![Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra , Andrew Manze - Job, A Masque for Dancing (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/18/vdqmcll30xa2a_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra , Andrew Manze – Job, A Masque for Dancing (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:19 minutes | 801 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PM Classics Ltd.
Following on from their highly acclaimed cycle of the 9 Vaughan Williams symphonies, Andrew Manze and the RLPO have recorded a spectacular Job, taken from a live performance at the famed Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. RVW’s inspiration for Job arose from William Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job, a collection of water colours from 1805, and the later engravings from 1822. 1928 was the centenary of Blake’s death, and RVW attempted to interest Serge Diaghilev, the foremost artistic power in the world of ballet to take it up but to no avail. The work has since become a concert piece after a handful of staged performances in the early 1930s. The score is in 9 sections telling the story of Job. The music is notable for its dramatic contrasts. The music for God being powerful and majestic, that for Satan is powerfully dissonant with a violence that foreshadows music encountered in the 4th and 6th symphonies and the piano concerto. RVW had seen service in France in the First World War, and what he saw there undoubtedly coloured his musical language, and the horrors endured by Job are depicted in some of RVVs most driven and dissonant music.
(more…)
The English Concert and Andrew Manze – Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:54 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
No, not more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! How can there be any more? Have not decades of scholarships overturned every possible rock to find every possible violin concerto by the composer of The Four Seasons, everybody’s perennial favorite? Although the answer is apparently not, that is, in fact, good news: that there are still more lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos by Vivaldi should warm the hearts and open the wallets of classical music lovers around the world.
And that is not all the good news. The really good news is that seven more-or-less new Violin Concertos by Vivaldi have been recorded by super-virtuoso Andrew Manze leading the super-fine English Concert. And while none of them, not even the super-sultry L’amoroso, will make most listeners shed their allegiance to Vivaldi’s four greatest hits, all of them are in truth just as lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and perhaps even more mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos that Manze dispatches with his by now customary panache and aplomb. Yes, more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! Harmonia Mundi’s digital sound is vivid and immediate.
Read more
Natalie Clein, Andrew Manze, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Saint-Saëns: Cello Concertos (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:43 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Natalie Clein adds a remarkable collection of Saint-Saëns’ music for cello and orchestra to her impressive discography. Clein first came to prominence when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 1994; it is appropriate that she performs the music of an extraordinary child prodigy.
The first cello concerto has always been one of Saint-Saëns’ most popular pieces, Casals choosing it for his London debut in 1905. It is a gloriously playful piece that carries the listener along on a melodic and emotional rollercoaster, from the jaunty opening to the eloquence of the second movement minuet, with a persistent yearning threading its way throughout. The second concerto will be less familiar to listeners. The soloist for whom it was written, Joseph Hollman, was an energetic, muscular player and Saint-Saëns seems here to turn his back on the suave style of the first concerto. When Saint-Saëns’ pupil and friend Gabriel Fauré chose the concerto as a Conservatoire test piece, the composer was duly grateful, but admitted ‘it will never be as well known as the first; it’s too difficult’. This it certainly is, with many solo passages, huge leaps and runs that require two staves to accommodate them, and a large amount of doublestopping. Natalie Clein meets these challenges with marvellous technique, musicianship and the passion for which she has become so well known.
Read more
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Andrew Manze – Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony & Symphony No.4 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:45 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Onyx
Andrew Manze’s interpretations of Vaughan Williams’ Symphonies have met with acclaim from audiences and critics alike. This second volume in the cycle from the RLPO and Andrew Manze feature Nos 3 & 4: two works heavily influenced by the Great War and its aftermath. A repressed seething rage and sorrow at the futility of the war pervades No.3, “It is really wartime music – a great deal of it originated when I used to go up night after night in the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres” said the composer. The 3rd has been called RVW’s ‘War Requiem’. The 4th is a violent and turbulent work, reflecting the post Great War world and the political turmoil of the 1930s. The audience was perplexed by the nature of the music “I don’t know if I like it, but it’s what I meant” he said after the premiere.
Read more
NDR Radiophilharmonie & Andrew Manze – Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 40 & 41 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:14:47 minutes | 745 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Considered to be the highest triumph of instrumental composition in his own day, Mozart’s final symphonies continue to sweep audiences away. From the famous G-minor opening movement of the 40th symphony that cuts straight to the chase to the unprecedented complexity of the 41st symphony’s majestic finale, Mozart displays his vivid melodic invention as well as the maturity of his “old” musical soul. Even if his untimely death came unexpectedly, these two symphonies fill the listener with a sense of culmination, and may be seen as a sublime conclusion of both Mozart’s musical development and of the eighteenth-century symphony in general.
These extraordinary works are performed here by the NDR Radiophilharmonie and Andrew Manze, and will be followed by a recording of Mozart’s 38th and 39th symphonies. With their first Mozart album, conductor and orchestra extend their successful PENTATONE discography that already contains the complete symphonies of Mendelssohn, crowned with a 2017 Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.
Read more
NDR Radiophilharmonie & Andrew Manze – Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 38 & 39 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:11:19 minutes | 705 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
The NDR Philharmonie and Andrew Manze continue their exploration of Mozart’s late orchestral works with a recording of the composers 38th and 39th symphonies. Nicknamed after Prague, where it was first performed in 1787, the 38th shares with its successor a solemn, “Romantic” slow introduction to the first movement, followed by lighter music that shares a kinship with the playful arias and ensembles of Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, composed in the same period. By playing all repeats, Manze underlines the ambitious, expansive character of these works, but the NDR Radiophilharmonie never drags, offering the same energy and sense of urgency as in their acclaimed interpretation of Mozart’s 40th and 41st symphonies, released in 2019.
Read more
NDR Radiophilharmonie, Andrew Manze, Anna Lucia Richter, Robin Tritschler – Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 52, MWV A18 “Lobgesang” (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:03:41 minutes | 628 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
With its combination of three instrumental movements, followed by a cantata with three soloists and chorus, Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony “Lobgesang [Hymn of Praise]” is highly original from a conceptual point of view. The piece is a milestone in the history of the symphonic form, stretching the seams of the symphony genre even further than Beethoven had dared with his “Choral” Ninth. In his Lobgesang, Mendelssohn achieved nothing less than the artistic destruction of the conceptual opposition of vocal and instrumental music. Here they enter into a relationship of constructive, mutual support in the service of music. Moreover, the Biblical lyrics express Mendelssohn’s deeply-felt religiosity. This album completes Pentatone’s Mendelssohn Symphonies series with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and conductor Andrew Manze. After winning the Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2017 for their recording of Symphonies 1 & 3 and the positive reception of Symphonies 4 & 5, expectations are high for this final piece of the puzzle. On this album, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and Andrew Manze join forces with the NDR Chor and WDR Rundfunkchor, as well as with an excellent cast of soloists: sopranos Anna Lucia Richter and Esther Dierkes and tenor Robin Tritschler.
Read more
NDR Radiophilharmonie & Andrew Manze – Mendelssohn: The 5 Symphonies (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 03:18:05 minutes | 1,92 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Pentatone
Felix Mendelssohn’s 5 symphonies demonstrate the composer’s extraordinary melodic gift, but also his adventurous spirit. While the First symphony – composed when he was only 15 years old – still reveals the influences of Viennese Classicism, he realized the sound of national landscapes with ground-breaking orchestral effects and harmonies in his Third (Scottish) and Fourth (Italian). The Second (Lobgesang) and Fifth, on the contrary, were inspired by Mendelssohn’s Christian faith, and the former uses choral forces and vocal soloists, stretching the boundaries of symphonic form even further than Beethoven had dared in his “Choral” Ninth. The 5 symphonies are presented chronologically, performed by the NDR Radiophilharmonie and conductor Andrew Manze, who won a Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2017 for their recording of the First and Third symphony.
Read more
NDR Radiophilharmonie & Andrew Manze – Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:14:10 minutes | 733 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
After their prize-winning Mendelssohn symphonies cycle and acclaimed Mozart symphonies album, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and its chief conductor Andrew Manze now present Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh symphonies. While Beethoven’s Fifth is arguably the most famous symphony in the history of music, the Seventh counts as one of the most rhythmically-advanced pieces of nineteenth-century music; an “apotheosis of dance”, to quote Richard Wagner. Both works display Beethoven’s mastery of and audacious approach to musical form as well as the richness of his melodic invention, and are generally praised as paragons of symphonic composition. Andrew Manze brings his experience in the field of historically informed performance to the polished symphonic sound of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, providing an ambience that fits these early nineteenth-century works like a glove.
Read more
Martin Helmchen, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Andrew Manze – Beethoven: Pianos concertos 1 & 4 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:36 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
As the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth approaches, and following a much-admired version of the Diabelli Variations (Alpha 386 Gramophone Editors Choice), Martin Helmchen has decided to record his complete piano concertos in the company of musical partners with whom he has a special affinity, Andrew Manze and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. They devote this first volume to the Concertos nos. 2 and 5, giving lovingly polished performances of these two masterpieces of the piano repertory. Composed even before Concerto no. 1, the Second Concerto was premiered in Vienna in 1795, when Beethoven was only twenty-five years old, but underwent several revisions before being published in its final version in 1801. Concerto no. 5 is the last that Beethoven composed. Though completed in 1808, it was not premiered until 1811. Beethoven normally gave the first performance of his concertos himself, but this time his increasing deafness meant he was unable to do so.
Read more
Andrew Manze, The English Concert – Mozart: Night Music (2003)
Classical, Orchestral | SACD ISO: DSD64 2.0, DST64 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Artwork | 3.35 GB
Label: Harmonia Mundi | Release Year: 2003
The title of this exceptional disc, “Night Music”, should not be taken to mean that the performances are in any way dark, mysterious, droopy, sluggish, or otherwise conventionally “nocturnal”. Rather, the term evokes its 18th century musical meaning: a time for fun, relaxation, parties, entertainment both indoors and out, and of course, romance. Indeed, “Romantic” is perhaps the best way to describe these virtuosic, impulsive, and extravagantly expressive performances by the inimitable Andrew Manze and his team of crack “authentic-instrument” players.
Read more![James Ehnes, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze - Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Romance - Schubert: Romance (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/04/08/0880040416722_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
James Ehnes, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze – Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Romance – Schubert: Romance (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:19 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Onyx Classics
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto represents the supreme challenge for violinists. Far from being a virtuoso display piece, this is chamber music on a large scale, the last and greatest ‘classical’ violin concerto, giving the soloist no place to hide with a solo part that is often very exposed against sparse orchestral accompaniment. A lukewarm reception at the concerto’s premiere in 1806 led to it being forgotten until Joseph Joachim resurrected it in the 1850s and restored to its rightful position as one of the greatest and most popular concertos for the instrument. This is James Ehnes’ first recording of this concerto, and he is supported sensitively by the award winning RLPO and fellow violinist-turned-conductor, Andrew Manze. The combination of soloist, orchestra and conductor on this recording is a dream team.
(more…)
The English Concert, Andrew Manze – Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor (2004)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:18:44 minutes | 3,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: NativeDSDMusic | Booklet & Front cover | © Harmonia Mundi
In September 1728, the Habsburg ruler Charles VI, Archduke of Austria, King of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia and Spain, Holy Roman Emperor etc etc, travelled to the Duchy of Carniola in order to inspect the port of Trieste. Antonio Vivaldi made the eighty-mile journey northeast of Venice to attend on him. It is not known whether the two men had met before, although the previous year Vivaldi had dedicated his twelve concertos Op.9, entitled La cetra (The Lyre), to Charles, suggesting they probably had met or at least corresponded. This encounter seems to have been the highlight of an otherwise disappointing trip for the Emperor, judging by two letters which survive from a Venetian Abbe?, Antonio Conti, to a French lady, Mme de Caylus. On 23 September Conti wrote, ‘the Emperor is not too happy with his Trieste. . . . He has spent a lot of time discussing music with Vivaldi. It is said that he has spoken with him more in two weeks than he has with his own ministers in two years. . . . His appetite for music is very strong.’ And in another letter Conti wrote, ‘the Emperor has given Vivaldi a large amount of money together with a chain and gold medallion.’
Read more
Andrew Manze – Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:54 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
No, not more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! How can there be any more? Have not decades of scholarships overturned every possible rock to find every possible violin concerto by the composer of The Four Seasons, everybody’s perennial favorite? Although the answer is apparently not, that is, in fact, good news: that there are still more lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos by Vivaldi should warm the hearts and open the wallets of classical music lovers around the world.
And that is not all the good news. The really good news is that seven more-or-less new Violin Concertos by Vivaldi have been recorded by super-virtuoso Andrew Manze leading the super-fine English Concert. And while none of them, not even the super-sultry L’amoroso, will make most listeners shed their allegiance to Vivaldi’s four greatest hits, all of them are in truth just as lovely, charming, hilarious, touching, and perhaps even more mind-bogglingly difficult Violin Concertos that Manze dispatches with his by now customary panache and aplomb. Yes, more Vivaldi Violin Concertos! Harmonia Mundi’s digital sound is vivid and immediate.
Read more
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Andrew Manze – Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Other Works (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:31 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Onyx
Following their hugely successful cycle of Vaughan Williams’ nine symphonies, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Andrew Manze in this album of the composer’s most popular shorter orchestral works.
This disc features Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending and The Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, as well as the rarely performed orchestral version of The Serenade to Music.
Read more