Latest stories
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Daniil Trifonov's Silver Age
6th Nov 2020
The Russian pianist is by turns balletic, poetic and dramatic in solo works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, whilst the Mariinsky Orchestra match his precision and imagination in concertos by the the latter composer and Scriabin.
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Silver Age
Daniil Trifonov (piano)
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Münchner Philharmoniker launch their own label with music by Bruckner and Mahler
30th Sep 2016
James introduces the Münchner Philharmoniker's new label with a double-bill of stirring Romantic masterworks conducted by Valery Gergiev.
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Valery Gergiev and the LSO perform Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette
8th Jul 2016
James enjoys Berlioz's dramatic setting of Shakespeare's immortal love-story with Valery Gergiev and the LSO.
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Valery Gergiev and the LSO begin a cycle of Szymanowski symphonies
3rd Jun 2013
The richness of the London Symphony Orchestra’s string section is showcased to great effect in the tender, lyrical slow movements of both symphonies, whilst Gergiev responds to the music’s more volatile moments extremely well.
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Wagner from Jonas Kaufmann and others
11th Feb 2013
Gergiev conducts an electrifying Walküre starring René Pape as Wotan, Nina Stemme as his rebel daughter, and Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Kampe as the Walsung Twins; Kaufmann’s solo album of opera scenes and the Wesendock-Lieder, meanwhile, is the best thing he’s ever done.
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Tchaikovsky’s Early Symphonies
17th Sep 2012
Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra makes hugely persuasive cases for Tchaikovsky’s neglected first three symphonies, Winter Daydreams, the ‘Little Russian’ and the ‘Polish’, in live performances given in London and Zurich last spring.
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Gergiev and the LSO conclude their Mahler cycle
5th Sep 2011
The Russian conductor’s painstaking attention to tiny issues of orchestral balance and uncharacteristic willingness to allow the music breathing-space make for a tremendously moving Ninth Symphony.
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Lucia from the Mariinsky
1st Aug 2011
Natalie Dessay brings fragility and neurosis to the title-role, contrasting powerfully with Gergiev’s red-blooded Donizetti à la Verdi, Piotr Beczała’s ardent, ringing Edgardo and Vladislav Sulimsky’s black-voiced Enrico.
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Wagner's Parsifal from the Mariinsky and Gergiev
20th Sep 2010
Taken from live performances in St Petersburg last June, Gergiev’s vividly theatrical reading of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel stars Gary Lehman as the titular ‘holy fool’, Violeta Urmana as Kundry, and René Pape as Gurnemanz.
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Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet
18th Jan 2010
A ‘superb reading of Prokofiev's supreme masterpiece’ from Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, two decades after the conductor’s landmark account of the piece with the Kirov Orchestra.
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Tchaikovsky's Moscow Cantata
12th Oct 2009
Valery Gergiev conducts the Mariinsky orchestra in a punchy, exciting account of the 1883 work written in honour of the coronation of Tsar Alexander III, plus the 1812 Overture, and the ‘Danish Overture’, composed for Alexander’s marriage.
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Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle
10th Aug 2009
Sir Willard White is the bridegroom with skeletons in his closet, and Russian mezzo Elena Zhidkova his inquisitive new wife on this new live recording from Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra.
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Gergiev at the Mariinsky
1st Jun 2009
The Russian conductor presides over a ‘thoroughly worthwhile’ recording of Shostakovich’s surreal first opera The Nose, composed between 1927 and 1928 and based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol.
