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

LSO0682
Barcode: 822231168225
2 SACDS
Sergei PROKOFIEV
Romeo & Juliet
London Symphony Orchestra / Valery Gergiev
DSD recording, live at the Barbican November 2008
LSO Live celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2010.
The label's first release of the year features Prokofiev's
spectacular score for the ballet Romeo & Juliet
conducted by Valery Gergiev.
Gergiev is a tireless champion of Prokofiev's music.
In 2004 he conducted the complete cycle of the
composer's symphonies with the LSO which then won
a Gramophone Award. Shortly afterwards Gergiev
became Principal Conductor of the LSO and spent
much of 2008 and 2009 touring Prokofiev's symphonies
with the orchestra in Europe, Japan and the USA.
Gergiev's Mahler cycle continues in February 2010 with the release of the Fourth Symphony. Other upcoming
releases on LSO Live include a Rachmaninov symphony cycle as well as music by Ravel, Stravinsky, Debussy
and Strauss.
Concert reviews:
"The strings were supple and radiant ...
The brass, much used by Prokofiev, were
tirelessly accurate, and the woodwind
especially characterful, with some of the
orchestra's younger members playing out of
their skins. The best ballets contain music
almost too good to be wasted on dancers.
Freed from the need to adopt dance
tempi, this wonderful music swaggered,
sparkled and shimmered as it rarely does in
the theatre" Mail on Sunday
"Most concert conductors only take bites
out of Prokofiev's virile but lengthy ballet.
Not Valery Gergiev. He knows that the
complete score is a treasure chest of
musical characterisation, orchestral colour, soaring melody and blasting drama: manna from
heaven for himself and the London Symphony Orchestra" The Times
"Gergiev and the LSO's performance was simply magnificent, not just in the quality of the orchestral
playing but in the range of colours and delicacy Gergiev drew from his players" classicalsource.
com
harmonia mundi UK- released 11th January 2010