The Symphony in D major of Luigi Cherubini hardly qualifies as a "discovery"; it may not be a standard repertory item, but it has been performed by Arturo Toscanini, among others, over the years. It's a stirring post-Classical symphony that gets its full due here from Riccardo Chailly, obviously having a great time conducting the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. The rest of the music, however, is not so common, and it is worth the listener's while. The Overture in G major is a close cousin to the symphony; it was written ...
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The Symphony in D major of Luigi Cherubini hardly qualifies as a "discovery"; it may not be a standard repertory item, but it has been performed by Arturo Toscanini, among others, over the years. It's a stirring post-Classical symphony that gets its full due here from Riccardo Chailly, obviously having a great time conducting the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. The rest of the music, however, is not so common, and it is worth the listener's while. The Overture in G major is a close cousin to the symphony; it was written in the same year (1815), and even more than the symphony, it shows with its massive slow introduction why Beethoven, who disliked most other composers, admired Cherubini. The rest of the album is devoted to marches that, with one or two exceptions, have never been recorded. These are intriguing pieces of Gebrauchsmusik written, in most cases, for specific occasions or individuals. Several are funeral marches, not a genre Cherubini invented, but his examples have the gravity of...
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