Jonathan Biss, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & David Afkham – Beethoven/5, Vol. 1 (Live) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:04:40 minutes | 615 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
In 2015, pianist Jonathan Biss initiated the Beethoven/5 commissioning project with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and more than fifteen other orchestras, resulting in a groundbreaking collaboration over nine years. The project yielded five extraordinary new piano works by some of today’s most significant composers, responding to Beethoven’s own concerti. The first volume, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, features Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto and Brett Dean’s companion piece, “Gneixendorfer Musik, A Winter’s Journey”.
Read more![Martin Fröst, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen - Jesper Nordin: Emerging from Currents and Waves (Live) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/07/01/nlvj89n3yus1b_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Martin Fröst, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen – Jesper Nordin: Emerging from Currents and Waves (Live) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:09:40 minutes | 622 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
‘The fantastic thing about art and music is that one can pose questions and conjure up visions at the same time.’ The words are those of the Swedish composer Jesper Nordin, who does exactly that in Emerging from Currents and Waves. A large-scale work for orchestra, clarinet soloist, conductor and live electronics, Emerging… is a collaboration between Nordin, Martin Fröst and Esa-Pekka Salonen. All three are interested in how new technology can – and will – influence art and artistic expression, and in exploring the intersection of mankind, music and technology.
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Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding – Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:22:35 minutes | 812 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Although a valedictory mood underpins it, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony offers above all a profound meditation on the fate of humanity and seems to exude an immense love of life. Sustained by the commitment and excellence of the artists, this recording reveals the formal, technical and orchestral modernity of a work that was to exert a genuine fascination on the Viennese composers of the following generation.
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Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Daniel Harding – Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:13:21 minutes | 714 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
As the last completed symphony that Mahler wrote, the Ninth has often been heard by audiences as the composer’s swan song: a nostalgic, moving farewell from a composer conscious of his own mortality. This interpretation is of course easily justifiable, as etched into the musical fabric of the symphony are references to the tragedies that befell the composer in the years before his death. Furthermore, it is wholly plausible that for a man as melodramatic as Mahler, the idea of a symphony that centres around themes of loss and finality would surely have been an appealing prospect.
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Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra & Malin Broman, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Daniel Harding – Nordin: Voices From the Past (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:04:40 minutes | 592 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Leading Swedish composer Jesper Nordin’s soundscape lies at the crossroads of Swedish traditional music, rock and improvised music. On this recording, Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra perform Röster (‘voices’), a trilogy whose works are each based on different kinds of Swedish music which the composer sees as being part of his background. In Åkallan (‘Invocation’), Nordin has used the traditional vocal technique called kulning as his starting point. Extreme metal rock (through the band Meshuggah) provided the material for Ärr (‘Scar’) and the result is an explosive rhythmic scream that has seldom been heard in classical music. Finally, Öde (‘Fate’ or ‘Deserted’) incorporates recordings by the legendary Swedish opera singers Birgit Nilsson and Jussi Björling in an electronic part which interacts with the orchestra.
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Isabelle Faust, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding – Bartók: Violin Concertos No. 1 & 2 (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:57 minutes | 902 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Isabelle Faust’s first recording for harmonia mundi, Bartok Sonatas, won her a Gramophone Young Artist of the Year. Here she returns to Bartok, perfoming the two concertos, accompanied by Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio SO.
Such is the fame of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto (1937-38), that it has virtually eclipsed the First, written 30 years before. Yet, this earlier work, rediscovered long after the composer’s death, has a fascinating story all of its own. True to form, Isabelle Faust has gone back to the multiple musical sources of this First Concerto, a work that came ‘straight from the heart’, as Bartók’s romance with a young violinist lay at the core of its creative process.
‘I owe my enthusiasm for the music of Béla Bartók to the wonderful Hungarian violinist Dénes Zsigmondy, who was privileged to know the composer personally. At the age of eleven, I was lucky enough to study the Sonata for solo violin with him and thus to discover Bartók’s world in a very emotional and instinctive way. In the years since then, Dénes Zsigmondy, his conception of music, and especially his interpretation of Bartók have formed an important component of my artistic career. It seemed only logical to choose the Bartók sonatas for my debut CD. I am now delighted to present the two violin concertos in this recording. It is intended as a musical expression of my admiration for the composer Béla Bartók and my gratitude for the continued inspiration and faithful friendship of Dénes Zsigmondy. My warm thanks go to László Somfai and László Vikárius of the Bartók Archives in Budapest and to Felix Meyer of the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel for their generous support of this project. Finally, I would like to express my profound appreciation of and indebtedness to Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra for their absolutely fantastic contribution to the recording sessions.’ (Isabelle Faust)
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Isabelle Faust, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Daniel Harding – Schoenberg: Violin Concerto – Verklärte Nacht (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:03:10 minutes | 621 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Almost forty years separate Verklärte Nacht from the Violin Concerto – the former still influenced by the idiom of Brahms and Wagner, the latter deriving from the richness of that later period when Schoenberg managed to combine a multiplicity of approaches within his twelve-note system. Between post-Romantic twilight and ‘classical’ rigour, Isabelle Faust and her most faithful partners offer us an extraordinarily lively interpretation of some of the most remarkable pages in twentieth-century musical literature.
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Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Per Hammarström – Erland von Koch: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:02:48 minutes | 600 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Along with Lars-Erik Larsson and Dag Wirén, Erland von Koch was part of a generation of composers who all made their débuts during the 1930s. Active until the end of a very long life (1910–2009), von Koch became one of Sweden’s best loved composers, himself describing his artistic goals as follows: ‘I aim for a simple, clear, melodic style, often with elements of folk tone and with a definite rhythmic profile… The older you get, the more aware you become of the importance of melody.’ One of von Koch’s most frequently performed orchestral works is Nordiskt capriccio, which was inspired by a folk tune from Dalecarlia, and which forms the festive finale on the present disc. The compositions which precede it here are less well known, however – Impulsi (the first part of a triptych later completed with the works Echi and Ritmi) was taken up by conductors such as Sergiu Comissiona and Walter Weller, but the two symphonies appear for the first time on disc. Especially in Symphony No.3, influences from Bartók and Hindemith can be detected – composed in 1948, it is a work which in its thematic material contrasts defiance with lyricism and, finally, a feeling of release. Sinfonia seria, von Koch’s fourth work in the genre, followed a few years later, undergoing a final revision in 1962. As indicated by the title, the underlying mood of the work is grave and bittersweet – possibly this is reflected in the composer’s own words regarding the thankless task of writing symphonies: ‘They are rarely played – especially if they are Swedish – and it takes a long time before they are “discovered” and accepted, if indeed they ever are.’ With this disc, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Per Hammarström are making their case for a hoped-for, and long overdue ‘discovery’ of Erland von Koch’s symphonies.
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Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding – Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique – Rameau: Suite de Hippolyte et Aricie (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:51 minutes | 683 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
A world might seem to divide the unbridled Romanticism of Berlioz from the highly controlled art of Rameau, standard-bearer of the French Late Baroque. And yet, at a distance of less than a century (‘Hippolyte’ was premiered in 1733, the ‘Fantastique’ in 1830), the same passion links two works more similar than their stylistic divergence might suggest. There is the same audacity in the orchestration, combined with an innate sense of drama that springs repeated rhythmic and harmonic surprises.
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs here a task requiring unusual versatility under their Music Director, Daniel Harding, with his matchless gift for establishing a dialogue between two pioneers of genius. Harding is also Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Music Partner of the New Japan Philharmonic. He takes up the baton at the Orchestre de Paris -the first British maestro in the orchestra’s history – in September 2016. He has been honoured with the lifetime title of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Read more![Andrew Staples, Christopher Parkes, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Daniel Harding - Britten: Les Illuminations. Serenade. Nocturne (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/19/w9vtq3q8kc4db_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Andrew Staples, Christopher Parkes, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Daniel Harding – Britten: Les Illuminations. Serenade. Nocturne (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:14:05 minutes | 704 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
In these three song cycles, Britten draws inspiration from the high points of European poetry (Shakespeare, Blake, Shelley, Keats, but also Rimbaud) to push the boundaries of the genre. He multiplies the relationships between voices and instruments, moving from pure strings (Les Illuminations) to a string ensemble with obbligato winds, harp and timpani (Nocturne), not to mention the fascinating dialogue with the horn in the Serenade. Here reveals a unique sound world of artists at the peak of their skills!
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![Paul Lewis, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding - Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15; Ballades Op. 10 (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/10/g2BPbwa.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Paul Lewis, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding – Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15; Ballades Op. 10 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:12:10 minutes | 660 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Harmonia Mundi
A renewal of forms, Too innovative for its time, Brahms’s Piano Concerto no.1, premiered in Hanover in 1859, needed a few years to become established in the repertory. It is a work that redefines the norms of the genre. The traditional confrontation between virtuoso soloist and orchestra is bypassed in favour of a balanced treatment and a more ‘symphonic’ approach. The Ballades op.10 too derive from the impetus towards a renewal of forms characteristic of the young Brahms’s output.
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![Robin Ticciati, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra - Berlioz: L'enfance du Christ (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/01/ej25h00k5mgcb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Robin Ticciati, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra – Berlioz: L’enfance du Christ (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:31:53 minutes | 3,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Linn Records
Ticciati cements his reputation as an outstanding Berliozian with his latest recording, L’enfance du Christ, featuring the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Ticciati is a regular guest conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, widely considered to be one of Europe’s leading orchestras. The SRSO has won many Swedish and international awards including a GRAMMY and has made several GRAMMY-nominated recordings.
The SRSO Chorus are a phenomenal ensemble; one of the best large-scale choruses in Europe.
Composer: Hector Berlioz
Performer: Stephan Loges, Véronique Gens, Yann Beuron, Alastair Miles
Conductor: Robin Ticciati
Orchestra/Ensemble: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Chorus
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![Maria João Pires, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding - Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/25/0889845657828_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Maria João Pires, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding – Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:11:31 minutes | 639 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Onyx Classics
Beethoven’s turbulent Third Piano Concerto and the serene Fourth, the last of his concertos Beethoven played in public before his deafness became total, are the two works chosen by Maria João Pires for her first recording for ONYX Classics. Her penetrating and passionate interpretations are the fruit of many years of performing these works, resulting in an intimate and deeply personal relationship with Beethoven’s genius.
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