Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Francesca da Rimini
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi
Awards:
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Presto Editor's Choice, November 2020
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Diapason d’Or de l’Année, 2021, Symphonie
For the most part, this is a dry-eyed, disciplined account...By largely playing the score straight, it helps Tchaikovsky’s ritenutos to really tell. Järvi keeps the third-movement Valse on the...
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Francesca da Rimini
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, November 2020
-
Diapason d’Or de l’Année, 2021, Symphonie
For the most part, this is a dry-eyed, disciplined account...By largely playing the score straight, it helps Tchaikovsky’s ritenutos to really tell. Järvi keeps the third-movement Valse on the...
About
Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, here launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra: ‘When I think of the Fifth Symphony, I think of vulnerability and hope. It looks directly into our soul. It is perhaps the finest of his symphonies. The famous horn solo moves me and enriches me every time I hear it . . . Unlike the Sixth, the Fifth still holds out hope for life.’ The symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini op.32 completes this programme. This dark and violent ‘symphonic fantasy after Dante’, a drama of jealousy, was premiered in 1877, at the same time as Swan Lake.
"Narrative and architecture combined brilliantly in the first movement (of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5), music which, like the succeeding Andante, can all too easily sag into sentimentality. Järvi steered a sensitive course, taking tempo liberties but welding them into an articulate expressive whole built on sonorous harmonic roots and a naturally breathed meter" Classical Source: Live review of Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 5 Jan 2020
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
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Paavo Järvi on Franz Schmidt and Tchaikovsky
22nd Dec 2020
The Estonian conductor talks to Katherine about falling in love with the music of Franz Schmidt, and how Leonard Bernstein reignited his passion for the Tchaikovsky symphonies.
Awards and reviews
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Presto Editor's ChoiceNovember 2020
-
Diapason d’Or de l’Année2021Symphonie
November 2020
For the most part, this is a dry-eyed, disciplined account...By largely playing the score straight, it helps Tchaikovsky’s ritenutos to really tell. Järvi keeps the third-movement Valse on the move, too. But it’s the finale where the drama catches alight...It’s not a Fifth that’s as histrionic as either of Valery Gergiev’s recordings...but it certainly hits the emotional spot and marks an auspicious start to Järvi’s Tonhalle Tchaikovsky cycle.
November 2020
If this first instalment is anything to go by, Järvi’s Tchaikovsky cycle with his Swiss orchestra is going to be a real ear-opener: this is one of the most crystalline and beautifully-balanced accounts of the symphony I’ve come across, with a wealth of woodwind and string detail that often gets obscured by the brass coming to the fore and a real balletic impulse underpinning the outer movements as well as a delightfully airy scherzo.
