Prologue to Orango / Symphony No. 4

GRAMOPHONE AWARD FINALIST 2013: Orchestral

"[The Prologue] comes rip-roaringly off the surviving piano score in Gerard McBurney's spookily authentic orchestration...It's a composerly account [of the Fourth] in which every thematic connection, however oblique, has something to say. Clarity is forensic, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic achieving levels of precision that can...totally suspend disbelief." Gramophone Editor's Choice October 2012

"The Prologue makes a curious yet first-rate companion to the mighty Shostakovich Four. Salonen's approach to this half-human, half-monster Symphony is well-calculated...the LA recording adds much to our understanding of an extraordinarily complex giant." (BBC Music)

"[Orango's] trenchant wit and seriousness of satirical purpose leave you wishing more of it had survived...Salonen conducts [the Fourth] with cool lucidity and a sense of remorseless logic...The immense climax of the finale isn't as shattering as it could be, but elsewhere Salonen's fondness for clear textures is very much in evidence, and often admirable." (The Guardian)

"Even if some of the music [of Orango] sounds thin in this Gerard McBurney orchestration, Esa-Pekka Salonen's LA forces give it five-star treatment - the rising American tenor Michael Fabiano is outstanding - and it serves as an agreeable bonne bouche to Salonen's stupendous account of the bewildering Fourth" (Sunday Times)