Brainwave Symphony CD 4

Rendered with impeccable musicality, Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 in A minor, "Scottish," and his Symphony No. 4 in A major, "Italian," are treated in an exemplary manner by Heinz Holliger and the Musikkollegium Winterthur, and recorded with immaculate unprocessed sound by Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm. This is a high-quality audiophile release that collectors will naturally want to snap up. But anyone who is developing an appreciation for Mendelssohn's music would be well-advised to listen to this multichannel hybrid SACD, not only for the vivid orchestral timbres and spacious natural sound, but also for understanding how the use of historical practices can make the music truly come alive.

Darius Milhaud evidently planned his musical career on a long-term basis. In 1920 he announced that he would write eighteen string quartets in his life, and he did so, completing his last quartet in 1951. Milhaud said that he did not plan on writing symphonies until 1942 (when he would be fifty years old), but that when a commission came in for a symphonic work to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he judged that he was ready, and accepted the commission. Symphony No. 1 was the result…….

Superbly crafted and convincingly modern, though imbued with an expressivity most modern composers would have abjured, the Fourth and Fifth symphonies of English composer Richard Arnell arguably deserve to be heard as often as the symphonies of his contemporaries Alwyn and Arnold. In this superlative coupling of his Fourth Symphony from 1948 and his Fifth Symphony from 1957, Arnell emerges as a cogent composer ……..

James Leonard @ AllMusic

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E flat major (1881, ed. Robert Haas) – Berliner Philharmoniker; Herbert von Karajan
Classical | 1 CD | EAC Rip | 319 MB, 3% recovery | FLAC+LOG+Cue | Full scans | RS links
Publisher: EMI Classics | Recorded: 1970 | Published: 2005

The recording of the Fourth Symphony is one of the finest ever made in Berlin's Jesus-Christus Kirche, the church's clear but spacious acoustic allowing the Berlin playing to be heard in all its multicoloured, multi-dimensional splendour… Richard Osborne; Gramophone

The second installment in Sakari Oramo's superb hybrid SACD cycle of the symphonies of Carl Nielsen on BIS presents the Symphony No. 1 in G minor and the Symphony No. 3, "Sinfonia espansiva," two ruggedly independent works that reflect the composer's late Romantic style yet point to the modernism to come. While the Symphony No. 1 was influenced by Brahms and offers a rich harmonic language, propulsive rhythms, and a fairly homogenous orchestral palette, the Symphony No. 3 is striking for its reliance on unfolding counterpoint and long-breathed lines, and most notable for the use of wordless parts for soprano and baritone voices in the pastoral slow movement. These performances by Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra are exceptional for their stunning power and spacious feeling, though the crisp details and focused sound quality will be the biggest draw for audiophiles.

In many ways the Fourth Symphony illustrates Krenek's independence from any one musical style – and ultimately from his teacher(s) and those who influenced him, like Busoni, too. It has a thread of mid-century anguish and uncertainty. But it could never be described as avant-garde or experimental. Yet it's of a pleasing unity, has direction and thrust which make it more than merely stimulating listening. Like all but those of the first and second symphonies, this one on cpo is the only recording. It's full of purpose, clarity and of transparent, open, yet very …….

Mark Sealey @ classical.net

Call it postminimalist, totalist, or maximalist, the orchestral music of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon is big, loud, frenzied, and assertive, jam-packed with stylistic references, dense with inventive orchestration, and overflowing with virtuoso activity. Dystopia, performed by David Robertson and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a kaleidoscopic portrait of the city of Los Angeles, created in collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. This live recording of the work's premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, January 12, 2008, captures the energy and spontaneity of the music, which at times is quite reminiscent of the hubbub of the Shrovetide Fair in Stravinsky's Petrushka, though one must imagine that the listening experience with the film was overwhelming. In contrast, Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not so much a wall of sound as a multi-layered gloss on its original material, an echo of Beethoven's music warped and reshaped through glissandi, microtones, clusters, montage, and other modern techniques.

Kenneth Woods, Principal Guest Conductor of Stratford-upon-Avon based Orchestra of the Swan, has made international headlines for his ongoing cycle of world-premiere recordings of Hans Gál’s Symphonies. The set, paired with the symphonies of Robert Schumann, has been featured on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Performance Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, in Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine, and dozens of other newspaper and online reviews, introducing a new generation to Gál’s wide-ranging and extensive oeuvre. Woods and OOTS continue the cycle with Gál’s Second and Schumann’s Fourth….

Muzio Clementi’s four surviving mature symphonies were never published in his lifetime and were rescued from neglect through painstaking reconstruction. His sophisticated use of counterpoint can be heard in his treatment of the tune God Save the King in the third symphony. Classical poise, drama and eloquence of expression in both works can be traced to the influence of Haydn and Mozart. Muzio Clementi’s four mature symphonies have rarely been recorded in comparison to his works for piano.