Originally made in 1992, Gennady Rozhdestvensky's delightful recordings with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra of Edvard Grieg's orchestral works have been remastered to almost ideal sound for this 2005 reissue on Chandos Classics. The album is a charmer, and even though these are among the least performed of Grieg's major works -- certainly, they are less familiar to audiences than the Piano Concerto in A minor or the perennially popular suite from Peer Gynt -- the high-quality performances draw out the pieces' ...
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Originally made in 1992, Gennady Rozhdestvensky's delightful recordings with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra of Edvard Grieg's orchestral works have been remastered to almost ideal sound for this 2005 reissue on Chandos Classics. The album is a charmer, and even though these are among the least performed of Grieg's major works -- certainly, they are less familiar to audiences than the Piano Concerto in A minor or the perennially popular suite from Peer Gynt -- the high-quality performances draw out the pieces' luster, and make any fair-minded listener wonder why these gems have been neglected for so long. Particularly enjoyable are Grieg's pure, lyrical Six Songs for voice and orchestra, exquisitely sung by sweet-voiced soprano Solveig Kringelborn, tenderly accompanied by Rozhdestvensky and the RSPO. These sumptuous songs reveal not only the composer's consummate skill in turning a melodic phrase, but also show the voice to best advantage against the carefully spaced orchestration. The...
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