Marin Alsop - Symphonies 7 & 8 - BLU-RAY AUDIO

It is rare to be able to say that a performance forces one to listen to a work anew, but this is exactly what Alsop' reading achieves. Excellently recorded... this is a superb issue all round.

Written in 1944, Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony is one of his greatest and most complete symphonic statements. At it's premiere he himself called it Incha symphony of the grandeur of the human spiritInch. The first movement couples considerable strength with unexpected yet highly characteristic twists of melody. After a violent scherzo followed by a slow movement of sustained lyricism, with a fiercely dramatic middle section, the finale blazes with barely suppressed passion. The Year 1941 is another wartime work, a symphonic suite written in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Marin Alsop has been Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007, a relationship now extended to 2015. Currently Conductor Emeritus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, since 1992 she has also been Music Director of California's prizewinning Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Prokofiev's imposing Fourth Symphony and his final ballet for Sergey Dyagilev, the Prodigal Son, share common roots but are entirely distinctive in character. The vivid depictions in the ballet's moral tale include sensual temptations, drunken debauchery, robbery and remorse. The 1947 revision of the Fourth Symphony, lengthened and enriched in orchestration by the addition of a piccolo clarinet, piano and harp, makes extended use of themes from the Prodigal Son as well as unused material. Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony with Marin Alsop and the S+úo Paulo Symphony Orchestra (CD 8.573029 / Blu-ray NBD0031) was described as 'an outstanding achievement' by BBC Music Magazine.