Simpson - Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7 - Hyperion: CDA66280 - download

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The first performances of these symphonies had shown many characteristic and admirable qualities, but there was a suspicion of some tentativeness a lowering of sights even, after the explosive... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CDA66280
Label: Hyperion
Length: 59 minutes

Simpson, R: Symphony No. 6

Work length30:56

$13.00

$16.20

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

I. […]

Track length0:26

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II. […]

Track length0:04

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III. […]

Track length1:16

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Track length0:17

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V. […]

Track length10:01

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VI. […]

Track length1:42

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VII. […]

Track length0:53

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VIII. […]

Track length2:03

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IX. […]

Track length1:18

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X. […]

Track length1:46

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XI. […]

Track length10:42

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XII. […]

Track length0:28

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Simpson, R: Symphony No. 7

Work length28:58

$11.50

$14.35

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

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Track length0:12

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II. […]

Track length3:31

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III. […]

Track length7:02

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Track length1:54

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Track length3:35

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Track length4:12

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Track length1:35

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VIII. […]

Track length0:51

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IX. […]

Track length3:14

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X. […]

Track length0:18

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XI. […]

Track length2:34

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All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set The Complete Symphonies of Robert Simpson: One of the outstanding recording projects of our time this Hyperion series deserves to stand as a monument while other more superficially glamorous ventures rise and fall around it. If it does not do so, and if it does not eventually force Simpsons breakthrough into the orchestral repertoire, there will truly be no justice (Gramophone).

Reviews

2010

The first performances of these symphonies had shown many characteristic and admirable qualities, but there was a suspicion of some tentativeness a lowering of sights even, after the explosive Fifth Symphony. One should have guessed that closer acquaintance and more expert performance would show this to be more a matter of concentration of ideas and of conscious change of direction.
The RLPO and Vernon Handley show the Sixth to be a work of immense inner power, and if the Seventh is a more cryptic statement, this recording certainly brings it into a clearer focus than previously.
Whereas Tippett (in the same year) wrote a birth-to-death symphony (No 4) Simpson's Sixth shifts the process one stage back – from conception to prime of life. Intense expectancy gives way to a memorable downward-stalking unison figure, the fertilised seed which becomes the most active force in the early stages of the work. From here to the irresistible energy of the final pages Simpson's control of musical momentum can only be marvelled at; and if you don't marvel at it, that may be because you're worrying about the apparent restriction on colour and lyricism, and thus missing the point.
As yet the final D major outcome still refuses to register as a natural outcome, although presumably there's any amount of logical justification for it. The neutral, non-triadic conclusion to the Seventh rings truer, though in this work the processes before it are more inscrutable – not in the technical sense, but simply in terms of what the techniques are driving at. But anyone who has puzzled over, and then clicked with, say, Sibelius's Fourth or Shostakovich's 15th, will know how dangerous it is to jump to conclusions. And even if the click never happens, one probable masterpiece is surely enough to be getting on with.

Simpson - Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7

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