100 Symphonies

The word ‘symphony’ is used to describe an extended orchestral composition in Western classical music. By the eighteenth century the Italianate opera sinfonia - musical interludes between operas or concertos - had assumed the structure of three contrasting movements, and it is this form that is often considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. With the rise of established professional orchestras, the symphony assumed a more prominent place in concert life between 1790 and 1820 until it eventually came to be regarded by many as the yardstick by which one would measure a composer’s achievement.

Gustav Mahler - Complete Symphonies Nos. 1-9 - Lorin Maazel (2017) {15CD Box Set Signum Classics SIGCD363}
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© 2017 Signum Classics | SIGCD363
Classics / Romantic / Symphonies

Led by Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonia Orchestra are captured at their very best in these live performances of Mahler's Nine Symphonies. Recorded in concert at London's Royal Festival Hall, the symphonies include performances by soloists and ensembles including Sarah Connolly, Michelle Deyoung, Philharmonia Voices and the BBC Symphony Chorus. Praise for these performances has been near universal…'You get that audience perspective as if you were sitting in the hall, and its got all the energy and focus of a live or concert recording.' (BBC Radio 3) '…Maazel could sustain this score in a way that seemed to transcend reality…a tremendously moving experience.' (Classical Source) 'an extraordinary reading of the Ninth…a performance touched by greatness.' (Musicweb International).

You will probably be as incredulous as I was to learn that the greatest cycle of Mahler symphonies comes not from any of the usual suspects - Abbado, Bernstein, Chially, Haitink, Kubelik, Rattle, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennstedt - but from the unsung Gary Bertini, who spent the better part of his career as music director of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Unlike any of those more publicized sets, each of which includes a misfire or two, Bertini is consistently successful from first to last; his performance of each of these works can stand comparison with the very best available.

Rafael Kubelik was one of our foremost interpreters of Dvorak and other great Czech composers such as Smetana and Janacek. His critically acclaimed 1960's Dvorak symphony Deutsche Grammophon cycle was reissued several years ago as a budget-priced collection.

Heitor Villa-Lobos is without a doubt Brazil's most famous composer and one of the great creative personalities of the twentieth century. His oeuvre is gigantic in its dimensions and perhaps can be compared only to that of Darius Milhaud, who, by the way, was a close friend of his. In any case, Villa-Lobos was the first to introduce the music of Latin America to the world's concert halls, and influences from this music do indeed abound in his oeuvre. cpo is now presenting the first complete recording of his colossal symphonic work complex in a boxed set of seven CDs at a special low price! The SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra under the American star conductor Carl St. Clair has taken on this enormous task, and the result can only be described as a bravura achievement. You can look forward to an orchestral tour de force operating on the highest level!

Ludwig van Beethoven - The Nine Symphonies - Pierre Monteux (2015) {6CD Set Decca 4808895 rec 1957-1962}
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© 1957-62, 2015 Eloquence / Decca / Universal | 480 8895
Classical / Symphony

Monteux’s Beethoven has been described as visionary. Respect for the spirit of the score, directness of expression, exceptionally well-drilled playing and a sense of untainted idealism that lay at the very heart of the composer’s vision – these are the qualities that typify Monteux’s interpretation of Beethoven. Eight of the symphonies were recorded for Decca; the Ninth for Westminster; and the third (Eroica) again, for Philips. Together with the rehearsal for the Ninth and an impromptu in-studio performance of ‘La Marseillaise’, they form the most complete collection of Monteux’s Beethoven recordings. Other conductors may have offered a more personalised take on the music but none made it more universal or more human. The fascinating accompanying notes to the set are by Rob Cowan and the recordings have been remastered for this release.

Ludwig van Beethoven's 'Nine Symphonies' are the core repertoire of virtually every orchestra in the world and the Concertgebouworkest is no exception. Until the 1960s the Beethoven tradition of the Concertgebouworkest meant yearly symphony cycles that closed concert seasons. Later on Beethoven 'Symphonies' were mainly programmed one at a time, with a different (guest) conductor. This box set offers the finest recorded Concertgebouworkest live performances of the 'Nine Symphonies' since the 1970s. With a variety of conductors, from Leonard Bernstein to Nikolaus Harnoncourt it demonstrates the orchestra's incredible versatility.

The Karajan Official Remastered Edition comprises 13 box sets containing official remasterings of the finest recordings the Austrian conductor made for EMI between 1946 and 1984, and which are now a jewel of the Warner Classics catalogue.

He was closely associated with EMI for the majority of his recording career (specifically from 1946 to 1960 and then again from 1969 to 1984). While Beethoven’s symphonies, so central to Karajan’s recorded legacy, embody music’s transition from Classicism to Romanticism, this set presents symphonies by Beethoven’s great Classical predecessors – Mozart and Haydn – and his admiring Romantic contemporary, Schubert. It also offers a rarity: the overture to Cherubini’s opera Anacréon.