Nicola Benedetti, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rory Macdonald – Homecoming – A Scottish Fantasy (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:23:51 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Nicola Benedetti’s Homecoming: A Scottish Fantasy is the violinist’s tribute to her native land, in celebration of Scotland’s Year of Homecoming 2014. Of primary interest to classical fans is Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy in E flat major, a large-scale Romantic concerto based on Scottish folk music, and Benedetti gives a transparent and brilliant performance that alleviates some of the work’s heavy Germanic character. Bruch’s free use of Scottish folk songs as themes, including some melodies of Robert Burns, suggested the three arrangements that immediately follow it, Ae fond kiss; My love is like a red, red, rose; and Auld Lang Syne, three of the poet’s best-known songs. The rest of the program consists of other traditional Scottish tunes, and Benedetti pours her warmest expressions into these airs. In two songs, Bothan a bh’aig Fionnghuala and Coisich a Rùin, Benedetti is joined by Julie Fowlis, whose fluent delivery in Gaelic gives the songs authentic color and texture. Even though this album has been promoted in connection with public festivities, such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, it is actually a personal and intimate album, thanks to Benedetti’s ingratiating playing and the poignant tone of many of the selections. ~ Blair Sanderson
Read more
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra & Geoffrey Paterson – Hyde: Symphony, Op. 20 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 19:28 minutes | 176 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Resonus Classics
Contemporary British composer Thomas Hyde’s first foray into the Symphony genre receives its premiere in this live recording of the Symphony’s first performance by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with conductor Geoffrey Paterson.
Premiered in Glasgow’s City Halls and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, this EP length work highlights an exciting and original voice in the contemporary music scene.
Hyde expertly demonstrates his ability to navigate deftly between the demands of tradition and the freedom of personal expression in this impressive statement of what the Symphony can be in the 21st century.
Read more
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alpesh Chauhan – Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Francesca da Rimini, The Voyevoda, Overture and Polonaise from ‘Cherevichki’ (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:11 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Born in Birmingham, Alpesh Chauhan studied cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Masters Conducting Course. Alpesh has studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, participated in masterclasses with Juanjo Mena, Vasily Petrenko and Jac van Steen, and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the CBSO 2014-16. Newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Dusseldorfer Symphoniker from the 21/22 season, he is also Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company. He frequently appears as guest conductor with acclaimed international orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d?Ile de France, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Malmo Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. For this his debut recording for Chandos, he has chosen a collection of Tchaikovsky?s symphonic fantasias, alongside the Overture and Polonaise from the comic opera ?Cherevichki?. The Tempest, from 1873 is based on the Shakespeare play, and shows that Tchaikovsky?s unique voice and style were already fully developed. Francesca da Rimini (based on the tale in Dante?s Inferno) was written only a few years later, but after Tchaikovsky had attended the premier of Wagner?s Ring cycle in Bayreuth ? an influence discernible particularly in the brass chords. Cherevichki (the Slippers) is a revision of his earlier opera Vakula the Smith, based on Gogol?s Christmas Eve. Tchaikovsky?s Symphonic Ballad The Voyevoda is based on Adam Mickiewicz?s poem ?The Ambush?, and is the first orchestral work to include the (newly invented) Celeste.
Read more
Vadim Repin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Donald Runnicles – MacMillan: Violin Concerto & Symphony No. 4 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:26 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Onyx Classics
Two major works from Sir James Macmillan make their CD debut! The Violin Concerto is performed on this disc by its dedicatee Vadim Repin.
Reviewing the world premiere, David Nice of The Arts Desk lauded, “As soloist Vadim Repin and conductor Valery Gergiev whirled us tumultuously through its hyperactive songs and dances, there was so much I wanted to savour, to hear again. That won’t be a problem. So long as there are violinists of Repin’s calibre able to play it, the work is here to stay.”
The 4th Symphony is dedicated to Donald Runnicles and was written to celebrate his 60th birthday. Sir James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful composers. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music, blended with influences from Far Eastern, Scandinavian and Eastern European music.
The 4th Symphony recording is from the 2015 BBC Proms and was the world premiere performance “Densely, at times exotically scored, it was grandly played. Runnicles conducted it with great affection and dignity” – Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Read more![Michael McHale, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson - Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/27/b1btktliyilib_600.jpg)
Michael McHale, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson – Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:52 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
In this fourth volume in their Richard Rodney Bennett series, John Wilson and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra turn to his Piano Concerto, commissioned by the John Feeney Trust for the CBSO and written in 1968. A chance meeting with Stephen Kovacevich provided Bennett with a willing soloist, and the work was premiered in Birmingham in September that year. The fellow composer Anthony Payne’s judgement was unequivocal: ‘It’s a bloody good work.’ The soloist here, Michael McHale, gives a virtuosic performance which certainly lives up to that judgement.
(more…)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Elgar: Enigma Variations & other orchestral works (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:55 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Two much-loved orchestral favourites representing the summit of Elgar’s maturity are coupled with three of the lesser-known wartime works, here receiving their first recordings with the original French texts. Kate Royal is the soprano soloist in Une voix dans le désert, a hauntingly tender masterpiece which every Elgarian should know.
Read more![Tanja Becker-Bende, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Garry Walker - The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 16 - Busoni & Strauss: Violin Concertos (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/16/ISC8i9B.jpg)
Tanja Becker-Bende, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Garry Walker – The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 16 – Busoni & Strauss: Violin Concertos (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:01 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
German violinist Tanja Becker-Bender returns to the Romantic Violin Concerto series having dazzled the critics with her ‘great lyrical force and tremendous sense of drama’ in her recording of the Reger concerto. Here she appears with Hyperion house band the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Garry Walker, in Volume 16: concertos by Busoni and Strauss, each composer’s only example of the genre.
In D major, the key of Beethoven’s and Brahms’s violin concertos, Busoni’s Violin Concerto is clearly intended to continue their lineage—significantly, Busoni wrote cadenzas for both of them—although it never descends into mere imitation. Although it uses quite a large orchestra, it is transparently scored, with plenty of Italianate cantilena for the soloist. Also included is Busoni’s transcription of the Benedictus from Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, which brings the solo violin to the fore, with instrumental obbligati representing the vocal contributions.
The seventeen-year-old Strauss wrote his Violin Concerto in 1881–2, during his final year at the Ludwigsgymnasium. The work was dedicated to Strauss’s violin teacher Benno Walter (1847–1901), concertmaster of the Bavarian Court Orchestra. The work is fairly unknown on the concert platform; as Tully Potter writes in his booklet notes, Tanja Becker-Bender’s interpretation should win it new friends.
(more…)
![Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 17 - Bruch: Violin Concerto No 3 & Scottish Fantasy (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/15/agPW4gy.jpg)
Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 17 – Bruch: Violin Concerto No 3 & Scottish Fantasy (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:35 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck brings his impassioned tones, fulsome emotional display and formidable technique to the first of three albums of music by Max Bruch.
This programme presents one of Bruch’s most popular pieces for violin and orchestra, the Scottish Fantasy, alongside one of his least known, the Violin Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 58. Anyone hearing Jack Liebeck’s performance may well wonder why this concerto has languished in the lumber room for so long—it has never been heard at the BBC Proms, for example. It was written for Joseph Joachim who gave the premiere in Düsseldorf and subsequently played the concerto in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Breslau, Leipzig, Cologne and London (for the Philharmonic Society).
The Scottish Fantasy in E flat major, Op 46 (or more correctly ‘Fantasia for the violin with orchestra and harp, freely using Scottish folk melodies’), was written in Berlin during the winter of 1879–80 for Sarasate and reflected the Spaniard’s more colourful personality. Although Bruch never visited Scotland, he was typical of German Romantics in having a fascination with the picture of the country painted by such writers as Walter Scott. For the Scottish Fantasy he drew on James Johnson’s voluminous folk-song collection The Scots Musical Museum.
(more…)
![Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 2 & other works (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/15/YAa95aM.jpg)
Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 2 & other works (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:19 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
The ‘justly celebrated’ Jack Liebeck (as described by The Strad) follows in the footsteps of Heifetz and Perlman in championing Bruch’s now neglected Violin Concerto No 2, originally written for Sarasate. Three shorter concertante works for violin and orchestra complete the album (Bruch thought the Adagio appassionato one of his best works) which marks volume 21 in our highly regarded Romantic Violin Concerto series.
(more…)
![Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & other works (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/15/mzplLdg.jpg)
Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 & other works (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:12 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 is the daddy—the most popular ever written. Much recorded, Jack Liebeck turns in a dazzling performance of youthful vigour, prefacing the Concerto with the gorgeous Serenade and a Romance.
(more…)
![Danny Driver, Rebecca Miller, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Beach, Chaminade & Howell: Piano Concertos (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/NTeX74D.jpg)
Danny Driver, Rebecca Miller, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Beach, Chaminade & Howell: Piano Concertos (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:30 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
International Women’s Day falls on 8 March, celebrating the ‘social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women’. Volume 70 in our Romantic Piano Concerto series champions three female composers, and three works whose in-the-face-of-it-all joie de vivre makes them irresistibly worthy of our attention.
(more…)
![BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson - Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/GzacPCS.jpg)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson – Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:33 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Bennett had a gift for human relationships – family, partners, friends, and fellow artists. Occasionally, his personal loyalty could become an obstacle to his creativity but overwhelmingly, his relationships were an inspiration. Each of the four works recorded here has connections to a significant individual in his life. The composition of his First Symphony coincided with the arrival in his life of Dan Klein, who would become his long-term partner. Zodiac is dedicated to the composer Elisabeth Lutyens, whose music and personality Bennett cherished throughout his life, despite her often caustic manner. A History of the Thé Dansant sets poems by his older sister, the poet Meg Peacocke, and doubles as a perceptive but unsentimental memoir of their long-dead parents. And Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune is dedicated to the conductor John Wilson, with whom Bennett shared a musical connection that deepened into a true and lasting friendship.
(more…)
![BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - Tippett: Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/UxtprZG.jpg)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Tippett: Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:44 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Tippett’s first two published symphonies are mature and confident works dating from the middle of the last century. Coruscating accounts from Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are sure to win new friends for this marvellous music.
(more…)
![BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard - Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin, Suite No. 2 & Hungarian Peasant Songs (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/bq37cthe3jpjc_600.jpg)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin, Suite No. 2 & Hungarian Peasant Songs (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:47 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © PM Classics Ltd.
The violence and horror depicted in Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin channel the events of the collapse of the first Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Red and White Terrors of 1919-1921 that followed. The inscrutable Mandarin falls into a trap set up by a gang of bloodthirsty thugs with tragic results and an ultimately touching conclusion.
The Second Suite of 1909, conceived as a Serenade for small orchestra, is on a smaller scale than the First Suite. The Hungarian Peasant Songs date from the period of the Great War. Originally a set of short piano pieces, Bartók orchestrated nine of the movements in 1933, eight of which are recorded here.
(more…)
![John Wilson, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Michael McHale - Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/b1btktliyilib_600.jpg)
John Wilson, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Michael McHale – Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:52 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
In this fourth volume in their Richard Rodney Bennett series, John Wilson and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra turn to his Piano Concerto, commissioned by the John Feeney Trust for the CBSO and written in 1968. A chance meeting with Stephen Kovacevich provided Bennett with a willing soloist, and the work was premiered in Birmingham in September that year. The fellow composer Anthony Payne’s judgement was unequivocal: ‘It’s a bloody good work.’ The soloist here, Michael McHale, gives a virtuosic performance which certainly lives up to that judgement.
(more…)