“This album is immediately seductive. Even though the ‘Greeting Prelude’ is only 55 seconds, Andrew Davis delivers it with full-voiced energy in Chandos’s full-range, resonant, embracing sound, rich from treble to bass. The stereo spread adds breath to depth. I feel like I have the best seat in the concert hall…”

**** Excellent Album

“It’s easy to underestimate the depth and breadth of Andrew Davis’s repertoire and indeed his sterling qualities as a conductor – his ebullience, robust sense of rhythm and razor-sharp ears. All of which are much in evidence in this generous compendium of Stravinsky…”

Recommended

“…These are excellent performances… Let’s have more Stravinsky from this team.”

“… The music demonstrates Stravinsky at his most original and individualistic, whatever one may think of him; the work of a great and original genius is here set before us in performances that cannot, in any possible regard be improved upon. This is magisterial interpretative insight on behalf of Andrew Davis, consistently so, and the orchestral playing is – well, I’ve already said it!” *****

Editor’s Choice – January 2023

“…This is a well-played and extremely well recorded disc, and musically polished …” ****

Performance *****      Sonic (Multichannel) *****

“… this is one of the most desirable Stravinsky releases I have heard for some considerable time.”

“…there were late works which recaptured the energy and vivacity of Stravinsky’s earlier music, notably the remarkable Symphony in Three Movements, and it’s particularly engaging here in this new performance from the BBC Philharmonic under Sir Andrew Davis, couched in impeccable Chandos surround sound. Particularly important in the Stravinsky piece is the concertante piano part, and here that registers with all the ear-tingling vitality that is so necessary. The other pieces are given equally persuasive readings…”

“… With superior Chandos sound, capturing persuasive, energetic and uplifting performances, this should be on the shelf of any serious Stravinsky collector.”

Sound 10      Booklet 10      Repertoire 10      Interpretation 9

“…A very beautiful disc, generous in timing and superbly recorded, which imposes itself at the heights of the discography.”

Record of the Month

“…fabulous incident-packed and detail-studded performances, superb sound … stellar Stravinsky release, of profoundly rewarding musical purpose and illumination …”