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Spohr - Symphonies, Fall of Babylon | Hyperion CDA67788

Spohr - Symphonies, Fall of Babylon

£13.60

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Label: Hyperion

Cat No: CDA67788

Barcode: 0034571177885

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 1st February 2010

Contents

Artists

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana

Conductor

Howard Shelley

Works

Spohr, Louis

Der Fall Babylons (The Fall of Babylon), WoO63
» Overture
Symphony no.3 in E minor, op.78
Symphony no.6 in G major, op.116

Artists

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana

Conductor

Howard Shelley

About

Howard Shelley’s enchanting series of Spohr’s symphonies continues to inspire interest and delight in this underrated composer.

By the time Spohr came to write his Third Symphony he was established in the top rank of contemporary composers. It is a richer, more romantic work than its two predecessors, both through its orchestration and the more plastic quality of its themes with their stronger flavour of poetic fantasy. It also moves a step further away from the classical ideal and nearer to a romantic freedom of form.

The Sixth Symphony was written in an entirely new form - each movement in a different historical style - which baffled contemporaries. Today we accept compositions which work with musical styles from earlier periods such as Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana, Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella or Richard Strauss’ Dance Suite after Couperin, but when Spohr pioneered the process with his ‘Historical’ Symphony, contemporary listeners and critics completely failed to comprehend this concept. But it is in fact a very effective work. The styles imitated are filtered through Spohr’s imagination, giving the symphony its enduring fascination and providing it with a phoenix-like attribute of revival after each critical cremation.

This is the first recording of the Fall of Babylon Overture.

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