Britten: Spring Symphony / Sinfonia da Requiem / Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Britten: Spring Symphony / Sinfonia da Requiem / Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra. Sir Simon Rattle
[ LSO Live SACD / Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Monday 18 November 2024
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Celebrating the work of Benjamin Britten, this album combines three of the composer's enduringly popular, yet vastly distinctive works. Sir Simon Rattle leads us on an unexpected journey through this diverse collection of masterpieces.
Written shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Sinfonia da Requiem meditates in part on the political populism which had, for the second time in just a few decades, plunged the world in to an existential crisis. In this piece, Britten's rich, yearning harmonies reveal a sombre and dramatic warning of the cost of conflict.
From the darkness of war, we move towards the light with Britten's choral Spring Symphony. With its mysterious reimagining of traditional English folk song and verse, the work depicts the gradual reawakening of the natural world when winter ebbs away, and spring begins to triumph.
Britten let his imagination catch fire in The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. This brilliantly original showpiece is one of the composer's best-known pieces, and draws the album to a close.
"There are infinite possibilities in choice of Britten orchestral/ choral works on a single album, and none could be better played and sung, or a better choice to introduce someone to his genius...Rattle's lift and continuity are utterly bracing, and the LSO acquit themselves with tremendous character." BBC Music Five Stars
"It is a fine, taut reading [of the Spring Symphony] with some superb singing by all concerned, swifter than some rivals, in the finale a shade too much so, with some muddy articulation." Gramophone
Tracks:
Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20
Spring Symphony, Op. 44
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34
