Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo & Juliet

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The bite and the weight to the sound of this recording is certainly impressive. There’s elegance as well: “The Young Juliet” is bewitching; “The Balcony Scene” breathless; the final scene at... — CD Review, 27th September 2014 More…

Release Date: 29th Sep 2014
Catalogue No: CSOR9011402
Label: CSO Resound
Length: 48 minutes

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2, Op. 64ter

Work length9:33

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti

I. Montagues and Capulets (Live)

Track length5:17

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

II. The Young Juliet (Live)

Track length4:16

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet 1st Suite, Op. 64bis

Work length3:33

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti

III. Madrigal (Live)

Track length3:33

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet - Suite No. 1, Op. 64bis

Work length17:32

$5.00

$6.50

$8.75

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti

IV. Minuet (Live)

Track length3:00

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

V. Masks (Live)

Track length2:07

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

VI. Romeo and Juliet (Live)

Track length7:48

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

VII. Death of Tybalt (Live)

Track length4:37

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2, Op. 64ter

Work length18:08

$4.00

$5.20

$7.00

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti

III. Friar Laurence (Live)

Track length2:58

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

V. Romeo and Juliet Before Parting (Live)

Track length8:46

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

VII. Romeo at Juliet's Grave (Live)

Track length6:24

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

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About

In the summer of 1917, Chicago businessman Cyrus McCormick, Jr., the farm machine magnate, met ̀the 26-year-old composer Sergei Prokofiev while on a business trip to Russia. Prokofiev was unknown to McCormick, but the composer recognised the distinguished American’s name at once, because the estate his father had managed owned several impressive International Harvester machines. McCormick expressed an interest in the composer’s new music, and he eventually agreed to pay for the printing of his unpublished 'Scythian Suite'. He also encouraged Prokofiev to come to the United States, and asked him to send some of his scores to Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Frederick Stock. Prokofiev made his debut with the Chicago Symphony the following season, playing his First Piano Concerto and conducting the orchestra in his Scythian Suite in December 1918, both U.S. premieres and returned to Chicago four more times. During the last trip to Chicago, in January 1937, he led the Chicago Symphony in selections from his new, still-unstaged ballet, 'Romeo and Juliet'. The premiere of' Romeo and Juliet' eventually was given in Brno, Czechoslovakia, without Prokofiev’s participation and the ballet wasn’t staged in Russia until January 1940 after both Kirov and Bolshoi ballets had turned it down. In the meantime, Prokofiev made two orchestral suites of seven excerpts each, and it was the first of these that he conducted in Chicago. This new album features selections from both of Prokofiev’s suites, played with thrilling intensity by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Riccardo Muti.

Having performed the suite in Chicago and on tour in 2011, the CSO and Maestro Muti returned to the work in the 2013/14 season and recorded it at Symphony Centre during live concerts in October 2013. Includes full-colour booklet with notes in English, French and German.

Reviews

CD Review 27th September 2014

The bite and the weight to the sound of this recording is certainly impressive. There’s elegance as well: “The Young Juliet” is bewitching; “The Balcony Scene” breathless; the final scene at the tomb, as heartfelt as you could wish … there’s some fabulous playing here in Chicago. The sound is sumptuous, as well.

December 2014

Muti's Chicagoans have some of the qualities once associated with Karajan's Berliners. Orchestral tuttis are not merely weighty but ultra-sophisticated and David Frost's sound team preserves their velvet sonority with a lustre rarely obtained, as here, from edited concert material...In 'Romeo at Juliet's tomb' we have again the kind of execution which proclaims the CSO as the world's best or something like it.

March 2015

[Muti] is a consummate stage animal, an abundance of drama and pacing comes naturally to him, significantly enhancing the music's Shakespearean rhetoric ... considerable flair and atmospheric playing from the Chicago players.

3rd November 2014

Technically this is a stupendous performance, captured in sound of class-leading beauty and strength. Muti and his Chicagoans make a formidable team … [Muti] clothe[s] this well-worn music in breathtaking raiment … A high-water mark in recorded sound; gorgeous playing, too.

9th October 2014

Muti’s lofty yet urgent style results in an imposing set of formal dances at the Capulets’ ball, and some thrilling street brawls between the rival Veronese families. His deliberate, grand-manner way with the love scenes won’t be to everyone’s taste, though. The playing is formidable and the sound state of the art.

20th October 2014

This is an interpretation of outstanding presence.

Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo & Juliet

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