Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 Bernstein

Music Director Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with Reference Recordings, are pleased to announce the release of a new recording in superb audiophile, pairing Tchaikovsky’s iconic Symphony No. 4 with the world premiere of leading American composer Jonathan Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon, featuring the orchestra’s own Michael Rusinek, Principal Clarinet, and Nancy Goeres, Principal Bassoon. This HIGHRESAUDIO release was recorded in Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, the acoustically outstanding and historic home of the orchestra.

Szell's performance is again of quite a different order, one of the very finest ever put on disc, white hot even beyond Bernstein's. The late John Culshaw, producer at the sessions in Walthamstow Assembly Hall in 1962, used to enjoy telling the story of winding up an already angry George Szell. That inspired tyrant of a conductor was furious at the start of the session to find that many players were not the same as those who had just given the concert performance with him. When he came back to listen to the first playback Culshaw deliberately kept the controls rather low, making the result seem dull. That prompted Szell, back on the podium, to unleash a force in the subsequent takes that has to be heard to be believed.

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1948 and has always played a key role in the development of the classical music scene in South Korea. The appointment of the respected Myung-Whun Chung as music director and principal conductor in 2005 heralded an artistic renaissance for the orchestra. And now that the famous German yellow label has, by way of maestro Chung, taken the Seoul Philharmonic under its wings, the ensemble also seems destined for brilliant horizons outside of the Korean border.

Sony Classical brings you Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, performed by the global superstar Teodor Currentzis. Teodor Currentzis feels a very strong attachment to the music of Tchaikovsky and it is natural he has gravitated to the might sixth symphony – undoubtedly Tchaikovsky’s greatest and most poignant.

Tchaikovsky’s most overtly nationalistic symphony, his 2nd known as the ‘Little Russian’ uses folk songs from the Ukraine, and is the nearest the composer came to the musical and cultural ideals proposed by ‘The Mighty Handful’. This group of composers – Borodin, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui and Mussorgsky rejected the Western influences on Russian culture, and looked to the music, folklore and history of Mother Russia for inspiration. Mussorgsky, probably the most naturally gifted of this group composed A Night on the Bare Mountain in 1867, and the original version heard here was not published until 1968. It is a striking work, quite shocking in it’s modernity, and a world away from Rimsky’s better known re-composition of the piece.

The Second Volume of Leonard Bernsteins complete recorded legacy on Deutsche Grammophon: an original jackets collection in an LP-size box with deluxe book, taking in some of his most famous and celebrated recordings. The set comprises Bernsteins complete recordings of composers from Mahler (19 CDs) to Wagner. Includes all of Bernsteins recordings of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Puccini, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Strauss, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky. This repertoire is supplemented by the five American Decca CDs, with performances and analyses of Beethovens Erocia, Schumanns Second, Dvoraks New World, Brahmss Fourth and Tchaikovskys Pathetique.

Fans of Leonard Bernstein will not want to miss the chance to snap up this limited edition 60-CD set, Bernstein Symphony Edition. With a list price of just over two dollars per disc, it's a bargain not to be missed. What's most impressive about these recordings of well over 100 symphonies made between 1953 and 1976, almost all of which feature the New York Philharmonic, is the scope and depth of Bernstein's repertoire. The complete symphonic works of many of the great symphonists are here.