New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Violin Concerto, op.33; Flute Concerto, FS 119; Clarinet Concerto, op.129 (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Violin Concerto, op.33; Flute Concerto, FS 119; Clarinet Concerto, op.129 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:16 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | ©

CREEP INTO THE SOULS OF THE INSTRUMENTS :: Carl Nielsen’s three solo concertos, along with his six symphonies, constitute the core of his orchestral music. Like the symphonies, each of the three concertos relates to the classical tradition in its own way. At the same time they show how Carl Nielsen developed, and increasingly distanced himself from the conventions. “I began by composing with the piano, later rearranging for the orchestra. The next stage was that I wrote my score directly for the instruments. Now I think in terms of the instruments themselves – I sort of creep into their souls,” said Carl Nielsen at the age of 60. It is this personification of the instruments that makes the three solo concertos so individual. In the Violin Concerto there is moreover a quite personal empathy with the solo instrument, because Nielsen was originally a violinist himself.

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New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:11:25 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dacapo

Nielsen was a high energy composer, perfectly suited to a “muscle” orchestra like the New York Philharmonic. Listening to these two performance we are reminded how the world of classical recordings has been taken over by orchestras of the second rank–professionally adequate, ambitious, able to fund their own recording programs and often to get released on major labels, but singularly lacking in the sort of corporate virtuosity and ensemble balances at all dynamic levels so tellingly in evidence here. If you like your Nielsen big, bold, and gutsy, then this is the cycle you need to own.

This doesn’t mean that Gilbert and his players are in any way crude. The opening of the Fifth Symphony emerges with gossamer delicacy, and the solo wind playing is as sensitive as one could wish. But the hostile snare drum entrance carries real menace, while the movement’s adagio second half, beautifully spun out by the strings, features the best percussion cadenza since Horenstein, leading to an absolutely apocalyptic climax. Similarly, Gilbert brings thrilling energy to the start of the second movement. The ensuing quick fugue isn’t as swift as some, but the orchestra’s weight of tone, its attention to detail, makes the music unusually vicious, while the race to the closing bars has seldom sounded more exhilarating.

The Sixth Symphony can come off as sort of a bitter, denatured coda to the previous five. Again, without minimizing the work’s etherial moments and often stark instrumental textures, Gilbert and the orchestral put the meat back on the music’s bony skeleton. The climax of the first movement is really terrifying, the Humoresque vividly grotesque. In the Adagio “Proposta seria,” the strings dig into their parts with painful intensity, leaving a finale in which Gilbert ensures that each variation has its own vivid character. The wacky waltz, even in it’s ghostly early stages, seethes with a latent energy that makes sense of the violent eruptions from the brass and bass drum that rip it apart shortly afterwards.

One textural note: these performances seem not to be using the latest Critical Edition of the symphonies–you can tell from the fact that the loud timpani triplets are still present towards the end of the finale’s opening section, to cite one example. This is not a wrong decision; the Critical Edition took an excessively dogmatic view in its efforts to present Nielsen’s first thoughts, eliminating revisions based on the practical realities of performance, even if these were accepted–whether tacitly or explicitly–by the composer. Nielsen was never faced with a situation like Bruckner’s, in which a crew of well-meaning but misguided supporters altered and manifestly falsified the basic text. Additions and modification to his scores were limited mostly to small but sometimes telling details, such as the additional timpani part just mentioned.

The excellent live sonics add to the tactile immediacy of the performances. If the foregoing sounds as though this team saved their best for last, well, I would say that they did. One quibble though: the booklet notes, by Jens Cornelius, are surprisingly poor. He seems to think that the snare drummer in the Fifth Symphony is a timpanist, and his language is both pretentious and stilted. Normally I wouldn’t care or mention it, save for the fact that it seems so odd and uncharacteristic. Never mind, it’s the music that matters, and about that there can be no question whatsoever. This is fantastic. –David Hurwitz, Classics Today

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New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:09:20 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dacapo

These are strong, exciting performances of symphonies that demand the sort of bold muscularity in their execution that these artists offer. In Alan Gilbert’s hands the First Symphony sounds extremely confident and wholly mature. It starts with a bang and the tension in the first movement never lets up. The playing of the New York Philharmonic throughout is fresh and unaffected, full of spirit and drive. Even the Andante flows purposefully forward, and contrasts nicely with the Allegro comodo that does duty for a scherzo–with its harmonic kinks so personal to Nielsen. The finale has the same “pedal to the metal” drive as the opening, bringing the performance to a rousing conclusion.

The performance of the “Inextinguishable” Fourth Symphony also features some really impressive energy and power. In the first movement the brass play with a precision and clarity that few other versions can match, and in the finale the dueling timpani compete with real bravura. The slow movement here reminds me of Shostakovich in its bleak intensity, and my only quibble with Gilbert’s interpretation concerns the symphony’s coda where, like most of his colleagues, Gilbert broadens the pace in the closing bars when Nielsen clearly wants to drive the music home in tempo. Gilbert does pull it off: with an orchestra that has the weight and strength of the New York Philharmonic the effect is convincing, but Gibson (on Chandos) remains unmatched here.
Dacapo’s engineering, as with the previous release in this series, is natural and very present. The woodwinds feel just slightly recessed in more fully scored sections, but I can attest that the music really does sound like this in actual performance with a large orchestra, and certainly nothing gets lost. More importantly, the engineers have captured the impression of a live performance, caught on the wing, and the audience is mercifully quiet. This is a very impressive release. –David Hurwitz, Classics Today

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Alan Gilbert & NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester – Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Alan Gilbert & NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester – Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:06:26 minutes | 653 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Austrian symphonist Bruckner was long denied the recognition that he deserved – which was a situation that almost endured until towards the end of his life. However, he owed his significant breakthrough as a composer to the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in Leipzig in 1884. With the famous Adagio, this work was an enormous success during Bruckner’s lifetime and is still considered one of the most famous and beautiful works of romantic symphonic repertoire. Even Johann Strauss, Jr. was amazed by the symphony: “Am deeply moved. It was the musical experience of my life.” For the present album, this deeply moving symphony is recently recorded in one of the most famous concert halls in the world, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, by its Orchestra in Residence NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under their new Chief Conductor Alan Gilbert. With this recording, one will experience Bruckner’s breathtaking Seventh Symphony in the spectacular big concert hall of Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

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Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert – Mahler: Symphony No.9 (2009) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

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.

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Inon Barnatan, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields & Alan Gilbert – Beethoven: Piano Concertos, Vol. 1 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Inon Barnatan, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields & Alan Gilbert – Beethoven: Piano Concertos, Vol. 1 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:25:37 minutes | 1,83 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone

One of the most admired pianists of his generation, Inon Barnatan kicks off his complete Beethoven piano concertos cycle with this double album, together with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and maestro Alan Gilbert. Ranging from the classical First and romantic Third to the experimental Fourth Piano Concerto, and closing with the festive Triple Concerto, Barnatan and his colleagues display the exceptional expressive range and stylistic diversity of Beethoven’s musical language. For the Triple Concerto, Barnatan joins forces with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. This recording project bears the fruit of longstanding and profound musical friendships, and – surprisingly – offers the first integral recording of Beethoven piano concertos by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, one of the most-recorded ensembles in the world of classical music.

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Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Daniel Harding, Kirill Petrenko, Alan Gilbert – Beethoven, Berg, Bartók: Violin Concertos (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Daniel Harding, Kirill Petrenko, Alan Gilbert - Beethoven, Berg, Bartók: Violin Concertos (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Daniel Harding, Kirill Petrenko, Alan Gilbert – Beethoven, Berg, Bartók: Violin Concertos (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:58:42 minutes | 4,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The world’s great conductors are not the only important artistic companions of the Berliner Philharmoniker. It is also always exceptional soloists who perform regularly with the orchestra, providing individual inspiration in their collaboration and opening up stimulating perspectives on the music. The Berliner Philharmoniker enjoy a productive partnership with many of these esteemed companions – with some, even a friendship.
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Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alan Gilbert – Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alan Gilbert - Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Berliner Philharmoniker, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alan Gilbert – Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 34:21 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The world’s great conductors are not the only important artistic companions of the Berliner Philharmoniker. It is also always exceptional soloists who perform regularly with the orchestra, providing individual inspiration in their collaboration and opening up stimulating perspectives on the music. The Berliner Philharmoniker enjoy a productive partnership with many of these esteemed companions – with some, even a friendship.
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Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic, Thomas Hampson – Passion & Pain: Haydn, Adams, Schubert & Berg (2010) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic, Thomas Hampson – Passion & Pain: Haydn, Adams, Schubert & Berg (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:10 minutes | 1,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New York Philharmonic

HAYDN : Symphony No. 49 in F minor, La passione, Hob. I:49
John ADAMS: The Wound-Dresser
SCHUBERT: Symphony in B minor, Unfinished
BERG: Three Orchestral Pieces

Passion & Pain: Adams, Haydn & Schubert is one of four individual performances produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic and personally selected by Alan Gilbert for commercial release during his inaugural season with the Philharmonic.

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Alan Gilbert and New York Philharmonic – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alan Gilbert and New York Philharmonic – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:06 minutes | 741 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New York Philharmonic

The creator of hundreds of spirited, extroverted instrumental works, Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi is widely recognized as the master of the Baroque instrumental concerto, which he perfected and popularized more than any of his contemporaries.

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Christopher Rouse – Orchestral Works – New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christopher Rouse – Orchestral Works – New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 57:40 minutes | 816 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Dacapo-Records.dk | Booklet, Front Cover

This album presents four world premiere recordings of works by Christopher Rouse (b. 1949), the New York Philharmonic’s second Marie-Josée Kravis Composer- in-Residence, three of them composed for the Orchestra and Music Director Alan Gilbert. Taken together, the Fourth Symphony, Prospero’s Rooms, and Odna Zhizn bear witness to a remarkable period of artistic collaboration between the legendary Orchestra, its celebrated Music Director, and one of today’s most evocative American composers.

“Chris Rouse is one of the most important composers working today. … He actually shapes the sound and the flow of his music in a way that only great composers can.” –Alan Gilbert (more…)

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Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 – Yefim Bronfman, New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert (2010) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 – Yefim Bronfman, New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 01:17:19 minutes | 1,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | © New York Philharmonic
Recorded live January 7–8 & 12, 2010, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

`Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev is one of four individual performances produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic and personally selected by Alan Gilbert for commercial release during his inaugural season with the Philharmonic.

PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 2
RACHMANINOFF: Symphony No. 2

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor can be a knockout if you have a soloist capable of dispatching its demonically difficult piano part. The Philharmonic had one ” and how! ” in Yefim Bronfman. ” Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

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Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic, Thomas Hampson – Passion & Pain: Haydn, Adams, Schubert & Berg (2010) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic, Thomas Hampson – Passion & Pain: Haydn, Adams, Schubert & Berg (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 80:11 minutes | 1,54 GB
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Digital booklet

In September 2009 Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, the first native New Yorker to hold the post. Passion & Pain: Adams, Haydn & Schubert is one of four individual performances produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic and personally selected by Alan Gilbert for commercial release during his inaugural season with the Philharmonic. (more…)

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