Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 /Love Songs Of Hafiz, Op 26

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Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 /Love songs of Hafiz, Op 26Opis:Product DescriptionEdward Gardner returns with the BBC Symphony Orchestra to the intoxicating orchestral music of Karol Szymanowski in their third disc devoted to the composer. Their previous releases have been widely praised, Gardner being described in BBC Music Magazine as one of the finest non-Polish interpreters of Szymanowski.' Ben Johnson, a tenor whose star is rapidly rising, joins Gardner and the BBC SO here as a soloist in two works.

Szymanowski's Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1907 while he was still in his twenties. Stylistically it belongs to his early period, heavily influenced by the late-Romantic style of Wagner and Strauss. It was disavowed later in life as Szymanowski rejected his early influences but its brash youthful energy and intense emotion has won many audiences over.

The exquisite Love Songs of Hafiz for tenor soloist and orchestra are transitional works. Composed in 1911, they represent a move toward his middle period marked by a fascination with oriental themes, here reflected in the choice to set 14th Century Persian poetry.

Szymanowski's Symphony No. 3 Song of the Night' is considered the apex of his middle-period output and one of his finest works. Scored for a huge orchestra with choir and tenor soloist, Szymanowski again sets Persian poetry, here celebrating the beauty of the starlight Eastern night. Szymanowski conveys the poem's vision with sensuous and highly emotional music, scored in extraordinarily subtle orchestral colour.

ReviewThis is the third Chandos disc on which Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra have performed works by Szymanowski. The coupling of the First and Third Symphonies is stylistically instructive. The First, completed in 1907, reveals the composer still in thrall to the German Romantic tradition and beholden to the likes of Max Reger for the music's rigour and density. The Third, subtitled Song of the Night , dates to nearly a decade later, by which time Szymanowski had found his own, sensuous voice, with inflections of Skryabin and Debussy in it and, to English ears at least, the occasional parallel with the sound-world of Delius. The first and third movements are cases in point, though Szymanowski is even more ecstatic here than Delius is in The Mass of Life . That magical moment where the solo tenor voice (Ben Johnson) floats in at the start of part 3 is exquisitely judged, heralding delicate images of nature and surging climaxes in which Gardner whips up the BBC chorus and orchestra into waves of elated passion. Johnson has the central role in Love Songs of Hafiz and, cruelly high though the line sometimes lies, occupies it with telling emotional panache. **** --Telegraph,23/11/14Symphony no.3 benefit greatly from Chandos's typically airy acoustic and Edward Gardner's unindulgent but still atmospheric balancing of elements, with voices treated as just one of many elements,with voices treated as just one of many elements in a balanced sound picture. --Gramophone, Dec'14Performances are comparably distinguished, the sound quality a cut above anything obtainable elsewhere. --IRR, Dec'14Even though recordings of Szymanowski symphonies have proliferated recently, this recording stands out when it comes to the ugly duckling First; the composer himself may have been unconvinved by it, yet Gardner conducts with such conviction that it is impossible not to find beauty in its potentially dense Reger-meets-Scriabin soundworld. Performance **** recording **** --BBC Music Magazine, Feb'15Autor:Ben JohnsonNośnik:Audio CDPłyt:Język: Data wydania: 2014-01-11Waga: 0.18 gramWysokość: 0.6 cmSzerokość: 5 cmDługość: 5.6 cmUWAGA: Kupując produkt na tej aukcji zgadzasz się na wydłużony termin realizacji wysyłki (10-14 dni roboczych). Podany towar pochodzi z zagranicznego magazynu, stąd wydłużony czas realizacji który podany jest obok.