CLASSICAL new release harmonia mundi UK available 11th ...

C803091A
Barcode: 4 011790 803128
NORMAL PRICE CD
Richard STRAUSS
Ein Heldenleben,
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
CBSO / Andris Nelsons
What Ein Heldenleben needs is not only a first-class
orchestra but also a conductor with a clear sense of the work's underlying structure, a conductor, moreover,
who is able to maintain the tension and respond quickly and consistently to the work's countless details. This
is certainly how Andris Nelsons sees his task, a task that he realises magnificently in this, his second ORFEO
recording with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra and its music director allow the
orchestral colours to gleam and ensure that the individual sections that make up the score flow smoothly,
sweeping the listener along with them. This reading of Ein Heldenleben has such stringency and rigour that
many of the aesthetic objections to the work merely add to our pleasure at individual details, while never
calling into question the piece's overall design.
The fact that Nelsons is also a master of the art of transition in the music theatre and can achieve this on
the concert platform, too, is clear from his recording of the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, which under
Nelsons' direction becomes spontaneously compelling and coherent, and which the CBSO clearly take
pleasure in.
Stephen Maddock, the CBSO's chief executive says: "At a time when record labels are reducing their
commitment to the core symphonic repertoire, we're delighted to have found in Orfeo a partner who is
showing this level of commitment to Andris and the CBSO. In this way we can bring what we are sure will
be outstanding accounts of composers who are very close to Andris's heart - and who have mostly not
featured until now in the CBSO's large discography - to the widest possible international audience".
ALSO AVAILABLE:
C780 091A Tchaikovsky 5
"it's one thing to make this music sound natural and idiomatic, quite
another to make an old warhorse of a symphony sound fresh, as he
does." CD OF THE WEEK Daily Telegraph
"The opening of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony has seldom sounded so
taut and introspective, conductor and orchestra breathing as one.
Nelsons and Birmingham promises to be one of the great partnerships
of the coming decade." Norman Lebrecht
"The CBSO may not command the sheer power of the BPO/Karajan or
VPO/Gergiev Fifths, but for sensitivity to balance and phrasing you would have to go back to
Kempe's to match this Symphony Hall recording under the orchestra's new Latvian conductor."
Hi-Fi News Album of the Month, November 2009
harmonia mundi UK- released 11th January 2010