Lutosławski: Orchestral Works 4

“Gardner's interpretative decisions vary from Lutoslawski's, swifter in the fast movements, very slow in the Poco adagio...The composer had the balance between them just right but Gardner is very persuasive...Highly recommended.” --Gramophone Magazine, May 2013

“[Little] finds the soft-edged energy of the Partita and traces a broad melodic arc in its central Largo. All the performers show their awareness of the work's indebtedness to Baroque gesture.” --BBC Music Magazine, June 2013 ****

“The BBCSO and Edward Gardner, in the latest of this excellent series, capture the range of moods eloquently.” --The Observer, 17th March 2013

“the violin concertos [are] notable for their expressive intensity, a quality matched by Tasmin Little’s performances. Finally, Michael Collins relishes the solo opportunities of Dance Preludes for clarinet and chamber orchestra” --Financial Times, 16th March 2013 ****

“[Gardner's] ear for detail, a feature of all these Chandos releases, brings out colours and associations which you might have missed in other versions...This is as vibrant and engaging a performance of this symphony as I have ever heard on record...a series of recordings which has to be considered a worthy new reference in some of the best music the 20th century has to offer.” --MusicWeb International, 23rd April 2013

Lutosławski: Orchestral Works 3

“Gardner's control of [the Second], not least its eventual disintegration, is highly compelling...the Cello Concerto receives a superbly concentrated performance here from the soloists Paul Watkins...[Grave] forms a fitting counterbalance to everything else on this disc.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2013 ****

“With my ideas about the Cello Concerto completely transfixed by Paul Watkins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra...I feel pretty secure in being able to put forward this Chandos version against and above all others.” --MusicWeb International, January 2013

“The characteristic formal diptych of the symphony is superbly enacted.” --Sunday Times, 25th November 2012

“a broad view of Lutoslawki's creative profile, which the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner fleshes out with playing that is as polished as it is animated and alert to the individuality of Lutoslawski's musical vocabulary and mode of expression. Gardner keeps the overall structural span of the Symphony in view...while giving close attention to the localised instrumental combinations and conflicts that lend the music its vibrant personality.” --Gramophone Magazine, December 2012

“This is a wonderful disc, brilliantly delivered by Edward Gardner’s BBC Symphony forces. Few orchestras play this repertoire so well.” --The Arts Desk, 8th December 2012

“The performances continue the highly favourable impression of this series to date, with Gardner securing playing of real immediacy and finesse from a BBC Symphony Orchestra that sounds as fully engaged in the lighter aspects of the composer's music as in its more searching utterances.” --International Record Review, December 2012

Lutosławski: Orchestral Works 2

“Gardner and the BBC Symphony, backed up by glittering sound, do [the Symphonic Variations] proud, from the folk-like opening flute theme, through its varied treatments...Lortie is an ideal soloist [in the Concerto], with a clarity of touch familiar from his recordings of the French repertoire, but also the power for the bigger gestures...Again, Gardner leads a detailed, musically sure-paced orchestral contribution.” --BBC Music Magazine, March 2012 ****

“in a performance as vivacious and committed as this one, [the Symphonic Variations] comprises a veritable treat...Gardner's conception of the riveting Fourth Symphony (1988-92)...has both infectious involvement and considerable expressive ardour to commend it...Throughout, Gardner secures some first-class playing from the BBC SO; Ralph Couzens's engineering is, needless to say, state of the art.” --Gramophone Magazine, April 2012

“[the Symphony Variations] now sound lush and exuberant...Louis Lortie makes the most of the slightly underwhelming Piano Concerto (1987-88). The jaunty Variations on a Theme of Paganini (1978) – written within a year of Andrew Lloyd Webber's better-known version – and the Fourth Symphony (1988-92) give far more sense of this discreetly quixotic composer.” --The Observer, 8th January 2012

Lutosławski: Orchestral Works 1

“Gardner makes the most of the taut rhythmic energy in the music...all the colours of this showpiece [the Concerto for Orchestra] are brightly painted, with a virtuosity which is never empty, but always has direction and purpose, and a sense of real enjoyment.” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ****

“On this evidence, Edward Gardner and the BBC SO are a dream team, pressing the claims of a composer who has been neglected since his death in 1994...This performance sets a seal on a disc that leaves one eager for its successors” --Gramophone Magazine, December 2010

“Gardner’s ENO-honed ability to choose and hold a tempo and set a tangible mood from the off serves him well in each movement: there’s tautness and weight in the Intrada’s production line of pounding rhythms, a fine sense of pace to the slow-burn Passacaglia and impressive lightness in the piquant woodwind flutterings” --Andrew Mellor, bbc.co.uk, 2nd November 2010

“Gardner pulls no punches in the 'Intrada'...few have equalled this for long-term conviction, in which the playing of the BBC forces leaves little to be desired...Gardner's interpretations are much more 'inside' the idiom than Daniel Barenboim's rather dutiful readings...this disc can be warmly recommended, not least if it hastens the return of Lutoslawski's music to its former eminence.” --International Record Review, December 2010

“Their account of the concerto is lively and crisply virtuosic, but the performances of the other two, much later works on this disc are the more significant...Gardner's performance [of Symphony No. 3] is impressive – vivid, incisive and well controlled – and he does an equally good job on the slighter and more elusive Chain 3 from 1986.” --The Guardian, 14th October 2010 ****

“This CD offers a thrilling reminder of [Lutoslawski's] craftsmanship...Chain 3 is a small, brilliant orchestral jewel. Atmospheric, if not quite virtuosic, performances from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Gardner, who must be encouraged to explore more of Lutoslawski’s oeuvre.” --Financial Times, 16th October 2010 ****

“Exciting performances of exciting music. Lutoslawski is a master of whipping up the orchestra, though in a tasteful, increasingly refined manner...A fanfare guides us through the novel form [of the Symphony], though Gardner is a persuasive guide in his own right.” --Sunday Times, 24th October 2010 ****

Rachmaninov, Shostakovich & Lutoslawski

Ashkenazy's 20-year-old Swedish protégé proves worthy of the maestro's patronage. On the evidence of this disc he is a well-balanced musician with his heart and fingers in the right places, and his chosen programme is a stimulating one.

“Jablonski, whose credentials include having been voted best jazz drummer in Sweden at the age of seven (!), revels in its high jinks, and Ashkenazy and the orchestra just manage to hang on to his coat-tails... an exciting end to an admirably played and recorded disc.” --Gramophone Magazine

Jablonski's Rachtnaninov perhaps commands more respect than excitement, but it won my respect before I was aware of his youth. Generally lucid and level-headed, his limitations show up at extremes of the character range. In particular, he does not yet have the knack of retaining communicative intensity in quiet lyrical playing, and a number of variations, such as the first Dies irae from 322", are inclined to sit back on their haunches. Some of his loudest chords are accompanied by foot-stamping, and in the famous Eighteenth Variation Jablonski's singing tone, pleasant though it is, lacks a degree of richness—the orchestra's entry at 15'55" sounds as though taken from a different, more emotionally committed take. That said, he is a very musicianly player, and the RPO's attentive contribution and Decca's superb recording help to make this one of the more satisfying accounts on record.

The Shostakovich concerto is a good choice, not just as a near contemporary of the Paganini Rhapsody, but as a bridge to the zany world of Lutoslawski. It receives a fluent, well-judged and idiomatic performance with every note in place and some lovely trumpet playing from Raymond Simmons. This is a valuable complement to the manically explosive Kissin on RCA; the even younger Russian's brashness did nothing for MEO but it strikes me as a perfectly valid response to the 'low-art' origins of so many of Shostakovich's ideas.

Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations are a 1978 orchestration of the familiar 1941 two-piano work. I had not heard this version before and was instantly captivated. Jablonski, whose credentials include having been voted best jazz drummer in Sweden at the age of seven (!), revels in its high jinks, and Ashkenazy and the orchestra just manage to hang on to his coat-tails—an exciting end to an admirably played and recorded disc. -- Gramophone [12/1992]

Blake, Lutoslawski, Seiber: Clarinet Concertos

'Her clarinet playing is a joy. 20th-century music performed and recorded like this should reach a wide audience' --The Pictorial

'Miss King delivers the goods, technically and musically, making an easy, open creamy sound' --Fanfare, USA

MP3 320 · 101 MB