Speranza / From the Wreckage

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MARK-ANTHONY TURNAGE
Speranza / From the Wreckage
Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet), London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding (conductor)

[ LSO SACD / Hybrid SACD ]

Release Date: Friday 11 October 2013

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LSO Live presents the world premiere recording of Mark-Anthony Turnage's large-scale orchestral work Speranza ('Hope'), a piece commissioned by the LSO as part of Turnage's residency with the orchestra in early 2013. Turnage is one of the most admired composers of his generation, and has long been associated with the London Symphony Orchestra. Daniel Harding appears in this his conducting debut for LSO Live.

Speranza is in many ways Turnage's most ambitious and symphonic composition for orchestra to date. The piece is a monument to the power of optimism in a bleak world - 'I started working on the piece while thinking about the absence of hope. I wanted to lift people up', says Turnage. Each of the four movements are titled 'Hope' in a different language; Arabic, German, Irish and Hebrew.

Speranza is coupled here with From the Wreckage, described by The Times as 'outstanding: the music begins hellishly but gradually picks up a bluesy swing…'. Premiered in 2005, the piece was written for Håkan Hardenberger who reprises the role of soloist for this release. The three internal sections of From the Wreckage are marked by the soloist's change of instrument - first flugelhorn, then trumpet, and finally piccolo trumpet.

Speranza is an LSO commission, generously supported by Susie Thomson.

BBC Music Award Nomination 2015 - Orchestral

"From the Wreckage walks a tightrope of atonal angst and quirky jazz-like sounds. Håkan Hardenberger is magisterial...At some moments [in Speranza], you may feel as though you've been battered black and blue by Daniel Harding's conducting baton, frantically poked and prodded by the sharp-edged string section of the LSO, and partaken in delightful revelry with the xylophonist." (MusicWeb)

"The sound is arguably the finest to have come from LSO Live in recent years, having a lustre and depth that highlight both Turnage's orchestration and the LSO's realisation of it to the best advantage… Readers are urged to acquire this disc and assess the qualities of Speranza for themselves." (International Record Review)

Tracks:

1. From the Wreckage
2-5. Speranza