Dormant Beauty

Between 1980 and 1998 Simon Rattle conducted no less than 934 concerts with the CBSO. Together they performed works by many 20th-century composers, as well as established favourites, and gave a total of 16 world premieres. Rattle also made 69 recordings for EMI with the orchestra. This box brings together that recorded legacy, which includes pieces by composers pivotal to his work, such as Mahler, Sibelius and Szymanowski, as well as some of the new compositions he championed — Nicholas Maw’s Odyssy, Mark Anthony Turnage’s Momentum, Three Screaming Popes and Drowned Out, and Thomas Adès’ Asyla.

Most, though not all, of the Debussy and Ravel orchestral masterworks, recorded beautifully by DG with Cleveland and Berlin. Boulez's "intellectual," somewhat astringent style is ideally suited to these sometimes overly romanticized pieces, offering brilliant articulation and transparency that reveals the architecture and intricate interplay of each orchestral element.