Our Mendelssohn recording is honoured as "Recording of the Year 2024".
The Mendelssohn CD box set of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich was released in March 2024 - and has now received a Presto Award as "Recording of the Year 2024". Music Director Paavo Järvi is "happy and grateful" about this award: Mendelssohn's symphonies are not only among his favourite works, "they are also often underestimated".
This is not the first time these recordings have been recognised. Gramophone Magazine already listed the box as an "Editor's Choice" in May 2024, while BBC Music Magazine listed it as an "Orchestral Choice" in June - and published an enthusiastic review: "This new release of Mendelssohn’s complete symphonies confirms the symbiotic relationship Järvi has forged with the orchestra, and is jam-packed with exciting, at times electrifying, music-making." There are many competing versions of this music, "but it's difficult to think of any which surpass Järvi's for insight, immediacy and sheer enjoyment."
The recording has been released on the Alpha label and includes all five of the composer's symphonies as well as "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It also offers an insight into an exciting time for the orchestra and Paavo Järvi: the first recordings were made in spring 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, in the interim venue Tonhalle Maag. The last recording was made in January 2023 in the splendidly renovated historic Tonhalle Zürich.
It was no easy task for the recording team led by producer Philip Traugott: the acoustics of the two halls are different, and the live character of the recordings was not the same either. Four symphonies and the "Midsummer Night's Dream" were recorded under strict distancing rules. The recording of the symphonic cantata "Lobgesang" (officially counted as Symphony No. 2), on the other hand, had to be postponed until it was once again possible to include a choir. In a review of this performance - in which the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, tenor Patrick Grahl and sopranos Chen Reiss and Marie Henriette Reinhold took part - the NZZ wrote of "overwhelming splendour".
The recordings of this Zurich Mendelssohn cycle have never been released individually; the project was presented directly as a whole in a 4-CD box set. This recording is like a dream for him, says Paavo Järvi: "A midsummer night's dream come true, so to speak."
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Paavo Järvi
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Symphony No. 1 in C minor op. 11
Symphony No. 2 in B flat major "Lobgesang" op. 52
Symphony No. 3 in A minor op. 56 "Scottish"
Symphony No. 4 in A major op. 90 "Italian"
Symphony No. 5 in D minor op. 107 "Reformation Symphony"
Midsummer Night's Dream op. 61 (excerpts)
4 CDs
230 min.
Available in stores, for example from Hochuli or Musik Hug.
This recording was supported by the Hans Imholz Foundation
Translated with DeepL.com
