Orchestral Works, Vol.2 : Lyndon-Gee / Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

EDGARD VARESE (1883-1965)
Orchestral Works, Vol. 2

The works on this recording span Varese’s entire career, containing his sole surviving early composition, Un grand Sommeil noir, and his last, unfinished work, Nocturnal, brilliantly and seamlessly completed by the composer’s disciple and assistant during the last seventeen years of his life, the composer Chou Wen-Chung.
Chiefly, though, the recording features the original version of Ameriques, for a massive orchestra of 155 players, recorded immediately following a rare public performance at the Warsaw Philharmonic (only its second since the 1920s) as part of the 2005 Warsaw Autumn Festival. (NAXOS)

Ameriques (original version 1921)
Ecuatorial (1932-34)
Nocturnal (1961)
Dance for Burgess (1949)
Tuning Up (1947)
Hyperprism (1922-23)
Un grand Sommeil noir (1906)
Density 21.5 (1936)
Ionisation (1929-31)

Elizabeth Watts, soprano
Maria Grochowska, flute
Thomas Bloch, ondes martenot
Men’s Voices of Camerata Silesia (Anna Szostak: Artistic Director)
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Lyndon-Gee, conductor, piano

Digital Recording: 2005