Tippett Midsummer Davis

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Anyone who loves twentieth century music, who loves English music, or who just plain loves music will love this collection of the music of Michael Tippett. Culled from previously issued but long out-of-print Philips, London, Argo, and l'Oiseau-Lyre LPs, most of these recordings were world premieres made in close consultation with the composer and in the hands of conductors Colin Davis, Georg Solti, Neville Marriner, pianist Paul Crossley, and the Lindsay String Quartet, they receive what can fairly be described as definitive performances. From the ecstatic lyricism of the Suite for Double String Orchestra of 1939 through the luminous vitality of the First Symphony of 1945, the radiant sensuality of the Ritual Dances of 1955, the blues-based modernism of the Third Symphony of 1972, to the glistening transcendentalism of the Fourth Symphony of 1977, Tippett's unique fusion of line, drive, color, and form is performed throughout with passionate dedication and absolute faith in the music's greatness.

This recording of two masterful orchestral works by Sir Michael Tippett is fascinating and rewarding for many reasons, not least for the undeniable vividness of the music, the scintillating sonorities of the orchestration, and the vitality of the performances, but also for the utterly vibrant reproduction, presented in pristine DSD sound for this hybrid Super Audio CD from Chandos. This audiophile technology was intended for music of the widest dynamic range, depth, and variety of timbres, and Tippett's evocative and mysteriously shaded The Rose Lake (1991-1993) and his bright and vigorous Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage (1946-1952) clearly provide the fullest possible experience of the large modern orchestra in scores of almost cinematic scope.

This set documents over three decades of exceptional artistry by Sir Colin Davis, one of the musical pillars of the Philips label, who died on Sunday 14th April 2013. He was a musician of incomparable integrity and class.
After signing to Philips exclusively in the mid-1960s, Davis produced work for the label of the highest quality and range over the next three decades: the first Berlioz cycle , pioneering Tippett, superb Haydn and Mozart, top-rank Sibelius, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Dvorak and Britten, and much else.

This 6-CD box set pays tribute to one of the greatest English conductors of our time, whom celebrates his 85th birthday this year. Knighted in 1980, Sir Colin Davis has conducted numerous world renowned orchestras including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, to which he was the principal conductor for over ten years.

Sir Colin Davis celebrated his 80th birthday on 25 September 2007 and this set of late Mozart symphonies was released to mark that important event in the career of one of the great Mozart conductors of the past fifty years.
It was during the early 1950s when Davis started conducting Mozart operas with the Chelsea Opera Group that attention was first drawn to his genius as a Mozart conductor. In 1960 he conducted Die Zauberflöte at Glynedebourne (replacing an indisposed Beecham); during his tenure as Music Director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (he succeeded Solti in 1971) his Mozart performances drew huge critical acclaim.

The Sixteen, bright stars of the Baroque, have plenty to say on 20th-century repertoire (witness their excellent Britten series on Collins). Underpin them with the BBC Philharmonic and it might seem a magic formula. Ives’s unearthly The Unanswered Question holds few problems for instrumental players weaned on Maxwell Davies – no more than do the brilliant wind roulades of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Deft BBC teamwork and a chamber articulation to woodwind and brass helps this Koussevitzky-commissioned masterpiece to shed its often hammy ‘big band’ sound, creeping closer to the subtle, leaner sonorities of his later choral works. It gains. The singing varies. Too many dynamic shifts sound prosaic or under-prepared; fortes are forced, with muddy results. The vocal blend (happier in lower voices) can seem haphazard and colours the Tippett, where the men’s roars – contrast the lovely, sensual soprano solo – seem crude. Get this disc, instead, for the rare, late Poulenc – his New York-commissioned Sept répons. It is a curiously under-recorded devotional work, bleeding with pathos yet pumping energy, its exoticism enhanced by slightly breathy, tender solos, and scintillatingly sung with just those crucial missing qualities of awe and freshness. A million times more refined than what goes before.