Bells crash, rhythms pound, and melodies surge and swell, burning with a fire that smoulders, scorches, and throws a thousand dazzling colours into the sky. Prokofiev adapted his Third Symphony from an opera of lust, longing, and demonic possession, and you can tell. The whole orchestra seems to blaze from within—20th-century music at its most ferocious, and flamboyant.
LSO Live presents the third instalment in a series of Prokofiev symphony releases with LSO Principal Guest Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda. Russian music is a special passion of Noseda, and his performances of Prokofiev’s works, along with others by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rimsky-Korsakov, have drawn wide acclaim.
“The sureness of musical characterisation really does give a feeling of discovering the work for the first time, with the finale’s busy inventiveness sparklingly captured”
– BBC Music Magazine (Prokofiev: Symphony No 1)
“Based on his gripping accounts of the Symphony No 5 and Symphony No 6 by Dmitri Shostakovich, it’s clearly obvious that conductor Gianandrea Noseda has a nose (pun intended) for the music of Soviet era composers, and what makes it so pertinent and compelling. Here in this live recording, he delivers a commanding performance and the musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra oblige with committed playing and plenty of sonic muscle”
– Classical Music Sentinel (Prokofiev: Symphony No 5)
Composer Sergei Prokofiev
Conductor Gianandrea Noseda
Performers London Symphony Orchestra
