BBC Symphony Orchestra
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Special offer. Walton: Symphony No. 1 & Violin Concerto
RecommendedTasmin Little (violin)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Little's way with the virtuoso passages is a notch less headlong than [on her earlier recording], allowing the ear to savour her phenomenal accuracy, yet with no loss of fire...Gardner and the... —
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 21st April 2014
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BBC Music Magazine, June 2014, Disc of the month
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Gramophone Magazine, July 2014, Disc of the Month
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Winner 2014
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Building A Library, July 2022, Also Recommended
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Special offer. Finzi: Cello Concerto, Op. 40
RecommendedPaul Watkins (cello)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis
Sir Andrew Davis’s feeling for the composer’s sensitive, harmonically conservative language is abundantly clear in these vivid readings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Soloists too are well... —
Awards:
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BBC Music Magazine, November 2018, Concerto Choice
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2018
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Presto Recording of the Week, 21st December 2018
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Special offer. Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius & Sea Pictures
RecommendedStuart Skelton (tenor), Sarah Connolly (mezzo) & David Soar (bass), Sarah Connolly (mezzo)
BBC Symphony Chorus & BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis
among the best Gerontius performances on record. Davis resists the temptation to make the work sound like a flabby, imitation Parsifal and the results are outstandingly convincing...[Skelton]... —
Awards:
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BBC Music Magazine, Disc of the month
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2015, Choral Award Winner
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2014
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Gramophone Awards, 2015, Winner - Choral
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Special offer. Walton: Viola Concerto, Partita for Orchestra & Sonata for String Orchestra
RecommendedJames Ehnes (viola)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Ehnes, long established as one of the world’s leading violinists, doesn’t offer the same hefty, almost cello-like weight of tone on the viola as some of his specialist colleagues. Then again,... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, June 2018, Editor's Choice
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Record Review, 28th April 2018, Recording of the Week
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2018
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays Ravel, Debussy & Massenet
RecommendedJean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Yan Pascal Tortelier
[Bavouzet] turns in a performance of the Fantaisie that illuminates this uneven yet magical work like no other. As to the Ravel concertos, I have no hesitation in saying these are the greatest... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Awards, 2011, Winner - Concerto
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2012, Orchestral Award Winner
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Special offer. Walton: Symphony No. 2 & Cello Concerto
RecommendedPaul Watkins (cello)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
If a new Walton release can finally put paid to the notion that his music somehow 'went off' after his move to the Italian island of Ischia in 1956, then this must be it. And the performances... —
Awards:
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Building a Library, May 2015, First Choice
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Sunday Times, 2015, Albums of the Year
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Gramophone Magazine, May 2015, Editor's Choice
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2015
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Elgar: Viola Concerto & Bloch: Suite For Viola and Orchestra
RecommendedTimothy Ridout (viola), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
Ridout’s account of the opening movement is full of richly rhapsodic playing , although the viola suggests more of a wistful musing than the deeper, elegiac contemplation possible on the cello. —
Awards:
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Limelight Magazine, February 2023, Recording of the Month
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Presto Recording of the Week, 20th January 2023
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Gramophone Magazine, February 2023, Editor's Choice
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2023
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International Classical Music Awards, 2024, Nominated - Concerto
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Gramophone Awards, 2023 Winners, Winner - Concerto
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Belohlavek and the orchestra are superb in the first three symphonies. He captures Martinu's shimmering, luminous orchestral textures and invests the pervasive 'sprung' rhythms of the faster... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, October 2011, Disc of the Month
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Building a Library, May 2016, First Choice
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Gramophone Awards, 2012, Winner - Orchestral
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Building a Library, September 2019, Recommended
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…Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra relish the considerable technical challenges posed by these transcriptions… those who enjoy their Bach as a full meat-and-two-veg course will... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, October 2004, Editor's Choice
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Special offer. Dame Ethel Smyth: Mass in D & Overture to 'The Wreckers'
RecommendedBBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sakari Oramo
Oramo rises to the work’s ambition with a fiercely committed, highly persuasive reading that indulges generosity of scale and imagination while pinpointing the Mass’s many felicities of detail.... —
Awards:
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Record Review, 5th October 2019, Disc of the Week
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Presto Recording of the Week, 4th October 2019
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2019
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