Adam Walker, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Nielsen: Flute Concerto, Symphony No. 3, Pan and Syrinx (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:52 minutes | 756 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos Records
For this second instalment in their Nielsen cycle, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra are joined by the flautist Adam Walker for a programme that combines the Flute Concerto, the Third Symphony, and the tone poem Pan and Syrinx. Nielsen began work on the Third Symphony in 1910, some seven years after he had completed his second symphony ‘The Four Temperaments’, and the work was premièred in Copenhagen in 1912. In his album note, Paul Griffiths describes the work’s eventual title, ‘Sinfonia espansiva’ as a fifth temperament – Joviality. In the second movement, uniquely in his symphonic output, Nielsen calls for (wordless) voices – solo soprano and baritone. It was also the first of his symphonies to be commercially released on record – Erik Tuxen conducting the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Composed in 1926, the Flute Concerto is a late work, and demonstrates Nielsen’s stylistic evolution towards the new modernism. The soloist engages in repeated interactions with other instruments within the orchestra, most notably the clarinet and the bass trombone. Pan and Syrinx dates from 1918, and is based on the ancient legend which tells how the amorous god Pan invented the pan flute whilst pursuing the nymph Syrinx.
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Edward Gardner – Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:07:35 minutes | 2,11 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © London Philharmonic Orchestra
Half grand opera, half roof-raising choral- orchestral spectacular, Berlioz’s ‘The Damnation of Faust’ caused a scandal in 1846 when it was first performed, and with its supernatural story and thumping good melodies, it’s still one of 19th century music’s most rivetingly sinful treats.
Recorded live at the Southbank Centre on 4 February 2023, Edward Gardner took on the monumental task of conducting the full orchestra, three massed choruses and a charismatic all-star cast.
This special two-CD set captures the live thrill of the highly reviewed concert for the crisp, hi-fi enjoyment of the opera and classical music fans at home.
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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Grieg: Symphonic Dances (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:48 minutes | 1019 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Grieg’s four Symphonic Dances are a late work, completed in 1898. Grieg takes his inspiration (as in so much of his output) from traditional Norwegian folk tunes, and the four movements together deliver a symphonic unity in their overall effect. Both Bergliot and Before a Southern Convent are written on texts by Grieg’s good friend the author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who was also a theatre manager in Oslo. Bjørnson is considered one of the four great Norwegian authors alongside Ibsen, Lie, and Kielland, received the 1903 Nobel Prize for literature, and wrote the words for the Norwegian national anthem. Bergliot – a declamation with orchestra – tells the story of a dramatic episode involving the chieftain Einar Tambarskjelve and his son Eindride, killed by King Harald Hårdråde. Before a Southern Convent is a more traditional setting – requiring two vocal soloists, female choir, and orchestra rather than the narrator of Bergliot – of the story of the folk-hero and barbarian Arnljot Gelline. In the course of his wild escapades, he killed a chieftain, but allowed the chieftain’s daughter, Ingigerd, to live. This daughter left the homestead and wandered southwards in poverty – through Europe. At long last she arrived at a convent which granted her admittance. The album is completed by the Funeral March for Rikard Nordraak – a friend of Grieg’s, who died of tuberculosis in 1866. Grieg conceived it first for solo piano, but whilst travelling by train to Bergen to attend Grieg’s funeral, Johan Halvorsen made the orchestral arrangement heard in this recording.
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Tasmin Little, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Szymanowski & Karlowicz: Violin Concertos (2017)
SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:12:56 minutes | 3,3 GB | Genre: Classical | © Chandos
This SACD recording brings together some of Chandos’ greatest artists in a spellbinding programme.
It follows performances that The Guardian described as ‘a thrilling show of ferocity and feistiness’, given by the same forces in January at the Barbican. After widely acclaimed recordings of Walton’s and Lutosławski’s violin concertos, Tasmin Little again joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, in intensely expressive interpretations of the concertos by the Polish composers Karłowicz and Szymanowski.
All were written within the space of a generation (1902, 1916, and 1933), and yet they belong to quite different worlds. One was composed at a time of national occupation, another in the throes of wartime, and yet another at a time of national renewal. The first inhabits the lyrical tradition developed by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, the second escapes towards Debussy and the exoticism of Mediterranean influences, while the third is imbued with the folk culture of the Tatra Mountains.
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Tora Augestad, Diego Lucchesi, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Henrik Hellstenius: Past & Presence (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:11 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Lawo Classics
Henrik Hellstenius’s intense yet unassuming exploration of the interacting worlds of sound and time has spanned more than three decades. That hunger for discovery is perhaps the single most unifying feature across his life and work. It was already forming rapidly in his youth, from his teenage years spent listening to Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek to his studies of spectral music with Gerard Grisey in Paris.
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CBSO Youth Chorus, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Edward Gardner – Holst: The Planets; Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (2017)
SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:19:13 minutes | 4,32 GB | Genre: Classical | © Chandos
For its very first album on Chandos, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain devotes its characteristic energy and musical mastery to an explosive programme that transcends daily life and earthly experience. It is helped by the enthusiastic, encouraging, and experienced baton of Edward Gardner as well as by the sumptuous yet detailed acoustic of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, all fully revealed in this surround-sound recording.
Their performance of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst’s The Planets is already a point of reference in the UK after the immensely successful Prom concert that preceded the recording. The concert’s five-star review in The Daily Telegraph praised in particular the orchestra’s ‘great attack and complete absence of anything routine’, while The Guardian emphasised the great performance of the orchestra in this ‘graceful and evocative programme’, especially the ‘depth and richness of sound that belied their youth’.
This unique album is a first milestone in what promises to be a superb discography for the NYO.
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Tasmin Little, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Szymanowski, Karłowicz: Violin Concertos (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:13 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
It follows performances that The Guardian described as ‘a thrilling show of ferocity and feistiness’, given by the same forces in January at the Barbican. After widely acclaimed recordings of Walton’s and Lutosławski’s violin concertos, Tasmin Little again joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, in intensely expressive interpretations of the concertos by the Polish composers Karłowicz and Szymanowski.
All were written within the space of a generation (1902, 1916, and 1933), and yet they belong to quite different worlds. One was composed at a time of national occupation, another in the throes of wartime, and yet another at a time of national renewal. The first inhabits the lyrical tradition developed by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, the second escapes towards Debussy and the exoticism of Mediterranean influences, while the third is imbued with the folk culture of the Tatra Mountains.
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Stuart Skelton, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Britten – Peter Grimes, Op. 33 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:18:17 minutes | 2,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison (The Times)
This studio recording was made following the acclaimed production at Grieghallen, in Bergen, in 2019 (repeated in Oslo and London and reviewed above). Luxuriant playing from the Bergen Philharmonic and a stellar cast under the assured direction of Edward Gardner make this a recording to treasure.
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Sara Övinge, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Patientia (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:11:58 minutes | 2,78 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Lawo Classics
This release marks a musical homecoming for Sara Övinge, since she has chosen a slightly more convoluted career path than most violinists. Sara has sought out and immersed herself in contemporary music, Iranian music, composition, improvisation, and art-pop amongst several other musical pursuits. Her entire M.O. points to a strong and intrinsic need to be a co-creatingmusician, one who leaves her mark on the musical expression in a more comprehensive way than simply playing the notes on the stand. This record is no exception, being a result of her commissioning, her curating, and a substantial dose of willpower. Meeting with Kjetil Bjerkestrand in 2019, Sara found something she was looking for. He is the epitome of the symbiotic musician, drawing on experience and inspirations from a wide range of musical styles, from rock, pop through to contemporary. He describes the composition process as one part search for fixation points in a series of possible events, and one part exploration of friction caused by the union of the elastic and the mechanical. A theme that Sara aimed to pursue in the project was the juxtaposition of the electronic and the organic. Philip Glass’s 2nd Piano Concerto is arranged for synthesizer and strings, a kind of updated version of Vivaldi’s string orchestra with continuo. But where previous recordings have gone for an electronic sound resembling the baroque harpsichord, Sara wanted to create a more electro-acoustic soundscape, thus achieving a common thread between the two works.
Read more![Edward Gardner, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra - Bartók: Four Orchestral Pieces, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta & Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/05/11/o0uj368rubo6a_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Edward Gardner, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – Bartók: Four Orchestral Pieces, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta & Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:14 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Edward Gardner’s 2013 Chandos album of orchestral works by Béla Bartók is a tour de force, displaying some of the most brilliant music written in the early 20th century. The suite from The Miraculous Mandarin is a true showpiece for orchestra, because its incisive rhythms and plangent tone colors are wonderfully varied, and the searing passagework is highly virtuosic and viscerally exciting. On the richer and somewhat gentler side, the Four Orchestral Pieces is an atmospheric set strongly influenced by Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy, and Bartók’s orchestration is lush and vibrantly colorful. The high point of the program is the Music for strings, percussion, and celesta, a mature masterpiece that showcases Bartók’s many innovations in extended string techniques and offers some of his most memorable and influential effects. Gardner conducts the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with vigor and attention to detail, and his musicians respond with extraordinary vitality and deliver a marvelous sonic feast. Recorded in multichannel sound and presented in the hybrid SACD format, this program is an excellent introduction to Bartók’s orchestral works, both for newcomers and seasoned audiophiles.
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Jennifer Pike, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Mendelssohn in Birmingham, Vol. 4 (2016)
SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:07:20 minutes | 3,43 GB | Genre: Classical | © Chandos
For this new recording of orchestral works by Mendelssohn, the CBSO and its principal guest conductor, Edward Gardner, join the violinist Jennifer Pike, who made a remarkable debut at Carnegie Hall this year. She here performs the Violin Concerto in E minor, the piece that launched her career thirteen years ago when she became the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award. Her first album on Chandos (CHAN10667: sonatas by Frank, Debussy, and Ravel) was praised by Classic FM as ‘one of the most outstanding début albums of recent years’. The music of Mendelssohn is probably more highly valued and widely loved today than it has been at any period since his lifetime. Yet one still sometimes hears the allegation that he failed quite to fulfil the promise of those miraculous youthful masterpieces, the Octet, completed at 16, and the Concert Overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of a year later. This recording contains two of his later works, which most roundly confute that accusation: the Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1843), in which he managed to recapture and amplify the unique magic of his early years, and the Violin Concerto in E minor (1844), which has retained its standing among the three or four greatest of its genre ever since.
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James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Nielsen Violin: Concerto, Symphony No. 4 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:51 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Nielsen’s epic Violin Concerto was premiered in Copenhagen in February 1912, by violinist Peder Moller. Nominally the work is set in two movements; both open with a slow section and move to a faster one. Whilst unusual, this could be seen as a more usual fast – slow – fast three movement form, but with an extensive slow introduction to the first movement. The music moves quickly from one idea to the next, and overall has a bold, playful and optimistic feel. In stark contrast, although written only a few years later, the fourth symphony is more cohesive and unified as a work. Written against the background of the first world war, the work is a celebration of life itself. Just before the premier in 1916, Nielsen described it as: ‘Music is Life, and, like it, inextinguishable.’ Composed in the usual four movement form, each movement continues from the last without a break. The final movement features two sets of timpani battling each other across the orchestra.
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Mari Eriksmoen, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Britten: Les Illuminations – Canteloube: Chants d’Auvergne (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:15 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Following successful appearances at the Opéra-comique, in Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Oper Frankfurt, Komische Oper Berlin, and Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, the Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen joins the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner for a interesting album of orchestral songs, coupling Britten’s Les Illuminations and Four French Songs with a selection of Canteloube’s inimitable Chants d’Auvergne. Eriksmoen spent a year studying in Paris, and proves an effective and natural singer in the French language. As she mentions in her programme note: “It is highly demanding to sing in French when it is not one’s native tongue, but I have always felt at home when singing in French and nurture an emotional attachment to the French language”.
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Lise Davidsen, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Edward Gardner – Sibelius: Lunnotar, Op. 70 & Other Orchestral Works (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:51 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Following their acclaimed recordings of Schoenberg with Sara Jakubiak and Britten’s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic turn their attention to the music of Sibelius. Written in 1913 for the diva Aino Ackté, the tone poem Luonnotar draws on text from the Finnish national epic poem, the Kalevala. Its virtuosic demands are ably met here by award-wining soprano Lise Davidsen, who also feature in the Suite from Pelléas and Mélisande, music re-worked by Sibelius from his incidental music written for the first performances of Maeterlinck’s play in Helsinki, in 1905, in Swedish. The tone poem Tapiola, from 1926, is Sibelius’ last great masterpiece and evokes the forests of his native Finland. The programme is completed by a pair of much earlier works, Rakastava and Vårsång (Spring Song).
Details of original recording : Recording producers Brian Pidgeon (May 2018) and Vegard Landaas, LAWO Classics (February 2021)
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Louis Lortie, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 & Concert Overture (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:10:57 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
This recording of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski form part of the Polish Music series on Chandos, and is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. These performers have impressed in their Lutoslawski survey, which is part of the same series; in a review of volume 1, Gramophone described them as a veritable ‘dream team’.
Symphony No. 2 by Szymanowski is a work of great power and ingenuity, with many passionate and varied contrasts in its use of solo instruments. Composed in 1909 – 10, it is widely considered the greatest orchestral work of the composer’s early period, not to mention one of the most important Polish symphonic compositions to date. Szymanowski himself thought very highly of it, and in August 1911 wrote in a letter to his fellow Polish composer Zdzislaw Jachimecki: ‘How happy I am that this Symphony impressed you as I had wanted. I will frankly admit that I feel somewhat proud about its value. In some miraculous way I have managed during my work on it to resist all those garish phantoms which seduce “young and inexperienced” artists and to produce pure and uncompromising beauty in the way I personally understand it.’
The internationally acclaimed pianist Louis Lortie joins the orchestra and conductor in Symphony No. 4 of 1932, which the composer subtitled ‘Symphonie concertante’ in recognition of the near-soloistic role played by the pianist. Whereas Szymanowski’s early and middle works clearly reflect Wagner, Strauss, and Scriabin, this work is strongly influenced by Prokofiev, particularly in the finale, an agitated and daring movement reminiscent of the Russian composer’s Piano Concerto No. 3, composed about a decade earlier.
Written in 1904 – 05 in a style recalling Wagner and Strauss, the Concert Overture is characterised by enormous expressiveness and gusto in the way it handles the expanding themes. Szymanowski inscribed the original score with part of the poem Witez Wlast by his friend Tadeusz Micinski: ‘I will not play you sad songs, O Shades! but will give you a triumph proud and fierce…’. This vivid imagery is perfectly in keeping with the music’s exuberant and vivacious character.
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