Gounod - Symphonies | Chandos CHSA5231

Gounod - Symphonies

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHSA5231

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 29th March 2019

Contents

Artists

Iceland Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Yan Pascal Tortelier

Works

Gounod, Charles

Symphony no.1 in D major
Symphony no.2 in E flat major

Artists

Iceland Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Yan Pascal Tortelier

About

After winning the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand in 1839 and spending two years in Rome, Gounod should have gone on to study in Germany, but he managed in 1842 to persuade the authorities that he should remain in Rome to work on a symphony. In 1843 he visited Mendelssohn who (while trying to dissuade him from wasting his time on Goethe’s Faust!) urged him to write another symphony. We do not know how much of the First Symphony Gounod had completed by then, but it is not surprising that Mendelssohn figures as one of the key influences on both symphonies. After performances of individual movements in 1855, premieres were given of the First on 4 March that year and of the Second on 13 February 1856.

Yan Pascal Tortelier and his Iceland Symphony Orchestra demonstrate outstanding precision and musicality in these unjustly neglected works.

Recorded in Surround Sound SACD

Reviews

There’s a spring in Tortelier’s step with the Icelanders, a sappy bounce to the opening Allegro molto. The Allegretto moderato trips along and the Scherzo has bucolic weight. ... [In the Second Symphony] Tortelier scores over Marriner here by observing exposition repeats and the Icelanders tackle it with relish.  Mark Pullinger
Gramophone June 2019
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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