Latest News: Classical, Valéry Gergiev (conductor)
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Recording of the Week,
Daniil Trifonov's Silver Age 6th November 2020The 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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Recording of the Week,
Münchner Philharmoniker launch their own label with music by Bruckner and Mahler 30th September 2016James introduces the Münchner Philharmoniker's new label with a double-bill of stirring Romantic masterworks conducted by Valery Gergiev.
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Recording of the Week,
Valery Gergiev and the LSO perform Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette 8th July 2016James enjoys Berlioz's dramatic setting of Shakespeare's immortal love-story with Valery Gergiev and the LSO.
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Recording of the Week,
Valery Gergiev and the LSO begin a cycle of Szymanowski symphonies 3rd June 2013The 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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Recording of the Week,
Wagner from Jonas Kaufmann and others 11th February 2013Gergiev 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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Recording of the Week,
Tchaikovsky’s Early Symphonies 17th September 2012Valery 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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Recording of the Week,
Gergiev and the LSO conclude their Mahler cycle 5th September 2011The 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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Recording of the Week,
Lucia from the Mariinsky 1st August 2011Natalie 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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Recording of the Week,
Wagner's Parsifal from the Mariinsky and Gergiev 20th September 2010Taken 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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Recording of the Week,
Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet 18th January 2010A ‘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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Recording of the Week,
Tchaikovsky's Moscow Cantata 12th October 2009Valery 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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Recording of the Week,
Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle 10th August 2009Sir 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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Recording of the Week,
Gergiev at the Mariinsky 1st June 2009The 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.