All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Gennady Rozhdestvensky
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gennady Rozhdestvensky Booklet Notes:Tracklisting in English, French, German. Rozhdestvensky was the first Russian conductor to be appointed head of major Western orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra 1978-81 and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 1981. These London recordings from 1978 are an illustration of his work at that time. A close friend of Shostakovich, he was his favoured interpreter and championed his works. Considered a great interpreter of Russian orchestral music, the beauty of these recordings is no surprise. "The Soviet conductor…brought to the music an easy command and a dramatic sensibility." The New York Times "Gennady Rozhdestvensky, one of Russia's true masters of the baton…His engagement of the orchestra is equally masterful. With his subtle hands and explicit wand, he draws each player into the focus of his interpretive intent." The Globe and Mail "One of the great eccentrics of the podium." The Guardian | 
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43Recorded live in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center on May 8-11 and 13, 2008
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink + FREE BONUS DVD Accompanying the audio CD is a DVD of one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's critically acclaimed Beyond the Score performances featuring a multimedia Shostakovich documentary led by creative director Gerard McBurney.The programme features newsreels and testimonies, including the words of Shostakovich and his friends. Beyond the Score brings to life not only the music, but also the social and political world from which it emerged. A champion of Shostakovich's music, CSO Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink leads the Fourth Symphony, a dark and emotionally, groundbreaking work. It lay dormant, unperformed, for 25 years after its completion but now this stunning symphony is recognised as one of the composer's boldest and most brilliant scores. “With Haitink in charge of the Shostakovich, there can be no threat of exaggeration or distortion, no need to whip up a greater frenzy than the composer plotted. No conductor can make this long symphony short but this conductor keeps the lines taut and the climaxes proportional. This conductor makes the macabre spasms sharp, the sombre indulgences poetic… the final unearthly cadence was greeted with a small eternity of stunned silence. It meant more than any push-button ovation.” Financial Times “account of the Fourth is masterly, underlining the work's claims to be Shostakovich's finest, the one in which his debt to Mahler is most vividly declared. It helps to have an orchestra as secure and rich-toned as the Chicago Symphony in music whose vivid colours and almost expressionist intensity are so important; Haitink ensures that the symphonic skeleton is boldly defined too.” The Guardian, 22nd August 2008 **** “This recording demonstrates the orchestra's keen response to the music's darker moments of rumination, its rhythmic and harmonic pungency and, through razor-sharp incisiveness of attack, its modernist leanings.” The Telegraph, 23rd August 2008 |
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43
Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Roman Kofman It took Shostakovich over two years to write his 4th Symphony. Following its first performance,
Stalin himself ordered that the composition, which until then had met with enthusiastic acclaim, be
condemned in the Pravda newspaper.
Roman Kofman and the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn have recorded this work as Vol. 8 of their
complete Shostakovich Symphony Cycle on this MDG SACD. Once again demonstrating the
brilliance that we have come to expect from them. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43including fragments of the unpublished movement
Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Oleg Caetani | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
“A genuine BBC Legend this…Rozhdestvensky proves peculiarly adept at teasing out the score’s strange, subversive elements…galvanizing the Philharmonia into a coruscating display. Small wonder the piece so wowed contemporary critics.” Gramophone Magazine | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  |
London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  |
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Andrey Boreyko The program features two of Shostakovich’s most challenging, provocative and arguably, greatest works! The Fourth Symphony came as a result of the composer’s study of Mahler. Scored for a gigantic orchestra, the symphony consists of two colossal outer movements, each lasting nearly half an hour, that frame a brief, intermezzo-like movement: first a movement in extended sonata form, then a droll scherzo and in third place a final movement of varied symphonic character introduced by a funeral march. The second work features the World Premiere recording of Shostakovich’s own suite from his opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Premiered in 1934, the work was a smashing success. However, triumph came to an abrupt end when on January 28, 1936, it became the subject of a devastating article in Pravda, presumably initiated by Stalin. Shostakovich arranged the Suite op. 29a, shortly after completing the opera. It can be assumed that the dramatic fate of the opera also had an effect on the history of the Suite’s performance, so that it, too, was not played for at least another twenty years. Andrey Boreyko, born in St. Petersburg, studied at that cty’s Academy of Music under E. Kudriavtseva and A. Dmitriev. Since 1997, he has been living and working largely in Western Europe. He was Chief Conductor of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and First Guest Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Since 2004, he has been allied with the Hamburg Symphony as its Chief Conductor, in 2005 he was called to take on the same position with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and to be the Principle Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR. He works as Guest Conductor with the world’s leading symphony orchestras. | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Semyon Bychkov Recorded 19 – 23 September 2005, Philharmonie, Cologne “Bychkov is Shostakovich’s leading orchestral interpreter, and this German band is one the best, so together they create a winning combination.” – The Independent | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Edition Staatskapelle Dresden - Volume 8
Staatskapelle Dresden, Kyrill Londrashin This recording is a coup – in the series from the Dresden State Orchestra archive – it is the premiere performance of Shostakovitch’s 4th Symphony in Germany given in 1963 conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin. Audio sound has been completely remastered from the original tapes This CD received a five star review in BBC Music Magazine, November 2006. | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Building a Library