Mstislav Rostropovich, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult – Dvořák: Cello Concerto (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:04 minutes | 751 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
In March 2017, Warner Classics marks the 10th anniversary of Mstislav Rostropovich’s death and 90 years since his birth with the deluxe collectors’ box set Cellist of the Century, comprising of selected remastered recordings.
The label was given unprecedented access to Rostropovich’s personal archive and worked closely with his daughters Elena and Olga. The range and variety of music in the box set is nothing short of extraordinary, embracing works by more than 60 composers, from iconic recordings to rarities. A number of the live performances originate from Russian tapes saved from destruction by resourceful Soviet archivists when Rostropovich was exiled from the USSR (1974-1990), and which came back to light in the late 1990s. Another highlight is the complete Bach Cello Suites, presented here in both audio and video versions. The collection also features an exclusive audio interview of Rostropovich recorded by personality Jon Tolansky.
Although Rostropovich died 10 years ago, on 27 April 2007, he remains a powerful presence on the world’s cultural scene through his legacy as the greatest cellist of his time, as a brave advocate of human rights, and as a man of proverbial generosity and charisma.
Special care has been taken to ensure the highest quality of sound reproduction. Wherever possible, the engineers of Art et Son studios have refined the sound, always with scrupulous respect to the original sources. The analogue recordings originating from EMI and Erato (CD1-15) have been remastered in 96 kHz from the original tapes. These are, therefore, the first recordings where the presence and definition of sound are heard in such detail.
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City of London Choir, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hilary Davan Wetton – The Nation’s Favourite Carols (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:55 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca (UMO) (Classics)
The Nation’s Favourite Carols presents the best of Christmas as chosen by you. In conjunction with Classic FM, the album will be released at the same time as the radio station’s countdown to ‘The Nation’s Favourite Carol’ – show of the same name.
The Nation’s best-loved Carols as chosen by you.
Features special guests Bryn Terfel, Grace Davidson, Trystan Griffiths and the City of London Choir conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton and accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra & Christopher Gunning – Christopher Gunning: Symphonies 6 & 7, Night Voyage (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:14 minutes | 1023 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Following the celebrated releases of Gunning’s Symphonies Nos. 2, 10 & 12 in 2019 and his concertos for Violin and Cello with the piece ‘Birdflight’ in 2020, Signum presents the recording of Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7 as well as his piece ‘Night Voyage’, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Linked by the theme of journeying, Symphonies 6 & 7 explore Gunning’s fascination with a single movement form broken into several sub-sections. The piece ‘Night Voyage’ is a sea piece born on a rainy evening whilst the composer was standing on the edge of the Mersey river.
Four-time BAFTA winning composer Christopher Gunning, has composed twelve symphonies as well as concertos for the piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and guitar.
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Christopher Tin, Voces8, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Barnaby Smith – The Lost Birds (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:45 minutes | 778 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Classics
“The Lost Birds” is a soaring elegy for the loss of bird species due to human activity. Composed and conducted by Christopher Tin and featuring Voces8 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Tin’s new requiem is a celebration of birds – as symbols of beauty, hope, peace and renewal – but it also mourns their absence.
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Daniele Gatti – Tchaikovsky: Symphony 6 in B minor “Pathétique” Op. 74 (2006)
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,98 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,21 GB | Full Artwork | 3% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi USA # HMU 807394 | Country/Year: Europe 2006
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic
By now, the most you can hope for from a new recording of one of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies is not originality of conception but a performance that seizes on a particular (if familiar) element of the work and successfully runs with it. In his live recording on Naïve, Riccardo Muti makes the anguish in the first movement of Symphony 6 seem an end-of-the-world crisis. Herbert von Karajan’s outings with the Berlin Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon give the first-movement rhythms the pulsing regularity of a heartbeat that abruptly stops, with bone-chilling effect.
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Daniele Gatti – Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5 & Romeo & Juliet (2004)
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,12 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,04 GB | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi USA # HMU 807381 | Country/Year: Europe 2004 | 3% Recovery Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic
Review by Blair Sanderson
Considering that the marketplace is saturated with too many recordings of the same masterpieces, there ought to be compelling reasons to record works as overplayed as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Romeo and Juliet. Daniele Gatti takes the position that Tchaikovsky’s original tempi and dynamics have been ignored for generations and that restoration of these markings presents the works in a dramatically different light. Faster tempi make a real difference, and the music sounds less tortured and maudlin at Gatti’s brisk clip. The symphony has a clear trajectory, and Romeo and Juliet is more combative and driven without the usual languid pacing. But the speed of the performances is possibly less interesting than Gatti’s close attention to dynamics, for this is where the works benefit most. Tchaikovsky’s orchestration is brilliant in Gatti’s lucid and finely gauged readings, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra offers great depth of sound and vivid timbral distinctions. Is the restoration Earth-shattering? Perhaps not to the extent that Baroque works sound radically changed in authentic re-creations. With Tchaikovsky, the differences are subtle and may be less obvious to the untrained ear. Even so, these are refreshing alternatives to the commonplace performances of the past, and Gatti’s reappraisal of these warhorses opens a new area for debate. allmusicguide
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Daniele Gatti – Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 4 & Capriccio Italien op. 45 (2005)
SACD ISO: 2,89 GB (Stereo + MCH DSD) | FLAC @ 24bit/88.2kHz: 930 MB | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi USA # HMU 807393 | Country/Year: Europe 2005 | 3% Rec. Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic
Review by James Leonard
This is really good! No matter how little faith one has in the possibility that anyone could breathe life into a warhorse like Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Daniele Gatti has done it with the Royal Philharmonic in this 2005 recording for Harmonia Mundi. Coupled with the equally venerable and equally successful Capriccio Italien, Gatti turns in performances that rip and roar, that excite and inspire, performances so cogent and compelling, so strong and sincere that they even make the doubter believe that Tchaikovsky knew what he was doing as a composer after his nearly fatal nervous breakdown after his spectacularly failed marriage attempt. But Gatti’s control of tempo and texture and his attention to color and line do more than breathe life into Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, his conducting puts some backbone into it. Gatti’s rhythms have real muscle, his developments have real point, and his forms have real power, and when combined with the composer’s glorious melodies and expressive harmonies, this Fourth shakes, rattles, and rolls. The Royal Philharmonic’s performance is first class with sweeping strings, warms winds, bold brass, a percussion section of tremendous might and majesty, and an ensemble both characterful and unified. If old timer stereo buffs still hold to the iron-handed Mravinsky or the leather-gloved Abbado, even they will have to admit that only Jansons of digital recordings comes close to Gatti in making the case for Tchaikovsky’s Fourth as a masterful symphony. Harmonia Mundi’s English-based recorded sound is just as clear and bright as its French- or American-based recorded sound, but also warmer and lusher and more vivid. allmusicguide
The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent – Ralph Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 (Live) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:12:39 minutes | 369 MB | Genre: Classique
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings
SOMM celebrates the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth with definitive, newly remastered performances by Lani Spahr of his ever-popular The Wasps Overture and two symphonies – the startling Sixth and, in its world premiere performance, the valedictorian Ninth – with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. As Simon Heffer comments in his authoritative booklet notes, this major new release is notable for containing historical performances (from 1957, 1958 and 1964), for Spahr’s meticulous restorations, and for offering “a clear indication of the genius of” Sargent.
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Bond 25 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:16 minutes | 1,44 GB | Genre: Classical, Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca (UMO) (Classics)
Bond 25 is an album of all 25 Bond themes throughout the decades, expertly reimagined for the first time and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It celebrates all 25 iconic films in the Bond franchise. The album includes a brand new orchestral arrangement of Hans Zimmer and Billie Eilish’s No.1 single ‘No Time To Die (Theme)’. The album, recorded in 2019 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, includes brand new arrangements of the 25 iconic title themes including From Russia With Love, Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die, GoldenEye and Die Another Day, spanning nearly 60 years of cinema and tracklisted chronologically from 1962’s Dr. No to 2020’s No Time To Die.
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Piotr Beczala, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Łukasz Borowicz – Heart’s Delight – The Songs of Richard Tauber (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:34 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
It is mostly operetta enthusiasts who remember the name of the monocle-wearing Austrian tenor Richard Tauber today, and that’s why this release by Polish tenor Piotr Beczala is welcome. Tauber was an enormously popular figure in many countries, singing in many languages, from the 1910s through the end of his life, unhappily exiled from his native Austria due to Jewish ancestry, after World War II. It’s not clear whether Tauber’s languages included Polish, but the program here involves German, English, and Italian. Beczala’s German is excellent; his English is slightly accented, but probably less so than Tauber’s own, and there are no distractions to impede the enjoyment of Tauber’s biggest hit, You Are My Heart’s Delight, from Franz Lehár’s The Land of Smiles. That and a few other similar numbers set the pattern for operetta and later film musical composers who tried to tailor their big numbers to Tauber’s strengths. The composers here range from the well known (Lehár) to the moderately known (Emmerich Kálmán) to the all-but-forgotten (Rudolf Sieczynski and several of the film film composers), but all the music seems of a piece, and in a style consistent enough to be familiar. That style straddled the divide between operetta and popular song; it is extravagantly romantic, almost strangely so from a modern perspective, filled with the rhythms of the waltz and other popular dances, but exploding often enough into the upper tenor register to give the singer some star quality. Beczala, something of a connoisseur’s tenor up to this point, handles the high Bs nicely, and there is just a sense of fun about the whole thing that puts across something of what Tauber must have been like. You get an aural whiff of Tauber himself in track 7, Du bist die Welt für mich (You are the world to me), which he also composed; this could have had an odd necro-duet feel, but it is tastefully handled, with the Tauber excerpt, recorded in 1934, coming in at the end as a sort of memory. An enjoyable major-label debut for operetta lovers.
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Virgil Boutellis-Taft, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra & Jac van Steen – Incantation (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:20 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aparté
Incantation holds many mysteries. The brilliant violinist Virgil Boutellis-Taft strips away the veil of its secret powers, the ones that lie inside his violin’s fascinating chant.
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Oliver Davis, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul Bateman – Oliver Davis: Air (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:39 minutes | 997 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Oliver Davis’s seventh album “Air” with Signum brings together a stellar array of performers, including violinists Benjamin Baker and Kerenza Peacock, soprano Grace Davidson and tenor Jeremy Budd, alongside German ensemble the Hanke Brothers and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Paul Bateman.Oliver Davis graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1994 and has since composed numerous concertos, ballet scores, albums, soundtracks and television scores working with many of the major London orchestras. Davis’ debut album “Flight”, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra with soloist Kerenza Peacock, was released in March 2015 and quickly rose to number 2 in the UK Specialist Classical Charts. In addition it was chosen as “Featured Album of the Week” on Classic FM and was broadcast daily on the station. Several pieces from the album “Flight” have been used for a ballet choreographed by Ma Cong for the Tulsa Ballet Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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