PASC208 - Toscanini conducts Prokofiev, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, R. Strauss

Issued for the first time - a real treat for all music-lovers, in superb sound

This concert recording was sent to me earlier in the year, but it was only very recently that I got around to listening to it properly for the first time - and was immediately blown away by it. In particular, Toscanini's reading of the Classical Symphony by Prokofiev came as a revelation to me. It's not a work I have in any other Toscanini reading, but if this live performance is anything to go by it's something I need to investigate immediately!

But perhaps this recording will suffice. Throughout the concert both conductor and orchestra are on top form, and I've rarely heard Studio 8H sounding as fabulous as it does here. The source recording was fine, if a little boxy and shrill at times, but XR remastering has done more than just cure these - it's really opened out the whole sound of the orchestra, something further enhanced by the Ambient Stereo processing available should you choose these options on CD or FLAC download orders. I'd certainly recommend it!

Programme Notes

Short musical notes from Wikipedia

Sergei Prokofiev began work on Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op 25 in 1916, but wrote most of it in 1917, completing the piece on September 10, 1917. It is also widely known as the Classical Symphony. The symphony was premiered on April 21, 1918 in Petrograd, conducted by the composer. The symphony can be considered one of the first neo-classical compositions. Prokofiev composed the symphony in an attempt to emulate Joseph Haydn's composing style; however, he still changed some of the structure of the symphony to reflect changing practices in composition. The idea was partly inspired by Prokofiev's conducting studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, in which the instructor, Nikolai Tcherepnin, prepared his students to conduct Haydn. No actual quotations of Haydn are found in the work.
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Images pour orchestre is an orchestral composition in three sections by Claude Debussy. Debussy wrote the music between 1905 and 1912. Debussy had originally intended this set of Images as a two-piano sequel to the first set of Images (solo piano), in a letter to his publisher Durand as of September 1905. However, by March 1906, in another letter to Durand, Debussy had begun to think of casting the work for orchestra rather than two pianos.

Ibéria is the most popular of the three orchestral Images and itself forms a triptych within a triptych. The music is inspired by impressions of Spain. Richard Langham Smith has commented on Debussy's own wish to incorporate ideas of juxtaposing elements of the visual arts in musical terms, including a quote from Debussy to Caplet from a letter of 26 February 1910: "You can't imagine how naturally the transition works between Parfums de la nuit' and Le Matin d'un jour de fête. Ça n'a pas l'air d'être écrit."
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Danse macabre, Op. 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns is an art song for voice and piano (first performed in 1872) with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis which is based in an old French superstition. Two years later, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem for orchestra, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin.
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Don Juan, op.20 is a tone poem for large orchestra by the German composer Richard Strauss, which was written in 1888. The composer conducted its premier on 11 November 1889 with the orchestra of the Weimar Opera, where he served as Court Kapellmeister.

Strauss wrote and conducted the piece when he was only twenty-four years old and it became an international success shortly after its debut. It marks the discovery of the composer's formal style and tonal language. The work is based on the poem Don Juan by Nikolaus Lenau, from which much of the musical work's passion is drawn. According to the composer, who wrote two days after the first performance "Well then – Don Juan had a great success, it sounded wonderful and went very well. It unleashed a storm of applause rather unusual for Weimar".
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These notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org

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