Gergiev: Tchaikovsky – Symphonies no.1-3 (DSD)

Composer: Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Format: DSD64 (dsf tracks)
Label: LSO
Release: 2012
Size: 4.96 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

Symphony No 1 in G minor, ‘Winter Daydreams’, Op 13 (1866, rev.1874)
01. i. Allegro tranquillo
02. ii. Adagio cantabile ma non tanto
03. iii. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso
04. iv. Finale: Andante lugubre – Allegro maestoso

Symphony No 2 in C minor, ‘Little Russian’, Op 17 (1872, rev.1879–80)
05. i. Andante sostenuto – Allegro vivo
06. ii. Andantino marziale, quasi moderato
07. iii. Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace
08. iv. Finale: Moderato assai – Allegro vivo

Symphony No 3 in D major, ‘The Polish’, Op 29 (1875)
09. i. Introduzione e Allegro: Moderato assai
10. ii. Alla tedesca: Allegro moderato e semplice
11. iii. Andante elegiaco
12. iv. Scherzo: Allegro vivo
13. v. Finale: Allegro con fuoco

Recorded live 18 and 23 January 2011, 23–24 March 2011 at the Barbican, London
and 20 May 2011 at the Tonhalle Zürich, Switzerland.

Tchaikovsky was well into his twenties when he abandoned an unpromising career as a civil servant in the Russian Ministry of Justice and began to study music seriously, at first privately and then at the newly-established St Petersburg Conservatory. Immediately after graduating, he was offered a teaching post at the even newer Moscow Conservatory, and it was during his early months there that he composed the First Symphony. Its birth was accompanied by the anxiety and self-doubt that Tchaikovsky was never to overcome, even as a mature and established master.