From Royal to National

Neeme Järvi returns to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a dazzling album of suites from the ballets Sylvia, La Source, and Coppélia by Delibes. Born into a musical family, Delibes enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire aged twelve, studying under several professors including Adolphe Adam. He spent the 1850s and early 1860s composing light operettas and working as a church organist, before achieving public recognition for his music for the ballet La Source in 1866. His later ballets Coppélia and Sylvia were key works in the development of modern ballet, giving the music much greater importance than was previously the case.

Following their critically acclaimed first volume of Mozart’s violin concertos (CHAN 20234), Francesca Dego and Sir Roger Norrington complete the set, once again with outstanding support from a reduced Royal Scottish National Orchestra. This cycle not only represents the first time Sir Roger has recorded these concertos, but the present album is also his final recording project. All five concertos were written before Mozart was twenty; nevertheless, his rapid development as a composer is evident in the progression from the first to the fifth, which has an unusual Adagio section within the first movement, an extensive slow movement, and of course the extensive ‘Turkish’ episode in the final movement (probably based on Hungarian folk music). Whilst given on modern instruments with metal strings, these are performances immersed in Norrington’s lifetime of experience in period performance practise. As The Sunday Times noted of the first album: ‘Pairing the veteran Mozartian Norrington – a pioneer of historical performance practice – with the young Italian-American soloist Dego proves inspiring in what promises to be one of the freshest of recent cycles of the Mozart concertos.’

It is a revelation to hear every note that Vaughan Williams wrote, late in 1947, for the then unmade film Scott of the Antarctic. There have been previous attempts to revisit some of the unused music he sketched for the film, but now conductor Martin Yates, with the support of the composer’s estate, has transcribed from the original manuscripts all the music, comprising some 41 beautifully rounded numbers. Vaughan Williams subsequently reworked some of this material in the Sinfonia Antartica, but on this recording we are able to hear for the first time his vivid reaction to the story, before the film was even shot. Standing independently beside the Sinfonia Antartica, this is a gripping symphonic experience in its own right.

Gustavo Diaz-Jerez is one of the leading composers and pianists in Spain. His compositional output spans all genres, from solo works to opera. His works have been premiered by prestigious ensembles and orchestras. His orchestral work Ymarxa, commissioned by the XXVII Canary Islands Music Festival, was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit. In 2018, his first opera was premiered, La casa imaginaria. This album represents the culmination of more than ten years of compositional work. A unique endeavour in the history of music in the Canary Islands, it comprises seven symphonic poems almost two and a half hours of music which evoke the landscapes and natural beauty of the Canaries.

It is a revelation to hear every note that Vaughan Williams wrote, late in 1947, for the then unmade film Scott of the Antarctic. There have been previous attempts to revisit some of the unused music he sketched for the film, but now conductor Martin Yates, with the support of the composer’s estate, has transcribed from the original manuscripts all the music, comprising some 41 beautifully rounded numbers. Vaughan Williams subsequently reworked some of this material in the Sinfonia Antartica, but on this recording we are able to hear for the first time his vivid reaction to the story, before the film was even shot. Standing independently beside the Sinfonia Antartica, this is a gripping symphonic experience in its own right.

The three full-length ballet scores that Dmitry Shostakovich wrote between 1925 and 1935 remain among his least known works. The Golden Age revolves around the visit of a Soviet football team to a Western city (referred to as 'U-town') at the time of an industrial exhibition, only for its heroic sporting and social endeavours constantly to be undermined by hostile administrators, decadent artistes and corrupt officials. Even before its premiere Shostakovich had prepared a suite, including the famous Polka (Naxos 8.553126), which barely hints at the dissonant harmonies and intricate contrapuntal designs to be found elsewhere in the ballet. This recording is the first to present the work complete with all repeats observed, enabling listeners to assess the ballet in all its exhilarating and, at times, anarchic intensity.

Toshio Hosokawa is one of Japan’s most eminent living composers. The first volume in this series devoted to his orchestral works [8.573239] explores the idea of the blossoming lotus – “music as plant-like development and growth” – and continues here with Blossoming II for chamber orchestra. Woven Dreams traces the journey from womb to birth by employing techniques drawn from Gagaku, the ancient Japanese court music. Of Circulating Ocean the composer writes: “I am attempting to express in sound the flow and change of water… The ocean is for me the birthplace of life, a being possessed of infinite depth and expanse.”

‘As intriguing as it is beguiling’ was how the ‘east-meets-west soundworld’ of Xiaogang Ye was described in the BBC Music Magazine on the release of a previous disc of his orchestral works in 2016. On that occasion Ye’s music was championed by José Serebrier, who returns here, sharing the task with Gilbert Varga. Between them they conduct the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and four international soloists in five works which highlight the beginning of Ye’s career as well as his more recent works. The Brilliance of Western Liang was written in 1983, during Ye’s time as a student at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and is named after a fifth-century kingdom in northwest China.

Each instalment in Neeme Järvi’s Mahler cycle for Chandos has something new to say, but it’s hard to tell whether the insights of this First Symphony outweigh the exaggerations. Is there a valid point being made, for instance, about the first movement – mired in its ‘long sleep of winter’ for much longer than usual? Admittedly the awakening, when it finally comes after an emphatic developmental crisis, is massively impressive. The Scherzo’s central dream sequence drifts woozily, exaggerated even by Bernstein standards; the huntsman’s funeral is intriguingly brisk; and the finale lurches between magic and mannerism, capped by an almost ludicrous victory charge.