Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s revelatory interpretation of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall (30/31 May & 2 June 2019) will be released in June 2021. Their new album documents a landmark performance that brought the LA Philharmonic’s centennial season to a triumphant conclusion in 2019. Mahler’s extraordinary ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ spans a universe of emotions, channeled through everything from passages of intimate reflection to overwhelming outbursts of choral and orchestral sound.
The exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a master of this repertoire. This is his second concerto recording for the label, after his survey of the complete piano concertos by Bartók (CHAN10610) which was released in September to high acclaim and voted ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ by the magazine BBC Music. Bavouzet’s complete recording of the piano music by Debussy also scooped awards from BBC Music and Gramophone, which wrote: ‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.’ On this new release, Bavouzet is accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier, a conductor steeped in the French tradition and utterly at home in this repertoire. The result is a totally idiomatic performance of these French masterpieces for piano and orchestra.
This is Volume 4 in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s project to record the complete piano sonatas of Haydn. The last volume in the series was a Critic’s Choice in Gramophone, an Instrumental Choice in the magazine BBC Music, Editor’s Choice in the magazine Classic FM, and Recording of the Month in MusicWeb International.
The two Bodorova pieces are patently sincere, deeply moving and subtle. Bodorová demonstrates a simplicity of utterance that bring her close to the souls of Finzi (Introit), Macmillan (Gowdie) and Pärt (Cantus). The Terezin Requiem refers to the Holocaust with Terezin (or Theresienstadt) being the model 'camp' which Hitler had filmed to show how happily confined the Jews were. Two devotional (not contemplative) movements frame a fast one. The baritone Nigel Cliffe has a meaty voice adept at the sort of hieratic melisma called for by the composer……….My recording of the month.Rob Barnett @ musicweb-international.com