The great symphonies of the 19th and 20th centuries dominate Mariss Jansons' discography on BR Klassik, so this live album of spirited rhapsodies by Emmanuel Chabrier, George Gershwin, George Enescu, Maurice Ravel, and Franz Liszt is a change of pace. In most cases, the rhapsody has been regarded as light entertainment, featuring real or stylized folk themes strung together, or depicting scenes or dances of a national character. What Chabrier's España and Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole have done to celebrate Spanish music, ...
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The great symphonies of the 19th and 20th centuries dominate Mariss Jansons' discography on BR Klassik, so this live album of spirited rhapsodies by Emmanuel Chabrier, George Gershwin, George Enescu, Maurice Ravel, and Franz Liszt is a change of pace. In most cases, the rhapsody has been regarded as light entertainment, featuring real or stylized folk themes strung together, or depicting scenes or dances of a national character. What Chabrier's España and Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole have done to celebrate Spanish music, Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 did for their respective countries, connecting evocative melodies and vigorous dance rhythms in a free form dependent on instrumental colors for exotic flavoring. The exception here is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which is less about nationalism per se than an experiment with the then new American art form, jazz. Jansons and the orchestra play the European rhapsodies with high energy and use them to show off the...
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