Szymanowski: Orchestral Works, Volume V Piano Orchestral & Concertos Chandos

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Chandos Records is one of the world's premier classical music record companies, best known for its ground breaking search for neglected musical gems. The company has pioneered the idea of the 'series' and proudly includes series of such composers as Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Parry, Walton, Grainger, Berkeley and Bridge. Renowned for its superb sound quality, Chandos has won many prestigious awards for its natural sound.

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***** - (Exceptional Disc)

Benedetto Ciranna - Musica magazine - September 2013

*** - Good Disc

Stéphane Friédérich - Classica magazine - April 2013

***** - Very Good

Alain Steffen – Pizzicato magazine – May 2013

Music **** (Very Good) Sound **** (Very Good)

Giselher Schubert – Fono Forum magazine – May 2013

"...The BBC Symphony Orchestra plays with great virtuosity and sensitivity, and the recorded sound is excellent its marriage of spaciousness and tangibility Edward Gardner displays a close affinity with this strange and often beautiful music, leading performances of passion, weight and clarity..."

Ben Hogwood - ClassicalSource.com - 18 February 2013

Gramophone Choice

“...the changing face and manner of this most fascinating and accomplished of composers is richly chronicled here in characteristically impressive Chandos sound”

Edward Seckerson – Gramophone magazine – March 2013

“This brilliantly produced and performed Chandos anthology makes a persuasive case for this composer’s fragrant, big-hearted music. The best work here is the Fourth Symphony of 1932, a concertante work for piano and orchestra Louis Lortie’s idiomatic piano solo is nicely integrates into the orchestral image and not unnaturally spotlit. And it’s a really attractive work with a wonderful last movement The performance [Symphony no 2] is staggering, with the BBC SO tapedin a suitably large-scale acoustic. Every gorgeous detail registers clearly under Edward Gardner’s generous direction.”

Graham Rickson – The ArtsDesk.com – 9 February 2013

Performance ***** Recording *****

“... Chandos’s Muzyka Polska reaches impressive heights with this release spanning nearly three decades of Szymanowski’s music the Concert Overture is an opulent piece, and Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra show how the composer was starting to find his own distinctive voice the Second Symphony needs careful handling these performers prove ideal, finding luminosity at the opening, and delivering a taut, energetic fugal finale. The Fourth Symphony (1932) is a masterpiece of the composer’s late, folkloristic period, the work is launched by a languid piano solo that Louis Lortie plays with delicacy and freedom Gardner shows how he has become one of the finest non-Polish interpreters of Szymanowski”

John Allison – BBC Music magazine – March 2013

",,, Edward Gardner begins his Szymanowski survey for Chandos at the beginning, with the Polish composer’s first orchestral work, the Concert Overture Op 12. His gloriously broad and sweeping account of a work that reflects Szymanowski’s seemingly boundless admiration for Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems sets the tone for a disc that emphasises the composer’s late romantic affiliations rather than his modernist ones, especially with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on opulent form " ****

Andrew Clements - The Guardian - 25 January 2013

"Big toned yet poetic. Ehnes is a persausive interpreter..."

Fiona Maddocks - The Observer - 20 January 2013

"...Chandos continues its Polish series with a fine recording of two of his symphonies. No 2 is an early work, full of ecstatic climaxes, whereas No 4 is more restrained, with a prominent limpid piano part, delicately played by Louis Lortie ..."

Paul Gent - The Telegraph 19 January 2013

“... The capacious Symphony No 2 and the rousing Concert Overture have the spangled Bumptiousness of Richard Strauss, vividly projected in Gardner’s accounts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra This [Symphony No 4) interpretation’s particularly magical and delicate, with sparkling playing from the solo pianist Louis Lorte. The first in a Szymanowski, series from Gardner and I’m already panting for volume 2 .” ****

Geoff Brown – The Times – 12 January 2013

Performance ***** Sonics *****

“...most desirable issue and I eagerly await the next instalment in the series.”

Graham Williams – SACD.net – January 2013

" With beautiful sound throughout, and authoritative notes by Adrian Thomas, this excellent disc can be recommended with enthusiasm - all concerned are splendid advocates of this wonderful music...."

Nigel Simeone - International Record Review - January 2013

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