are remarkable for a live recording, while soprano Sally Matthews produces lusciously seductive sounds in the Rimbaud settings of Les Illuminations.
The Guardian, February 2009
More details and to buy >
Arnold & McCabe
LPO-0023
Conducted by Bernard Haitink and Sir Georg Solti
Premiere performances of three fine scores make a compelling programme...This is an essential disc for lovers of British music and is very strongly recommended, not least for the excellent sound.
Gramophone Magazine, May 2009
More details and to buy >
Bax: Tintagel
Rachmaninov: Symphony 3
LPO-0036
Osmo Vänskä
Vänskä and the LPO are firing on all cylinders in this invigorating live pairing. .. A strongly recommendable issue.
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, March 2009
Vänskä’s account of the Third Symphony is a marvel of measured, uninflated eloquence.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 23 November 2008
More details and to buy >
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
More details and to buy >
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
More details and to buy >
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
More details and to buy >
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.
more information about these recordings or to order online >
Back to top >
|
