Valery Joice

Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna is once again this year the beautiful backdrop for a classical music concert in a class of its own. Every year, the famous summer night concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra takes place there. This year, the orchestra is conducted by Valery Gergiev, who has been working with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for many years. For the first time this year, the German world star Jonas Kaufmann will be the star guest at the Summer Night Concert. The programme is still secret, but as every year it will be a particularly beautiful mixture of classical hits and special works by Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Jacques Offenbach, Jules Massenet, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Emmerich Kálmán, Maurice Jarre, Aram Khachaturian and Giacomo Puccini.

Evgeny Kissin, in case you missed the New Year's Eve international telecast from Berlin, is an 18-year-old Russian who is already the veteran of many a 'sensational' debut. As he proved in his accompaniment to Karajan's Tchaikovsky, he is already a considerable artist, with all the traditional Russian strengths of deep tone production, strong rhythm, clarity and expressiveness even under extreme virtuoso pressure. His Rachmaninov gives further evidence of an outstanding talent which one hopes his advisers, RCA included, will nurture patiently.

These readings are sensitive and beautifully, thoughtfully paced. The phrasing is totally idiomatic, too. There is a tenedency to bend phrases like taffy in Borodin. Gergiev, however, has a deep understanding of the structure of these works, which he conveys with a wonderful feeling for dynamics (typically Russian in the brass) and light and shade. This was an early Gergiev/Rotterdam Philharmonic collaboration, but the orchestra already seems totally attuned to the conductor's artistry.

Acclaimed throughout the world's great opera houses, American soprano Renee Fleming enjoys particular success in roles from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when glorious vocal writing and opulent orchestrations took the art of opera to new heights. In studying and performing this passionately lyrical music, Fleming became increasingly fascinated with her predecessors-sopranos of a golden age who made this intensely emotional music their own. Homage: The age of the Diva is a tribute to these iconic sopranos and their signature arias.

In this first volume of Alexander Scriabin's symphonies on the LSO Live label, Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra begin in media res with the Symphony No. 3, "Le Divin Poème," and the Le Poème de l'extase, which is unofficially counted as the Symphony No. 4. These works date from Scriabin's middle period (ca. 1902-1908), which marks a transition from his youthful Romantic phase to his final visionary works. The Symphony No. 3 reflects a lingering attachment to the symphonic conventions which influenced Scriabin's first two symphonies, particularly in its three-movement structure and relatively clear tonal scheme, though it already hints at the organic development and greater harmonic complexity of the single-movement Le Poème de l'extase, which strains the boundaries of form and key. These effusive works demand a calculated control that may seem at odds with their volatile and languorous expressions, though Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra deliver the music with rhythmic precision and focused tone colors to bring across Scriabin's kaleidoscopic soundworld with brilliance.

This set of recordings of Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies by Valery Gergiev leading the Vienna Philharmonic contains performances that are undeniably fire-breathing, undoubtedly heaven-storming, and inarguably heart-on-sleeve. Gergiev, one of the most exciting Russian conductors, leads the works with a combination of reckless passion, imperious command, and unbearable drama that is his hallmark, and the Vienna Philharmonic.