Philarmonia Fantastique

Yefim Bronfman has a special affinity for these two concerti, a nearly selfless approach to the scores that keeps in mind that while the piano may be the solo instrument and provide key lines for the 'accompanying' orchestra to elucidate, the same relationship belongs to the orchestra when Rachmaninov introduced melodies in the orchestration that are then embraced with ardor by the piano soloist.

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Cette petite merveille d’un kilo et demi de matière qui crée votre réalité. Nous découvrirons à quel point il est semblable à un super ordinateur biologique ultrasophistiqué, fonctionnant par des échanges chimiques et des courants électriques. Puis entre rêve et réalité, technologie et philosophie, nous nous aventurerons dans l’univers de la conscience vers le monde de demain. …

The fourth of d'Albert's twenty operas, "Die Abreise" ("The Departure") was premiered in 1898 at Frankfurt. In a single 40 minute act, its story is very slender indeed. A man (Gilfen) suspects his wife (Luise) of being unfaithful to him with a friend (Trott) so pretends to go away on a journey. Returning "unexpectedly" he finds Luise rejecting the advances of Trott who is summarily ejected. A reconciliation between Gilfen and Luise ensues.

Giuseppe Verdi was commissioned by the Paris Opera to write a grand opera for the Great Exhibition of 1855. The opera's subject was to be the Sicilian Vespers, the infamous massacre of the French by Sicilians in 1282 Palermo. Verdi's librettist for the work was Eugène Scribe and difficulties arose at once. Verdi, who favored lean realistic drama, was handcuffed by the French grand opera formula with its five act form, lavish choruses and ballet. The work with its original French title, 'Les Vêpres siciliennes' premiered to great acclaim but Verdi was never pleased with it. Eventually it was translated into Italian and this is the version that has survived.

Rich, full Naxos sound with high dynamic contrasts adds satisfying weight to David Lloyd-Jones’s taut and dramatic account of Elgar’s elaborate Shakespearean portrait. Speeds are often on the fast side, but idiomatically so, with a natural feeling for Elgarian rubato and spring rhythms. Both in Falstaff and in The Sanguine Fan, Lloyd-Jones draws fragmented structures warmly and persuasively together so that the late ballet-score emerges strongly, not just a trivial, occasional piece. The beautiful Elegy is most tenderly done, modest in length but no miniature. An outstanding bargain, competing with all premium-price rivals.

Rossini’s original version of Maometto II was premiered at the San Carlo Opera in Naples on 3 December 1820. It was his 31st opera and the eighth, and arguably the most radical, of the reform operas that Rossini wrote for performance there. At Naples he had the benefit of an outstanding full-time orchestra and chorus as well as an unequalled roster of star singers. This enabled him to distance himself from the populist clamour of Rome and Venice for crescendos and simplistic orchestral forms as well as static arias and stage scenes. Maometto Secondo has the potential to become one of the great operas in the repertoire. Richard Osborne, the Rossini scholar, describes it as the grandest of Rossini's opera seria, "epic in scale and revolutionary in the seamlessness of its musical structuring".