Royal Liverpool

Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s cycle of the 9 Vaughan Williams symphonies have been praised by the reviewers, and their live performances rapturously received. This album contains the most popular of his shorter orchestral works – The Tallis Fantasy, Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending and the wonderful Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus".

Many composers have written music for children, or about childhood. Very few however have been as successful in understanding the world of children and music as Benjamin Britten. His ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ quickly became one of his most popular works internationally. It is a brilliant showpiece for orchestra based on a theme from ‘The Moor’s Revenge’ or ‘Abdelazar’ by Purcell. Variations for each section of the orchestra are followed by a brilliant fugue for the full orchestra. The RLPO has a long history with this piece and gave the first performance under Sir Malcolm Sargent in 1946, and the recording that followed that year won the ‘Orchestral Record of the Year’ award at the 1948 annual conference on Gramophone Critics in New York.

Domingo Hindoyan’s exciting programme of French repertoire includes early and late orchestral masterpieces by Debussy, Roussel’s sumptuous and brilliantly scored 2nd ballet suite from Bacchus et Ariadne, and the rarely heard and spectacular La Péri, subtitled Poèm Dansé by the highly self-critical but brilliant Dukas. ‘Of all the recent conductor signings at UK orchestras, this is the one that intrigues me the most’ The Spectator on Domingo Hindoyan’s appointment as Chief conductor of the RLPO.

Joly Braga Santos was Portugal’s greatest orchestral composer, and this recording presents eight world premiere recordings including his very first work for orchestra, the Symphonic Overture No. 1. This and the Symphonic Overture No. 2 share a unified structure and lyrical themes, contrasting with the somber Prelude, originally written for an intensely tragic opera. Braga Santos’s characterful four ‘miniatures’ are brought together to form an attractive suite, while his only Piano Concerto is a virtuoso spectacle with a large part for percussion and a gloriously anarchic approach to timbre and tonality. Born in Rijeka in 1981, Goran Filipec studied at the Ino Mirkovich Academy in Croatia, at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and the Conservatoire national superieur de musique et de danse de Paris. During his early career, he was a top prizewinner of several international piano competitions. He performs across Europe, the US, South America and Japan as a recitalist and as a soloist with leading orchestras.