The symphonies presented on this CD are all quite different in their compositional intentions and basic stylistic traits, but they do evidence certain parallels in their formal design (two works in one movement, two times three movements), their origins and in several other aspects.

The first commercial gramophone recording of a German symphony after World War II was that of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Foutrh Symphony for string orchestra under the derection of Franz André. More than fourty years later, this work once agains opens a complete studio recording of Hartmann's symphonie, now under Ingo Metzmacher.

Laurence Equilbey, conducting her period-instrument Insula Orchestra, champions the composer Louise Farrenc, a prominent and pioneering figure in 19th century Paris. This album presents two of Farrenc’s three symphonies, No. 1 in C minor, first heard in 1845, and No. 3 in G minor, premiered in 1849. “The score is so well written that it deserves a prominent place in the history of the early Romantic symphony,” wrote the Financial Times after a performance of the Symphony No 3 in London, marking International Women’s Day 2018. “Equilbey and the Insula orchestra gave it a fleet, fiery performance. Their crusading spirit lived up to the day’s billing.” The Daily Telegraph observed that the symphony “was full of engaging inventions … It’s clearly a fine piece; all it needs now is to be heard, many times.”

The newest addition to Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's award-winning survey of Shostakovich's orchestral works takes on symphonies from the opposite ends of the composer's life. Shostakovich's first symphony, composed when he was only 19, announced his presence to the world, while his 15th seemingly grapples with his impending mortality. The Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10, was written as a graduation piece for his composition class at the Leningrad Conservatory. The composer's youth and the influences of Stravinsky and Prokofiev are evident in the work, but there are plenty of allusions to his later style. Slightly on the slower side overall, the emotion and forward motion of the music is not lost. The Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, written a few years before the composer's death, though not programmatic, seems to present a look at the cycle of life.

This release captures the January 2025 concert from Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. Rapturously received by the capacity audience and acclaimed by the critics, the Hallé’s performance of this monumental work marks a significant milestone in Kahchun Wong’s tenure as Principal Conductor. Thought of as being the composer’s most ambitious search for the meaning of life, the Second Symphony is conceived and delivered on an epic scale, featuring soloists, choir and an enlarged orchestra.

It is quite incredible that the genre of the Symphonie lives on after Mahler. Mahler's Ninth Symphonie was a farewell to beauty,the Master Signifier and the images of childhood, the fragmented yet challenging experience of the metropolis. The transgression of beauty was to cloud over Europe in ways Mahler's imagination could hardly fathom. With Hartmann the Symphonie lives in a exiled world, it is not one free to speak, it is one where the voice, (as Agamben says someplace) carries Being, yet in what form? It is a voice smashed from the SS jackboots, a voice of the dispossessed and the homeless.

The violinist and composer Pieter Van Maldere was once the most famous musicians in the Low Countries and can be considered among the most important creators of the classical symphony. He uses lively and original melodic language, idiomatic to the violin.

This flamingly multicolored, unashamedly grand-scaled symphony receives a performance here so sonically beautiful that it's practically visible. The work is programmatic and tells of the heroic deeds of a medieval knight-strongman, (translated as) "Il 'ya from the town of Murom." Given the orchestration–quadruple woodwinds, four trumpets, eight horns, four trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, celeste, and strings–he comes across as a combination of Superman, Batman, Robin Hood, and Wagner's Siegfried. Leon Botstein brings out great warmth in the London Symphony's string section, the flute bird-curlicues in the second movement are luscious, and, in general, his leadership has nice forward propulsion in a work that can easily sound bloated. If this sort of huge, Romantic palette is your cup of tea–and it is sort of irresistible–then look no further. This realization is ravishing, and Telarc's sound is an audiophile's dream.

This is part of a series of releases on the Naxos label devoted to the 40 symphonies of Michael Haydn, younger brother of Franz Joseph. These have been commercially successful, and it's easy to see why: there's music of unsuspected high quality here, and you can see why the younger Haydn's work was taken for Mozart's in several cases for decades, and why Mozart, who was spare in his praise of other composers, bestowed it upon this one. All four of these symphonies are in the three-movement form that Mozart had mostly left behind by the late 1770s and 1780s (when the Haydn works were composed), but the individual movements are quite confidently handled, with the elegant but harmonically wide-ranging slow movements perhaps the best of the lot.

This album, the first in a series devoted to the 41 symphonies of Michael Haydn, leads off with perhaps the most historically famous one of all: the Sinfonia in G major, Perger 16, is none other than the missing Symphony No. 37 of Mozart, which was not removed from the Mozart canon until 1907. The reason for the error was that a copy of the work exists in Mozart's handwriting; he wrote a slow introduction to the first movement (not performed here), and apparently copied out the piece in preparation. It remains difficult to believe that listeners' suspicions weren't raised before that; the work's simple, squarish movements resemble those of the symphonies Mozart wrote in his mid-teens.

Philippe Herreweghe and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra explore the tormented world of Robert Schumann. Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 plunge us into the psychological tangles of the composer's mind, reflecting his relentless struggle with melancholy and depression. In these two seminal works, a slow and somber introduction unveils the main motifs that will unfold throughout, before culminating in an emphatic and optimistic finale. The director from Ghent (and former psychiatrist) pHilippe Herreweghe manages to grasp the full complexity of this cathartic process leading us from darkness into light. He delivers a lively and urgent interpretation of these romantic masterpieces, confirming his reputation as an unrivalled performer of the German repertoire.

Despite the fact that there are multiple recordings of Shostakovich's deeply moving Symphony No. 14, this rather old but remastered recording is unique in the quality of performance: Bernard Haitink conducts his Concertgebouw Orchestra and elected to use non-Slavic singers Julia Varady and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who in turn sing the poems in their original languages rather than the Russian translations used in the original premiere. The effect is staggeringly beautiful and if one must choose a single recording of this symphony, this would be the one that captures the essence of Shostakovich's vision.

Anticipating the 50th anniversary of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2022, we present their complete recordings on DG. The intriguing sound culture of Orpheus, especially of the string section, is often explained as a result of the cooperative mindset of the orchestra and its artistic process of rehearsing.

The prolific Finnish composer Kalevi Aho periodically undertakes large-scale compositions that showcase the full breadth of his artistic abilities. The Symphony No. 17 exemplifies this tendency, representing his most ambitious orchestral work to date. The symphony requires a substantial orchestra, incorporating less common instruments such as the lupophone, a variation of the baritone oboe, and the contraforte, an acoustically enhanced contrabassoon.

It is true that images have the power to keep a trace of the past. Gottfried von der Goltz and the Freiburger Barockorchestra prove with this recording that music too conceals the secret of the memory deep within. Though rarely played, much less recorded, Mozart’s youth symphonies bear the reminiscence of the child the composer used to be, as well as including the seeds of his future masterpieces.