Brian - Symphonies Nos 4 and 12 | Naxos 8570308

Brian - Symphonies Nos 4 and 12

£12.30

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Label: Naxos

Cat No: 8570308

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 2nd January 2007

Contents

Artists

Jana Valásková (soprano)
The Soloists and Choirs of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Adrian Leaper

Works

Brian, Havergal

Symphony no.4 'Das Siegeslied'
Symphony no.12

Artists

Jana Valásková (soprano)
The Soloists and Choirs of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Adrian Leaper

About

Brian’s Fourth Symphony is a multilayered work; first it is a formal celebratory setting of a victory psalm, but it can also be viewed as violent, chromatic music of violent expressive contrast which predicates the apocalyptic denunciation of state militarism. Brian - in addition to his vocal forces of large double chorus and soprano - deploys an orchestra of massive dimensions, including many unusual woodwind instruments.
 
Brian composed his Twelfth Symphony a quarter of a century after Das Siegeslied, in early 1957, and it's a very different proposition: purely instrumental, extremely concise (in fact, the shortest symphony he had yet written) and inspired by Greek Tragedy - another of the composer’s abiding passions. He still employs a large orchestra (though not the gigantic forces of No.4), but the language is pared down to essentials, the argument proceeding by abrupt juxtapositions of intensely dramatic music gestures.

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