Tchaikovsky Jarvi

Born in Tallinn in 1962, Paavo Järvi is renowned for his dynamic interpretations and innovative programming. He has held prominent positions with leading orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, or the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich more recently. Paavo Järvi's approach combines technical precision with expressive depth, making him a favourite among musicians and audiences alike.

Born in Tallinn in 1962, Paavo Järvi is renowned for his dynamic interpretations and innovative programming. He has held prominent positions with leading orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, or the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich more recently. Paavo Järvi's approach combines technical precision with expressive depth, making him a favourite among musicians and audiences alike.

Born in Tallinn in 1962, Paavo Järvi is renowned for his dynamic interpretations and innovative programming. He has held prominent positions with leading orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, or the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich more recently. Paavo Järvi's approach combines technical precision with expressive depth, making him a favourite among musicians and audiences alike.

Paavo Järvi’s remarkably fresh-sounding Tchaikovsky Pathétique emphasizes the music’s lyricism and singing line, with flowing tempos and unforced, natural phrasing throughout. Accordingly the strings predominate in this performance, and the Cincinnati players make beautiful sounds, especially in the outer movements. Järvi treats the first movement’s “big tune” as a love song that grows more impassioned with each appearance. On the other hand he leads a quite angry development section, with biting brass ratcheting up the tension. The second movement goes at a lively, dancing pace, while Järvi’s quick-stepping third-movement march generates real excitement in its second-half, with brilliant playing by the Cincinnati brass.

The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 3 is rarely heard, though it is a finely crafted work worth greater attention. It has suffered alongside the magnificent and superior Second and the ever-popular First. Moreover, it is not a bona fide concerto at all, the composer having completed only the first movement before his sudden death in 1893. Contrary to the suggestion of a few, it is highly unlikely he intended to produce a one-movement concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote two other piano pieces the same year bearing the titles "Andante" and "Finale," respectively. Following his death, Taneyev orchestrated these and attached them to the Concerto, though Tchaikovsky had left no indication they were to be a part of it. But the pair did share something in common with the completed first movement: a theme source – the incomplete Symphony No. 7. In any event, the opening movement of this Concerto is the most compelling, featuring an exuberant main theme whose first two notes are the central melodic element. An attractive slow melody is soon presented, followed by a theme of great vivacity and rhythmic drive.

This is the second instalment in our series devoted to Tchaikovsky’s three great ballets. The first recording, of The Sleeping Beauty, was praised upon its release, described by a reviewer in American Record Guide as ‘one of the finest I’ve heard’. Here Neeme Järvi and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra present the complete version of Swan Lake, with the pre-eminent James Ehnes lending his magic to the violin solos. This was Tchaikovsky’s first full-length ballet, but its premiere in 1877, staged at Moscow’s Bolshoy Theatre, was by no means a resounding success. According to most accounts, the choreography was inept, the shabby sets and costumes were borrowed from other productions, and the orchestral playing was poor. Most ballet companies today base their productions on the 1895 revival by the distinguished choreographer Marius Petipa.

This two-disc set marks the beginning of a new project devoted to Tchaikovsky's ballet scores. We start the survey with the complete score of The Sleeping Beauty, recorded on SACD. Swan Lake and The Nutcracker will follow in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation of Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty).

Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra.
Jarvi writes: ‘When I think of the Fifth Symphony, I think of vulnerability and hope. It looks directly into our soul. It is perhaps the finest of his symphonies. The famous horn solo moves me and enriches me every time I hear it . . . Unlike the Sixth, the Fifth still holds out hope for life.’