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SACD

James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 (2015) [SACD / Chandos – CHSA 5156]

adminApril 12, 2026 14 Views

Title: James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 (2015)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

This is the second volume in our series devoted to the orchestral works of Janáček, with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner. The repertoire on this disc includes some of the greatest programmatic pieces by the composer. Unsurprisingly, the first piece featured here is Jealousy – his first declared piece of programme music, originally written to preface the opera Jenůfa but never included in any production of it during his lifetime. Both The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddler’s Child (also known as a ‘ballad for orchestra’) are characterised by the use of musicals symbols, reflecting the Czech poems on which the pieces are based and also some of the composer’s personal reflections and responses. The one-movement Violin Concerto The Wandering of a Little Soul is a more mysterious piece, with uncertainties surrounding the title, the date of creation, and the goals of its composition. Like the unfinished Danube symphony, the version recorded here has been reconstructed by Miloš Štědroň and Leoš Faltus from Janáček’s sketches. An interpretation of the famous tale by Gogol, Taras Bulba was completed in 1915 and was Janáček’s most substantial orchestral work to date. It is inflected with folk dances, battle and horse-riding music, suffering and love, and brought to a grandiloquent apotheosis, in orchestration of almost cinematic vividness.

Leader Milina Mandozzi does well to show the way through this mysterious, powerful work [The Fiddler’s Child]…These must be difficult works to prepare and indeed to record; both playing and recording are vividly managed. – Gramophone Magazine, July 2015 Gardner’s survey with the Bergen Phil taps into his boundless, brazen invention; that uniquely Janáčekian blend of rustic and caustic…Ehnes is a steely, forthright soloist in the Violin Concerto, and the Bergen players offer clean, mercurial momentum. – The Guardian, 23rd April 2015

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SACD

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 1 (2014) [SACD / Chandos – CHSA 5142]

adminApril 12, 2026 13 Views

Title: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Janacek: Orchestral Works, Volume 1 (2014)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Edward Gardner conducts the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in the opening volume in their series devoted to orchestral works by Leoš Janáček. It features three pieces that originate in Janáček’s late period, when his passionate feelings for Kamila Stösslová, thirty-seven years his junior, inspired an extraordinary flowering of his creative genius. The Sinfonietta is one of Janáček’s most successful and popular works, famed for its opening movement, a brazen fanfare scored for a phalanx of brass with timpani. The remaining four movements, full of character, celebrate Janáček’s adopted town of Brno, blending occasional reflection with high-voltage exuberance. Scored unusually for left-hand piano and an ensemble of brass and flute, the Capriccio is remarkable even among Janáček’s distinctive late works. Its overall effect is mercurial and capricious, in the composer’s words: ‘whimsical, all wilfulness and witticisms’. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet employs his formidable technique and interpretative flair in the solo part. The Cunning Little Vixen, Janáček’s opera from 1923, was not universally well received at first. A number of its orchestral interludes, however, were immediately popular and after Janáček’s death in 1928 Václav Talich, a leading Czech conductor, extracted an orchestral suite, re-orchestrated by two young colleagues. Recently Sir Charles Mackerras restored Janáček’s striking original orchestration, the version recorded here.

the players are brilliant and the sound is glorious, very skilfully recorded…the Bavouzet performs dazzling feats of virtuosity with a truly exacting solo part; and the extraordinary, fascinating textures are displayed by both artists and recording engineers. – Gramophone Magazine, December 2014 While both the Sinfonietta and the suite…receive fine performances – and in the case of the Sinfonietta’s later movements, particularly feisty, urgent ones – it’s the account of the wonderfully quirky Capriccio between them with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as soloist that hogs the limelight. – The Guardian, 16th October 2014

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SACD

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Prokofiev: The Symphonies (5xSACD Boxset) (2020/2021) [SACD / BIS – BIS-2594]

adminJuly 25, 2025 345 Views

Title: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Prokofiev: The Symphonies (5xSACD Boxset) (2020/2021)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO

Celebrating the 130th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953), the present box set brings together recordings of his seven symphonies made by Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra between 2012 and 2017. The symphonies appear with their original couplings, including the popular suites from the film score to Lieutenant Kijé and the ballet The Love for Three Oranges. As an added bonus, the set includes the team’s very first recording for BIS: an innovative and highly praised version of Prokofiev’s three suites from Romeo and Juliet, with the 20 movements reordered to follow the ballet score.

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