Thompson / Adams / Ross - Randall Thompson: Symphony 2 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Marking their latest collaboration with their conductor laureate Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Philharmonia have returned to recording with a stellar live-performance of Rachmaninov's ebullient Symphony No.2 in E Minor. This is the second in a new series of Rachmaninov's symphonies, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy in live performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The first of Symphony No. 1 (SIGCD484) was met by critical acclaim InchPerhaps the most satisfying of all [Ashkenazy's recordings of the Symphony]...Inch (BBC Music Magazine) InchAshkenazy knows how to shape detail and soar in the big melodic moments. The Philharmonia sound is muscular and alert, from the opening woodwind solos to the mighty, stirring symphonic tutti of the finale.Inch (The Observer)

Vast, deep and emotional are apt descriptions of the single-movement, 53-minute-long Symphony No. 2 by Christopher Tyler Nickel. The award-winning Canadian composer elaborates, InchOne can think of this music as consisting of mirrors between ideas that equally disturb yet entice. Each side of the reflection is in itself conceivably valid, but when facing each other friction and dissonance are created. The exquisitely alluring and the grotesque exist simultaneously. Perhaps another way to understand the symphony is as a meditation on the state of cognitive dissonance.Inch The entrepreneurial Clyde Mitchell conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia on this world-premiere recording.

Album Tracks 1. Symphony No. 2 (1945), Op. 35 2. Symphonie Enfantine Pour Petit Orchestra (1928), Op. 17