The National Symphony Orchestra Rimsky Korsakoff: Scheherazade

Sony Classical is proud to present ‘Dvorák: Cello Concerto’ by OPUS Klassik award- winning cellist Raphaela Gromes, released on September 13 th on CD. Following the tremendous success of her album "Femmes" (2023), Raphaela Gromes releases a new album, "Dvorák: Cello Concerto", featuring one of the most renowned cello concertos alongside inspiring and moving pieces by Ukrainian composers. It was inspired by Gromes' visit to Kyiv in December 2023, where she performed the Dvorák Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and its chief conductor Volodymyr Sirenko, to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

This album is about something we all have in common; this beautiful planet Earth that we all call home.

Sony Classical is proud to present ‘Dvorák: Cello Concerto’ by OPUS Klassik award- winning cellist Raphaela Gromes, released on September 13 th on CD. Following the tremendous success of her album "Femmes" (2023), Raphaela Gromes releases a new album, "Dvorák: Cello Concerto", featuring one of the most renowned cello concertos alongside inspiring and moving pieces by Ukrainian composers. It was inspired by Gromes' visit to Kyiv in December 2023, where she performed the Dvorák Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and its chief conductor Volodymyr Sirenko, to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

The culmination of five digital releases, the National Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda conclude their journey through Beethoven’s complete symphonies, releasing the complete set.

The National Symphony Orchestra is concluding its Beethoven symphony cycle this month. As with the first half of this series, music director Gianandrea Noseda is pairing these familiar works with others in the genre by African-American composers George Walker and William Grant Still. The first program was anchored on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony Friday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The culmination of five digital releases, the National Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda conclude their journey through Beethoven’s complete symphonies, releasing the complete set.

Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centres of activity.

"…The second movement is just ravishing in the beauty of the Chicago's playing and Reiner's romantic approach; there is some staccato triple-tonguing done by trumpeter Adolph Herseth in the fourth movement that should leave you, if not him, breathless. But let is just be said that, after you hear this, no other Scheherazade will ever replace it in your affections."
HP's The Golden Dozen LPs – Harry Pearson, The Absolute Sound, June/July 2007

Of the many offerings by countless orchestras and conductors, this version stands above them all in performance, interpretation and execution. Not since the early LP recording by Kirill Kondrashin and the Concertgebouw Orchestra has this piece shown such Russian fire! Gergiev uses the space between phrases dramatically, and the tempo achieved in the allegro passages throughout this work is breathtaking.