Schmidt: Symphony No. 2 & Strauss: Dreaming by the Fireside
Wiener Philharmoniker, Semyon Bychkov
Awards:
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BBC Music Magazine, July 2017, Recording of the month
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2018, Finalist - Orchestral
This is a golden performance…the opening is a transparent babbling brook…strings sweep forward in far from generic melody…[the central variations] balance sweetness with will-o’-the-wisp fantasy...
Schmidt: Symphony No. 2 & Strauss: Dreaming by the Fireside
Wiener Philharmoniker, Semyon Bychkov
Purchase product
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, July 2017, Recording of the month
-
BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2018, Finalist - Orchestral
This is a golden performance…the opening is a transparent babbling brook…strings sweep forward in far from generic melody…[the central variations] balance sweetness with will-o’-the-wisp fantasy...
About
Franz Schmidt was a cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra himself and he allowed the orchestra to premiere his symphony in 1913, which since then belongs in the orchestra’s main repertoire.
With Semyon Bychkov, they are a proven team to champion Schmidt’s Symphony…
The second symphony is the most brilliant and extroverted one with the largest instrumentation.
The Strauss ‘Dreaming by the Fireside’ is a famous intermezzo from the same-named opera by Strauss.
On this album, the work is performed by The Strauss Orchestra.
Contents and tracklist
Schmidt, F:
Franz Schmidt: Sinfonie Nr. 2 Es-Dur
Work length48:22
This work is only available as an album download.
I. Lebhaft
Track length15:52
This track is only available as an album download.
II. Allegretto con variazioni
Track length18:11
This track is only available as an album download.
III. Finale
Track length14:19
This track is only available as an album download.
Awards and reviews
-
BBC Music MagazineJuly 2017Recording of the month
July 2017
This is a golden performance…the opening is a transparent babbling brook…strings sweep forward in far from generic melody…[the central variations] balance sweetness with will-o’-the-wisp fantasy until the climatic variation…the finale builds in expressive counterpoint towards a great chorale…this is down on my list of the best discs of 2017 already, and it will take some toppling from first place
July 2017
It's as apparent here as much as it was in [the Proms performance] the amount of affection with which both orchestra and conductor approach this work...this new recording makes a persuasive case for a work of considerable beauty. It's an important addition to the catalogue. A gentle, tender account of Strauss's most famous Intermezzo interlude makes a charming if hardly generous coupling.
FonoForum June 2017
With euphonious finesse and nuanced orchestral sonorities, his score – surely a masterpiece of fin-de-siècle Vienna – is unsurpassed by any orchestral work of his time. It is interpreted here with a comfortable familiarity that nonetheless never sounds routine.
