Further Reading
18th January 2010
A ‘superb reading of Prokofiev's supreme masterpiece’ from Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, two decades after the conductor’s landmark account of the piece with the Kirov Orchestra.
LSO Live celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2010. The label's first release of the year features Prokofiev's spectacular score for the ballet Romeo & Juliet conducted by Valery Gergiev. Gergiev is a tireless champion of Prokofiev's music. In 2004 he conducted the complete cycle of the composer's symphonies with the LSO which then won a Gramophone Award. Shortly afterwards Gergiev became Principal Conductor of the LSO and spent much of 2008 and 2009 touring Prokofiev's symphonies with the orchestra in Europe, Japan and the USA. Gergiev's Mahler cycle continues in February 2010 with the release of the Fourth Symphony. Other upcoming releases on LSO Live include a Rachmaninov symphony cycle as well as music by Ravel, Stravinsky, Debussy and Strauss.
Concert reviews:
"The strings were supple and radiant … The brass, much used by Prokofiev, were tirelessly accurate, and the woodwind especially characterful, with some of the orchestra's younger members playing out of their skins. The best ballets contain music almost too good to be wasted on dancers. Freed from the need to adopt dance tempi, this wonderful music swaggered, sparkled and shimmered as it rarely does in the theatre" Mail on Sunday
"Most concert conductors only take bites out of Prokofiev's virile but lengthy ballet. Not Valery Gergiev. He knows that the complete score is a treasure chest of musical characterisation, orchestral colour, soaring melody and blasting drama: manna from heaven for himself and the London Symphony Orchestra" The Times