Holst-The Planets / Mystic Trumpeter

On Hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) format, presented in full 5.1 surround sound! PLAYABLE ON ANY CD SYSTEM

"David Lloyd-Jones conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in an expansive, richly recorded performance."
- Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph (London), March 31, 2002

"The Mystic Trumpeter, a wonderfully romantic setting of Walt Whitman's poem."
- Ivan Hewitt The Times - Play Magazine 26 March 2002

"The Planets, as we know and have loved it for years, is given a fine performance here. 'Mars' is savage, 'Venus' gentle and lyrical, and 'Mercury' properly fleet. 'Jupiter' is joyous and bracing, 'Saturn' fittingly sounds like a creaky processional, but with a terrifying climax in mid-section and a lovely Debussian ending; 'Uranus' is humorous, but with fantastic timpani-led dramatic interjections. The start of the Walt Whitman poem is basically an ode to love, and its conclusion is one of the most poetic, humanistic expressions I have ever read. The strangely beautiful, distant-sounding fanfares are marvelously atmospheric. Soprano Claire Rutter has a lovely voice and sings with all the passionate expression that the poem requires. A very rewarding release."
- Gerald S. Fox, American Record Guide, September/October 2002

"...the spellbinding performance of the wondrous - and more or less unknown - 18 minute work for soprano and orchestra, The Mystic Trumpeter, a ravishing, often ecstatic setting of Walt Whitman, which lay unplayed for about 70 years, here gloriously sung by Claire Rutter in its first CD recording. David Lloyd-Jones conducts. Excellent CD and, as ever from Naxos, a real bargain."
- Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald, March 23, 2002

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is considered to be one of the UK's leading symphony orchestras. Formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra, the orchestra has performed full-time since 1950.

A host of renowned conductors have contributed to the success of the Orchestra: Karl Rankl, Hans Swarowsky, Walter Susskind, Sir Alexander Gibson and Bryden Thomson. Neemi Jarvi, Conductor from 1984 to 1988, is now Conductor Laureate. Walter Weller was appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor in 1992, consolidating the RSNO's reputation at home and abroad. Weller relinquished his title at the end of the 1996-7 season, and is now Conductor Emeritus.

In September 1997 the RSNO appointed Alexander Lazarev as Principal Conductor.

The RSNO gives two main concert seasons a year - the season from September to April, and a Proms Tour in the summer. In total, over 130 performances are given around Scotland to audiences of over 150,000 persons in total. In addition the RSNO appears regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and the London Proms.