Title:
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Orchestral Works
Simple Symphony op. 4
Les Illuminations op. 18
Variations on a Theme
of Frank Bridge op. 10

Artists:
Franziska Hirzel, Soprano
Kiev Chamber Orchestra
Roman Kofman, cond.

Number of Hybrid-SACDs: 1

Order No.:
MDG 901 1275-6

Building Bridges
The eleven-year-old Benjamin Britten would have had a much more difficult time getting started if he had not caught the attention of the composer Frank Bridge. Bridge recognized Britten's talent and took him under his wing. A musical friendship began, and its fruits are here for the marveling on this SACD featuring the MDG debut of the Kiev Chamber Orchestra and the soprano Franziska Hirzel.

Bravura Breakthrough
Britten's Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge celebrated its premiere at the Salzburg Festival on August 27, 1937. It was precisely with an homage to his teacher that Britten experienced his international breakthrough. This bravura piece for string orchestra holds the listener spellbound with its deeply felt sense of tone and, at the same time, with its mocking stylistic parodies.

Song Cycle
The song cycle Les Illuminations for high voice and string orchestra after poems by Arthur Rimbaud was one of the first works composed by Britten in the United States. Britten's orchestration is genial; it exploits all that the string orchestra has to offer in order to endow the color play of the words with a musical equivalent.

Simple Symphony
The Simple Symphony numbers among Britten's most-misunderstood compositions. The work is not at all suitable for a school orchestra. It is simple at most for the hearer - Tchaikovsky with knowing winks of the eye.

European Union
Roman Kofman was the principal concertmaster of the Kiev Chamber Orchestra on its founding in 1963 and since 1990 has been the artistic director and principal conductor of this orchestra that has gone on to play its way to the international top ranks. He has also been Bonn's general music director since the 2003/04 season and has begun a highly regarded Shostakovich cycle with the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn on MDG. Franziska Hirzel has performed on all of Europe's leading stages and at its renowned festivals (e. g., Salzburg, Flanders, Rheingau, Prague). The soprano's collaboration with Pina Bausch in Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice took her to Paris, while her performance with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Pierre Boulez in Schönberg's Moses und Aron took her to Amsterdam. She has sung in many productions.