City News

29 June 2009 will see the debut of The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s first CD release with Andris Nelsons since he became music director, and is the start of on ongoing relationship with the leading German independent label Orfeo.

The all-Tchaikovsky disc features studio recordings – made in Symphony Hall – of the composer’s tempestuous Fifth symphony, coupled with his Hamlet overture. This pair of works formed part of a sold-out Tchaikovsky concert last November, acclaimed as ‘memorable’, with ‘wonderfully sensuous playing from the orchestra’. Future releases will include further Tchaikovsky symphonies, the first time that the CBSO has embarked on a cycle of this composer’s music.

He is a composer to whom Andris Nelsons feels particularly close: “From an early age, Tchaikovsky was for me the composer who spoke to the soul immediately. When we perform and rehearse, I have a feeling that Tchaikovsky is next to us, Tchaikovsky wants to speak to each of us – audience and musicians – directly, to share his life, his trouble, his joy, his sadness, his personality.”

This summer the Orchestra and Andris will also be recording CDs of music by Richard Strauss (Ein Heldenleben and the suite from Der Rosenkavalier) and Igor Stravinsky (The Firebird, ahead of a performance at the BBC Proms, and Symphony of Psalms). Tchaikovsky’s Fifth and The Firebird will then also feature on a major European tour next March.

Stephen Maddock, the CBSO’s chief executive said: “At a time when record labels are reducing their commitment to the core symphonic repertoire, we’re delighted to have found in Orfeo a partner who is showing this level of commitment to Andris and the CBSO. In this way we can bring what we are sure will be outstanding accounts of composers who are very close to Andris’s heart – and who have mostly not featured until now in the CBSO’s large discography – to the widest possible international audience”.