Saturday April 8, 2017: I was there! https://www.classicalsource.com/concert/belief-beyond-belief-london-philharmonic-orchestra-vladimir-jurowski-spem-in-alium-symphony-of-a-thousand/. And here now is that M8 on record, in very good sound, a just balance of the spacious and the immediate, to capture an exciting hot-ticket occasion that remains vibrant on CD (the performance a comfortable eighty-three-minute fit), a Part One of impact, fervour and thrilling charge, the musicians caught up in the sheer ecstasy of it all: vivid projection, the closing pages wonderfully expansive (applause retained). Following which Goethe’s Faust inspires the much-longer (sixty-minute) Part Two, with named characters for the solo singers (please click on the earlier link for their identities). From the mysterious and passionate orchestral prelude to the roof-raising conclusion – choruses at full whack – Vladimir Jurowski finds the opera in the music, sustaining narrative and tension throughout the whole, tempos persuasively ebbed and flowed, sometimes gloriously lingered, the well-prepared performers responding with skilled artistry and dedication: compelling listening. The booklet includes texts & translations for LPO – 0121.
London Philharmonic Orchestra releases Vladimir Jurowski conducting Mahler 8, “Symphony of a Thousand”, at the Royal Festival Hall.
