![Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo - Ravel: La valse, M. 72 & Other Works (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/03/04/p7t0457w0ph5a_600.jpg)
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo – Ravel: La valse, M. 72 & Other Works (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:24 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
Maurice Ravel composed a number of works which have become classics of the repertoire both for solo piano and for orchestra. On the present disc, all except one work were first conceived for piano, which raises the question how it is possible to transfer such pianistic music to the orchestra without making it sound like a mere ‘colourized’ version. Ravel’s orchestral writing was the result of a long apprenticeship and careful study of orchestration treatises as well as scores, notably of works by Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss. Although his skills as an orchestrator are much admired today, his ability to coax new sounds out of the orchestra wasn’t always appreciated in his own time, however – in 1907 the critic Pierre Lalo complained that ‘in Ravel’s orchestra, no instrument retains its natural sound…’
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Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra – Final Symphony II – Music from Final Fantasy V, VIII, IX and XIII (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:37:19 minutes | 1013 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Merregnon Records
Presented as full length, beautifully orchestrated suites, one for each of the games included, Final Symphony II features the music of Final Fantasy V, VIII, IX and XIII, as performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded inside the stunning Stockholm Konserthuset.
Spotlighting much loved themes from composers Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu, such as Blinded by Light, Festival of the Hunt, Waltz for the Moon and Reina’s Theme to name a few, Final Symphony II tells the story of each title through music and is the ultimate tribute for fans of the long-running role-playing game series
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Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Mahler: Symphony No.9 (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:22:22 minutes | 730 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS Records
The love affair between Alan Gilbert and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra began in December 1997 with a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. In 2000 Gilbert became chief conductor and artistic advisor of the orchestra, remaining in that post until 2008 – a period which has been described as ‘a golden age’ in the history of the orchestra. For his farewell concert as chief conductor, Gilbert chose to close the chapter by performing Mahler’s last symphony, No. 9 in D major, and the present recording was made in conjunction with this very special occasion. It was a fitting choice of repertoire in another respect as well: Mahler composed his Ninth in 1909-10, after having accepted the post of music director of the New York Philharmonic, the very orchestra that Gilbert now goes on to take charge of. The symphony is often regarded as the composer’s monumental – both in terms of scale and emotional scope – leave-taking of the world. In his insightful liner notes, Arnold Whittall acknowledges the difficult circumstances in Mahler’s personal life at the time of composition, but rather than nostalgia he finds in it a momentum propelling the symphonic genre far into the future: ‘Mahler’s Ninth is one of the crowning glories of symphonic history, and many would argue that it has only rarely been equalled, and probably never surpassed, in the century since its completion.
Read more![Johan Dalene, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds - Nielsen & Sibelius: Violin Concertos (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/03/31/wl7kdaszcb5ba_600.jpg)
Johan Dalene, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds – Nielsen & Sibelius: Violin Concertos (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:13 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius, alongside Grieg the two giants in Nordic classical music, were both born in 1865. Both also received their first musical training on the violin, earning valuable insights when it came to writing for the instrument. Their respective Violin Concertos were composed some six years apart – Sibelius’ in 1904-05 and Nielsen’s in 1911 – and belong to the most performed works of either composer. They are nevertheless as different from each other as are the artistic temperaments of their makers. While retaining the traditional three-movement concerto form, Sibelius composed something closer to a Late-Romantic orchestral tone poem giving the orchestra unusual prominence. Nielsen on the other hand opted for an unconventional form, reminiscent of the Baroque concerto grosso: the spiky, neoclassical work is nominally in two movements, but with each movement having a slow and a fast section.
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![Renée Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo - Distant Light: Barber - Hillborg - Björk (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/23/0002894830419_600.jpg)
Renée Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo – Distant Light: Barber – Hillborg – Björk (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:47 minutes | 946 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
‘Distant Light’ is Renée Fleming’s first foray into the hypnotic world of Scandinavian music. For her first new studio album in three years she has chosen to inspire and provoke with a daring mix of music.
The title comes from a poem in a new song cycle dedicated to Renée and here receiving its world premiere recording: Anders Hillborg’s ‘The Strand Settings’.
“At once atmospheric, elegiac and unsettling, the work was crafted with Ms. Fleming’s creamy voice in mind”, wrote the New York Times at its first performance in 2013. One of Sweden’s brightest star composers Hillborg has a close relationship with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic where this recording was made in February 2016 with its principal conductor Sakari Oramo.
Renée couples this with three songs by Björk in specially commissioned orchestrations by the brilliant Swedish composer and arranger Hans Ek, recorded here for the first time.
Why Björk? Both she and Renée are recipients of Sweden’s Polar Music Prize. Both dare to be original. In the fascinating booklet interview Renée talks about her admiration for Björk: “Her originality is breathtaking. She just blazes her own path forward”. Renée chooses the songs which mean the most to her personally and musically.
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Håkan Hardenberger, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra & Fabien Gabel – Tomasi, Jolivet & Others: French Trumpet Concertos (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:00 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
During the second half of the 19th century, a French school of trumpet playing was established, with French musicians and composers at the forefront of the instrument’s musical and technical development. As a result, it was entrusted with a more prominent role within the orchestra and soon also as a solo instrument. On the present disc, Håkan Hardenberger – who like so many other leading trumpet players studied in Paris – presents some of the fruits of this development: five important French works composed between 1944 and 1977. With the support of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Fabien Gabel – who incidentally began his career as a trumpet player – he opens the disc with Henri Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto. Often performed and recorded, it here appears on disc for the first time with its original, longer ending, reconstructed from a newly discovered manuscript.
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