Robin Ticciati, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Karen Cargill – Berlioz: Les nuits d’ete (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:45 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Robin Ticciati cements his reputation as an outstanding Berliozian with his latest recording, ‘Berlioz: Les nuits d’été’, which includes excerpts from Roméo & Juliette and La Mort de Cléopâtre. A pupil of Sir Simon Rattle and the great Berliozian Sir Colin Davis, Robin’s reputation as one of this generation’s best conductors was assured when he was announced as the next music director of Glyndebourne, taking over from Vladimir Jurowski in 2014.
Named one of the top ten young ‘conductors on the verge of greatness’ by Gramophone Magazine, Robin delivers fresh insights and vivid colours into this luminous work.
The recording features Kathleen Ferrier prize-winning mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, who has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and won acclaim as Cleopatra, a role she reprises here: ‘…the core of this stunning concert was a shattering, heart-rending performance by Cargill in awesome voice.’ (The Herald)
The works of Berlioz have featured prominently in Ticciati’s programmes with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra since he became their principal conductor in 2009.
Ticciati’s recording debut, ‘Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique’, received rave reviews: it was named Critics’ Choice ‘Sound of 2012’ (The Independent), ‘Classical CD of the Week’ (The Sunday Times), ‘Disc of the Week’ (BBC Radio 3 ‘CD Review’) and No. 3 in The Sunday Times’ Best Classical Albums of 2012 list.
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is internationally recognised as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world with a multi award-winning catalogue of recordings under Robin Ticciati, Sir Charles Mackerras, Alexander Janiczek and Joseph Swensen.
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Karen Cargill – Fleur de mon âme (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:41 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Following their Linn debut, a “breathtaking album of songs by Gustav and Alma Mahler” (The Herald), Karen Cargill and Simon Lepper return to fin-de-si`ecle Europe for a recital of songs by the “cr`eme de la cr`eme” of late nineteenth-century French speaking composers. Entitled “Fleur de mon ^ame”, the album embraces the sensual soundworld of Hahn, Debussy, Chausson, Jongen and Duparc.
Read more![Valery Gergiev, Antoine Tamestit, Karen Cargill, London Symphony Orchestra - Berlioz: Harold en Italie (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/01/vao774dgbxa4b_600.jpg)
Valery Gergiev, Antoine Tamestit, Karen Cargill, London Symphony Orchestra – Berlioz: Harold en Italie (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:09 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © LSO Live
Violist Antoine Tamestit and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill join forces with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev in the latest instalment of their Berlioz exploration.
Harold en Italie was composed in 1834 at the suggestion of Paganini (he wanted a showcase for his new viola). Inspired by Lord Byron’s poetic oddessy Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Berlioz wrote of it that he ‘wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer’. The cantata Cléopâtre was written for the 1829 Prix de Rome, and remains among Berlioz’ most neglected works.
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Karen Cargill, Simon Lepper – Alma & Gustav Mahler: Lieder (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:32 minutes | 917 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill has recorded large-scale vocal-orchestral music in the past; she participated in a fine LSO Live recording of Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ under the late Colin Davis. So nothing quite prepares the listener for how good this recording is. One might be drawn to it for the recordings of the rare lieder of Alma Mahler, or actually Alma Schindler, for she composed them before her marriage to Mahler in 1902 and his decision to forbid her to compose. They were published in 1910 after Alma began an affair with Walter Gropius and Gustav was keen to appease her. The five songs are modest in scale but deserve to be heard more often, and they resemble Gustav Mahler’s lieder less than the early work of Webern. Cargill’s performance is of just the dimension that would have been required for a Viennese song evening, and her enthusiasm for the material is palpable. The Gustav Mahler songs include the Rückert Lieder of 1901-1902, the four Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen of the 1880s, and the “Urlicht” movement from the giant Symphony No. 2 in C minor (“Resurrection”). “Urlicht” is a song from the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection, and many of these songs have a sort of mystically expanded folkish element and found their way into Mahler’s symphonies. Cargill is extraordinary in her control over the scope of these songs, sustaining them over their heavenly length while not breaking them out of their chamber dimensions. Sample the Rückert song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (track 10, “I have come loose from the world”) for something that’s both as close as one can come to an introduction in just six minutes to the essential Mahler and very beautiful in itself. A superb job from a singer who is getting her due. –James Manheim
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