Andrew Litton

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:01 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

There is nothing unusual about a composer returning to a major work in order to make revisions, but among such works Sergei Prokofiev’s Fourth Symphony is a unique case in that it exists in two such different versions that the composer considered them quite separate works and gave each its own opus number. Composed in 1929–30, the first version, Op. 47, met with lukewarm response at its Boston and European premières as well as at performances given before Soviet audiences following Prokofiev’s final return to Russia in 1936. In 1947 Prokofiev decided to return to the symphony, producing not so much a revision as a complete reworking of the original material. The differences between the versions are too many to detail, but the main point is that the 1947 version, given the opus number 112, is a much bigger and more ambitious score. Some four years later Prokofiev began work on what would become his last major work, Symphony No. 7 in C sharp minor. The composer announced that he aimed at simplicity and was writing ‘a symphony for children’, a statement that was possibly influenced by the fact that he in 1948 had been accused for ‘formalism’ by the Soviet authorities. In any case, there is nothing childish – or simple – about the work. After the first performance, Prokofiev was persuaded into change the ending, adding a more up-beat and optimistic twenty-bar alternative to the original coda. Both endings are included on the present recording, giving listeners the opportunity to judge the very different effect each makes. The disc is the third instalment in a Prokofiev cycle from Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, with previous discs receiving warm acclaim from, for instance, Fanfare (‘One of the best performances of the Fifth that I have ever heard…’) and the German website Klassik-Heute, which selected the recording of Symphony No. 6 as one of its recommended releases.
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Andrew Litton, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – Prokofiev: Romeo And Juliet Suites (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:14:15 minutes | 607 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Combined, Prokofiev’s three suites from Romeo include about half of the score. Still, most conductors who want to give us a full CD (or even a full LP) of Romeo pick their own extracts from the complete ballet instead of stringing together the suites. That’s probably at least partly because they don’t share Prokofiev’s preferences when it comes to favorite moments—but it’s also because, as written, the suites are organized for musical rather than narrative coherence, and thus provide little sense of the play’s dramatic trajectory. One way around the second of these issues, of course, is to reorder the suites: that’s, for instance, what Mitropoulos does with selections from the more popular First and Second. Here Andrew Litton pushes that idea to its limit, giving us all 20 movements of the three suites “in the order the music appears in the ballet score.”

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
Conductor: Andrew Litton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Holst: The Planets, Op. 32 – Elgar: Enigma Variations, Op. 36 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:22:42 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Klassik
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

It is striking that two of the true classics in English orchestral music were composed within the short space of some fifteen years around the turn of the previous century. Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations have charmed as well as fascinated listeners since the first performance in 1899. In 14 remarkably diverse variations Elgar demonstrates his compositional mastery while creating miniature portraits of his closest friends, as well as of his wife and himself. By turns gentle, idyllic, tempestuous and boisterous, the pieces which often run seamlessly into each other nevertheless make up a coherent whole, like a group portrait taken during a country weekend.

In 1916 Gustav Holst completed another set of musical character sketches his suite The Planets, in seven movements. These have little to do with astronomy and even less with the Roman deities whose names they carry. Holst was rather inspired by astrology and the suite actually concerns human character as influenced by the planets.

Performing the programme in the warm acoustics of Bergen’s Grieg Hall, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton give it their all in this sonic spectacular.
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