Constantin Silvestri News
Romanian conductor and composer
- piano
- classical music
- United Kingdom, Romania, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- composer, conductor, university teacher, pianist
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2024-03-29
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2023-12-18 05:30:00
KN's Favorite Recordings of 2023
[…] countries. The fourth work on the album is Whitacre’s most recent composition, All Seems Beautiful to Me, based on a poem by Walt Whitman (from Song of the Open Road) celebrating the human spirit’s capacity for generosity and growth. It was commissioned by the United States Air Force Band and here receives its world premiere recording. We then arrive at the album’s main attraction, The Sacred Veil, which Whitacre composed along with his friend and frequent collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri, who wrote most of the lyrics, which revolve around the death from cancer of his late wife, Julia Lawrence Silvestri (the remainder of the lyrics were written by Whitacre and Ms. Silvestri before her passing). As you might surmise from those circumstances, The Sacred Veil is an intensely personal, deeply moving composition. The Sacred Veil was originally conceived for a larger choir. In fact, the first recording of it, which Whitacre himself conducted (reviewed here), featured the larger […]
2023-11-06 04:55:00
Ola Gjeilo: Dreamweaver (CD Review)
by Karl NehringThe Road (text: Charles Anthony Silvestri); Autumn (text: Silvestri); The North; Dreamweaver; Winter Light; Agnus Dei; Stone Rose; Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige Ro (trad. Norwegian hymn arr. Gjeilo). Ola Gjeilo, piano; Grace Davidson, soprano; Duncan Riddell, solo violin; Roberto Sorrentino, solo cello; The Choir of Royal Holloway; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Robert Gough, conductor. Decca 485 4635The last time I reviewed an album by the Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978, pronounced “yay-lo”), the solo piano album Dawn, I mentioned how impressed I had been by a couple of his earlier choral albums but then concluded my review as follows: “This new one, however, is a disappointment, comprising as it does music that never seems to rise above the merely pleasant. For a composer with Gjeilo’s talents, merely pleasant is not nearly enough. As they say in the sports world, “c’mon man!” Perhaps it is time to for Gjeilo to get back to choral writing.” […]
2023-07-07 00:00:00
Shostakovich, Sibelius, Smetana & Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works (Paavo Berglund, Jorma Panula, Cristina Ortiz et al)
[…] engineer: Claus Strüben; Producer: Suvi Raj GrubbRalph Vaughan Williams:1.01 The Wasps. Aristophanic Suite - I. Overture * [8'26]1.02 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis * [16'35]1.03 - 1.05 Oboe Concerto in A minor ~^ [18'13]1.06 - 1.10 Symphony No. 4 in F minor # [31'08]2.01 - 2.04 Symphony No. 5 in D major + [39'12]2.05 - 2.08 Symphony No. 6 in E minor ^ [36'26]John Williams- oboe ~, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Constantin Silvestri* and Paavo Berglund^; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paavo Berglund# and Alexander Gibson+EMI 216146-2 [recorded September 1967*, June^ and December~^ 1974, October 1979# and May 1982+; this compilation first issued in 2008] [digital download; flacs, cover, booklet and inlay scans]Recording venues: Winchester Cathedral, UK*, Abbey Road No.1 Studio, London~^ # +, Kingsway Hall, London ^Recording engineers: Stuart Eltham and Mark Vigars+; Producers: Brian Culverhouse*, David Motley~^ ^, John Fraser# and Suvi Raj Grubb^ Download […]
2023-01-17 11:46:00
Scarlatti to Silvestri to sound
BBC Radio 3's recent documentary Scott Ross - Harpsichord Rebel prompted a Radio 3 forum link to my photo essay about Scott and the village of Occitan Assas where he lived and recorded. Staying with Scarlatti but moving from harpsichord to piano, I have been very impressed with Lucas Debarque's recording of 52 Scarlatti Sonatas, which, in its own way, ascends to the dizzy heights reached by Scott Ross. Particular mention should be made of the sound quality captured by the Sony production team. The recording venue was the acoustically-blessed Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin-Dahlem. This 1930s Protestant Church has been the scene of many, many celebrated recordings from, among other, Karajan and Furtwängler. Another less celebrated but notable disc recorded there which showcases the Dahlem church's superb sound is David Robertson and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin's pioneering 1995 recording of Valentin Silvestrov's Fifth Symphony which I highlighted back in 2008. Classical music's schizophrenic attitude of demanding […]
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