Description
Detailed Presentation
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John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic continue their survey of Shostakovich’s late symphonies with this recoding of the Fourteenth, with Elizabeth Atherton and Peter Rose as soloists. Completed in the spring of 1969 and premièred later that year, the symphony is written for soprano, bass, and small string orchestra with percussion, comprising eleven linked settings of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death, and indeed all four of the poets had died prematurely and / or in unnatural circumstances – Wilhelm Küchelbecker in Siberian exile for his part in the 1825 Decembrist uprising, Federico García Lorca assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, Rainer Maria Rilke of blood poisoning following an accident in 1926, and Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918 during the Spanish influenza pandemic. The Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva were composed in 1973, originally for contralto and piano, and subsequently arranged for chamber orchestra (the version we hear here, with Jess Dandy as soloist). The recording was made at Media City in Salford, Manchester, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio. Reviews BBC Music Magazine September 2023 “The BBC Philharmonic under John Storgårds, in this third instalment of their symphonic Shostakovich series, are exemplary, whether in the sotto voce opening of the Symphony, or in the horrif ic aural images conjured in ‘The Suicide’. – 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars Recording) Gramophone Magazine September 2023 “The opening poem, ‘De profundis’ (Lorca), begins in a barely audible white-out of desolation – beautifully, atmospherically captured by John Storgårds’s pared-down BBC Philharmonic (just strings and percussion). |
