![Ruby Hughes, Clara Mouriz, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena - Montsalvatge: Partita 1958, Cinco Cancione Negras, Calidoscopi simfònic & Simfonia de Rèquiem (2012/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/18/t6y9gauzpt6bb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Ruby Hughes, Clara Mouriz, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena – Montsalvatge: Partita 1958, Cinco Cancione Negras, Calidoscopi simfònic & Simfonia de Rèquiem (2012/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:55 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
This album of orchestral works marks the centenary in 2012 of the birth of the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge.
It is released as part of our Spanish music series, conducted by Juanjo Mena, a fellow Catalan national and Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. Montsalvatge was one on the most influential musical figures in Catalan music during the latter half of the twentieth century. He explored virtually every musical form, but many of his most significant works, including Cinco Canciones Negras (Five Negro Songs), were written after his discovery of the art of the Antilles. He was fascinated by West Indian music, which, as he wrote, ‘was itself originally Spanish, exported to the Caribbean, and then re-imported’. In Cinco Canciones Negras for mezzo-soprano and orchestra he set a varied collection of poems from the Caribbean and Spain, adopting the captivating rhythms of the West Indies. ‘Canción de Cuna para Dormira a un Negrito’ can only be described as one of the tenderest lullabies in the repertoire, presenting a vivid contrast to the exhilarating display of rumba-like rhythms in ‘Canto Negro’.
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![Karen Geoghegan, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena - Weber: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Bassoon Concerto & Invitation to the Dance (2012/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/03/22/mvqrp7edf43qa_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Karen Geoghegan, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena – Weber: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Bassoon Concerto & Invitation to the Dance (2012/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:11 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
This is the fourth release by the BBC Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena, and the discography is going from strength to strength – their recording of orchestral works by Falla was ‘Recording on the Month’ in BBC Music. They are joined on this recording by the bassoonist Karen Geoghegan.
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Colin Currie, BBC Philharmonic & Juanjo Mena – HK Gruber: Percussion Concertos (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 52:41 minutes | 490 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Colin Currie Records
Colin Currie’s first concerto album on his own label is a pairing of works by the innovative Viennese composer, conductor and chansonnier HK Gruber.
Read more![Juanjo Mena, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Berit Norbakken Solset - Arriaga: Overtures, Herminie & Other Works (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/01/d18ulpv0wh7zb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Juanjo Mena, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Berit Norbakken Solset – Arriaga: Overtures, Herminie & Other Works (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:09 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Spanish music specialist and former Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Juanjo Mena continues the series La Música de España, which has seen the recording of some of the orchestral works of de Falla, Turina and Albéniz, with another important Spanish composer: Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, nicknamed after his death as ‘the Spanish Mozart’.The orchestral overture to ‘Los esclavos felices’ (The Happy Slaves) is all that remains of the opera the child prodigy Arriaga wrote aged 14. When Arriaga moved to Paris to study under Fétis, Guérin and Baillot in 1821, he revised the overture, making changes to the instrumentation and removing a third theme group. It is the revised version heard on this recording. Air from Médée and Herminie form parts of the autograph volume ‘Ensayos lírico-dramáticos’ (Lyric-dramatic essays) that completes this release, here sung by one of Scandinavia’s most sought after concert singers, Berit Norbakken Solset. Tonally ambiguous Symphony in D minor (which begins and ends in D major) alongside the Overture in D major, which was written ‘without having learnt the principles of harmony’ are proof that Arriaga’s premature death aged 19 was a ‘sad loss to Basque music’.
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![BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena - Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/o0klbkuh0qmvb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Juanjo Mena – Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:50 minutes | 551 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Considered by some to be the ‘Cinderella’ of his symphonies, the Sixth Symphony of Anton Bruckner was composed in 1879 — 81. It may well demonstrate a reaction to the severe criticism of the first Viennese performance, in 1877, of his Third Symphony, which Eduard Hanslick described as a vision of how Beethoven’s Ninth befriends Wagner’s Walkre and ends up being trampled under her horses’ hoofs’. Much the shortest of his mature symphonies, the Sixth also reverts to a more classical form than its predecessors. This recording was made in 2012, during the first season of Juanjo Mena as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, and just a month before their acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms. Classical Source commented: ‘Mena didn’t miss a trick and the result for the whole symphony was a revelation, and you don’t get many of those. This was a thrilling, delightful performance.’
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Karen Geoghegan, Juanjo Mena – Weber: Symphonies No 1 & 2, Bassoon Concerto (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Digital Booklet | 1.23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Qobuz | © Chandos Records
This is the fourth release by the BBC Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena, and the discography is going from strength to strength – their recording of orchestral works by Falla was ‘Recording on the Month’ in BBC Music. They are joined on this recording by the bassoonist Karen Geoghegan.
Weber wrote the waltz Aufforderung zum Tanze (Invitation to the Dance) in 1819, around the time when he was also working on the opera Der Freischütz. The two works crossed paths once more, in 1841, when the latter was performed at the Opéra de Paris. Berlioz had been commissioned to orchestrate Aufforderung zum Tanze so that it could be incorporated into the opera, and he did so by melding Weber’s polished and elegant original with his own sound world, with customary panache. It is the version included on this disc.
Also featured are Weber’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2. That these works should be so neglected is partly down to historical accident; they were composed just four years after Beethoven’s monumental ‘Eroica’ Symphony, the work which ditched the rulebook once and for all, and which turned the genre from classical perfection into a personal musical manifesto. So when Weber’s symphonies saw the light of day, overshadowed by the great master, no one took much notice.
Weber wrote the first symphony between 14 December 1806 and 2 January 1807, while the second took just over a week, from 22 and 28 January. Yet, there is no evidence of undue haste in the finished works, quite the opposite in fact. They strongly display what Debussy aptly described as Weber’s ability to ‘scrutinise the soul of each instrument’.
Also on this disc is the composer’s Bassoon Concerto. Much of the work’s appeal derives from Weber’s ear for sonority, and in particular the dark-hued palette natural to the bassoon. The finale has the bassoon playing a jester of great agility, yet with enough elegant touches to dispel any clichéd ideas of the instrument as a figure of fun. The movement builds to an assured and almost reckless virtuoso ending. Karen Geoghegan is the soloist in this work. Gramophone said of this young artist that ‘lyrical, mellifluous playing seems to come as naturally as wit and charm’.
Composer: Carl Maria von Weber
Performer: Karen Geoghegan
Conductor: Juanjo Mena
Orchestra/Ensemble: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (more…)