Tasmin Little, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Sir Andrew Davis – Goossens: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:22 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Sir Andrew Davis and his Melbourne forces turn to Goossens’s Second Symphony and the Phantasy Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, featuring Tasmin Little as soloist.
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Sir Andrew Davis – Berlioz: L’enfance du Christ, Op. 25, H. 130 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:29:52 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Berlioz wrote his own text for L’Enfance du Christ, which he composed in 1853 and 1854. It was first performed at the Salle Herz, Paris on 10 December 1854, with Berlioz conducting. He described the work as a “Trilogie sacrée”. The first of its three sections depicts King Herod ordering the massacre of all newborn children in Judaea; the second shows Mary, Joseph, and Jesus setting out for Egypt to avoid the slaughter, having been warned by angels; and the final section portrays their arrival in the Egyptian town of Saïs where they are given refuge by a family of Ishmaelites. Berlioz was not religious as an adult but remained all his life susceptible to the beauty of the religious music that had enraptured him as a child.
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BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Bliss: The Enchantress, Meditations on a Theme by John Blow & Mary of Magdala (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:57 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Bliss composed The Enchantress in 1951, the year of his sixtieth birthday, for Kathleen Ferrier. The text is a free adaptation of the Second Idyll of Theocritus, made by Henry Reed, and well suited to Bliss’s love of classical Greek authors.
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Sir Andrew Davis – Berlioz: Symphony fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48 & Fantaisie dramatique sur la tempête, H. 52 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:07 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
The Fantaisie sur la Tempête de Shakespeare was composed shortly after Berlioz had won the coveted Prix de Rome (at the fourth attempt) with his cantata Sardanapale, and was originally conceived as a concert overture, with chorus. After various re-workings of the material, the four-movement Fantaisie, as recorded here, became the finale of Berlioz’s ‘monodrama’ Lélio – a juxtaposition of existing material interlinked with dramatic monologues recited by the ‘artist’ at the centre of the work.
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Sir Andrew Davis, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Roderick Williams – Elgar: Falstaff & Orchestral Songs (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:23 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Aside from Elgar’s fascinating and obligatory Falstaff composed in 1913 (a Symphonic Study according to the partition, but in reality a symphonic poem in the grand tradition of Strauss— about whom Elgar probably thought when he wrote his masterpiece, and the rather present solo cello cannot help but remind us of Strauss’ Don Quixote, composed sixteen years earlier), the album distinguishes itself by a few melodies with orchestra from the same Elgar, a repertoire unfortunately too often neglected and yet of breathtaking beauty (we hear, in a pinch, the Sea Pictures performed from time to time, but that’s all folks). And when you know that it’s the now very famous baritone Roderick Williams on the mic, we can only applaud the initiative of Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic to feature these splendors once again. Elgar proves to us here that, far from just being a great master of large symphonic-vocal soundscapes in the form of oratorio (we obviously think about The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Music Makers), he handles the miniature with genius. Roderick Williams, one of the most beautiful voices of today’s British scene, grasps these rarities with a joy that is as rare as these pieces. The album closes on a hilarious wink, the Smoking Cantata, a cantata with a ginormous orchestration but that lasts… only 49 seconds, and whose text is limited to: “Kindly, Kindly, kindly do not SMOKE in the hall or staircase”. It’s the best British humor!
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Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Ives: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:01 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
For this third volume in an Ives series that Sir Andrew Davis and his Melbourne Orchestra have already made globally popular, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet takes on the challenge of the solo piano part in Symphony No. 4.
The work is famous for its ubiquitous difficulties, not least the apparent impossibility of realising many of the composer’s creative intentions in a live performance, as evidenced by the forty pages of background discussion and practical advice to conductors that introduce the published score.
It is complemented by the less-often-performed triptych Orchestral Set No. 2 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony No. 3.
Recorded in Surround Sound in Melbourne just after a ‘remarkable, very welcome’ (Sydney Morning Herald) performance in concert of the same programme by the same forces, this album is a must-have for anyone who wants to experience this monumental music under optimal conditions.
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Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Handel: Messiah, HWV 56 (1741) (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:54:19 minutes | 3,66 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos Records
Experience the transcendent glory of Messiah in Sir Andrew Davis’s new, majestic, must-hear edition of Handel’s beloved classic.
Recorded live for SACD release in surround sound, this unique version makes use of all the colours available from the modern symphony orchestra to underline the mood and meaning of the individual movements. Without detracting from the innate power of the original, the conductor’s score calls for moments of drama, pathos, and even, sometimes, whimsicality. It is supported by substantial brass and woodwind forces, and several percussion instruments (including marimba!).
As he explains in a very personal booklet note, this leading British conductor brings immense dedication to what is probably the most famous piece of British sacred music ever composed, this version being one which he has conducted live only a few times, including on this recording. He confesses: ‘Everything I have done instrumentally stems from the enormous respect, even awe, which I feel towards this supreme masterpiece’.
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BBC Philharmonic, Sir Andrew Davis – Stravinsky: Orchestral Works (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:23:27 minutes | 1,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
The Symphony in C was conceived in Paris in the late 1930s, but completed in America in 1940, and is dedicated to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premièred in 1946, the Symphony in Three Movements presents us with movements that also manifest different ways of moving: a march, a slow dance, and a march-jog-race. The Greeting Prelude was written as an eightieth birthday tribute to Pierre Monteux, conductor of the premières of Pétrouchka and The Rite of Spring, and was first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the very day: 4 April 1955. The other two pieces on the album reflect Stravinsky’s lifelong involvement with ballet. The Divertimento is an orchestral piece extracted by Stravinsky from his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss. The ballet was a homage to Tchaikovsky, based on songs and piano pieces by him, stitched together and orchestrated with Stravinskian cool. The Circus Polka was a commission from Stravinsky’s long-time collaborator George Balanchine, who had been asked by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to create a dance for elephants. The version heard here is the composer’s own orchestral version; the original was scored for circus band and organ by David Raksin, and performed by fifty elephants and fifty female dancers!
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Sarah Connolly, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius & Sea Pictures (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:04:38 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Chandos Records is delighted to present this new recording of Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius and the enduringly popular song cycle Sea Pictures. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, a peerless Elgarian who this year was awarded the prestigious Elgar Society Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the composer’s music. In Gerontius the soloists are Stuart Skelton, David Soar, and Sarah Connolly who also sings Sea Pictures. This recording was made in the days leading up to their triumphant live performance of Gerontius in April this year, after which The Guardian praised Skelton as ‘the ideal tenor for the role of Gerontius’, Soar as ‘an implacable, dark-sounding Priest’, and Connolly as ‘a consummately polished Angel’.
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BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Delius: Appalachia, The Song Of The High Hills (2011)
BDP-170 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & DST64 5.0 >1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Digital Booklet | 3.05 GB
FLAC tracks 2.0 24bit/88.2 kHz | Digital Booklet | 1.10 GB
This release offers a pair of fairly early Delius works; they may not be instantly appealing to those making a start with this idiosyncratic English impressionist, but confirmed fans will love them. The roots of Frederick Delius’ Appalachia lay in his experiences as an orange plantation manager in Florida in the late 1880s, where he heard the singing of African-American laborers and, according to his own testimony, first began to think about becoming a composer. The work is subtitled “Variations on an Old Slave Song with Final Chorus for baritone, chorus, and orchestra,” and everything about it is intriguingly confused. Florida is not part of Appalachia. Nor is the Mississippi River delta, which Delius claimed was the inspiration for the work, but which he apparently never saw. To top it off, the “old slave song” is obscure; Delius, who had firsthand experience of African-American music, may indeed have heard it somewhere, but the text doesn’t appear anywhere in databases of spiritual texts, and apparently no one has discovered the source. The melody, uncharacteristically simple for a spiritual, is stated plainly after a two-part introduction, and then follows a set of variations of all possible shapes and sizes, culminating in a choral finale. The finale gives the advertised baritone soloist precious little to do; he gets to sing just a few bars after cooling his heels on-stage for half an hour. And it introduces the text of the song, which with its “sold down the river” images sounds a bit out of place in the mouths of a substantial English chorus. The BBC Symphony Chorus under Andrew Davis does its best with this, and in general the level of orchestral detail, the heart and soul of a Delius performance, is impressive here. The Song of the High Hills expands on the wordless chorus idea that is introduced in Appalachia, and technically it’s perhaps a more accomplished work. Appalachia, however, truly announced Delius as an original, and it’s the kind of piece you’ll either love or hate depending on your attitude toward the composer’s output in general. In any case, it’s not a terribly common work on CD, and Davis deserves thanks for its resurrection here.
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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Vaughan Williams: Job / Symphony No.9 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:26 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
The projected complete cycle of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies started by the late Richard Hickox has left a precious heritage in the discography of the composer. Now, conducting the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, that other expert in British repertoire, Sir Andrew Davis, takes on the challenge of completing the series with idiomatic interpretations of two masterpieces: the final Symphony (No. 9) and the ballet Job.
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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis – Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia Antartica, Two Piano Concertos & Four Last Songs (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:17:08 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
This is the eagerly awaited final volume in our historic series of Vaughan Williams’s Symphonies, started about twenty-five years ago by the late Richard Hickox, and recently continued by that other expert in British repertoire, Sir Andrew Davis. The album features an exceptional cast and a rare combination of repertoire.
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