Mendeklssohn: Sinfonia N.5 Ruy Blas

Descrizione

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra join forces once again for the latest installment in their critically acclaimed exploration of Felix Mendelssohn’s symphonies. Commonly known as the ‘Reformation’ Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.5 was written in 1830 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Augsberg confession - a seminal event in the Protestant Reformation. Allusions to the symphony’s title and inspiration are to be heard throughout; the Dresden Amen is cited by the strings in the first movement whilst the finale is based on Martin Luther’s well-known chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’). Coupled with this are two of Mendelssohn’s overtures, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage and Ruy Blas, both inspired by literary works. Completing the album, the overture Ruy Blas was commissioned by the Leipzig Theatre as an overture to Victor Hugo’s tragic drama of the same name. ‘Gardiner’s Mendelssohn with the LSO packs a surprisingly hefty punch.’ (Evening Standard)

Recensione

Classic FM Drive Featured Album ’the ‘authentic’ vibrato-less strings combine with weighty brass and woodwinds to produce a performance that shows off the work’s grandeur … the LSO are on top form.’ –Classic FM Drive, 11th May 2015

‘This is something close to the ideal Gardiner experience: stringent while full of expressive detail, close-focus while still drawing the bigger picture. Partnered by the London Symphony Orchestra at its most lithe and virtuosic, Gardiner makes Mendelssohn s Ruy Blas overture and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage fizz with excitement, while the Symphony No 5, the Reformation, has no room for stolid sermonising as it practically races to the chorale finale, with some remarkable finesse in the dynamics along the way.’ –Niel Fisher The Times, 9th May 2015

‘Like all of Gardiner s live cycles of the Mendelssohn symphonies at the Barbican, this one comes across with pace, clarity and flaming-eyed conviction.’ Richard Fairman The Financial Times, 15th May 2015 ———— ‘Gardiner, with consummate thoroughness, has taken a completely fresh and forensic look at the music, and, without doing anything radical, has virtually reinvented the symphony. It blazes anew: it’s as simple and complex, as direct and sophisticated, as that. There’s not a breath, a phrase, a dynamic or a strand in the texture that has not been scrutinised and grilled as to its function, purpose and place in the music. And the whole damn thing bursts into flaming life. I know this symphony; or I thought I did. The LSO, here, is the best period band in the world, while the two overtures, Ruy Blas and Calm Sea And Prosperous Voyage, are masterpieces still in waiting.’ –Michael Tumelty The Herald Scotland, 7th June 2015