Bbc Concert

Les Vêpres Siciliennes is one of Verdi’s misunderstood operas. It is usually presented to audiences today as I vespri Siciliani - that is, in a clumsy and pedestrian Italian translation and as such gives a false representation of Verdi’s original concept. This opera was composed for the Paris Opera to a libretto by Eugene Scribe, one of the greatest poets of the day and Charles Duveyrier. Verdi embraces the French idiom – the musical forms, the orchestration, the vocal writing – with the same grandeur and sense of occasion as Rossini and Meyerbeer before him. Certainly to give an opera in translation is no crime but to continually deprive the public of this particularly beautiful marriage of text and music is close to criminal. This is the third in the Verdi Originals series and this BBC recording of the opera finally restores the original French libretto.

“This marks the final offering from Opera Rara's laudable restoration of BBC broadcasts from the 1970s and '80s of Verdi's first thoughts on specific operas, and it is quite up to the standard of the series. It differs only in being given without an audience, and was broadcast two years after the recording. On disc we know the 1862 original Forza from Gergiev's Philips set recorded, appropriately enough, in St Petersburg. That version is by and large finely cast with Russian singers and excitingly conducted, but this one, featuring British artists and one North American, need hardly fear the comparison. John Matheson may be a slightly more measured interpreter than Gergiev but he is perhaps even more adept at disclosing the many subtleties in shaping the slightly sprawling score as a unified whole. His orchestra provides fine playing – special praise for the first clarinet before Alvaro's Act 3 solo – and the BBC Singers nicely characterise their roles.

This disc presents a survey of music by Finnish composer Toivo Kuula, a pupil of Sibelius. Best-known for his songs and choral music, Kuula s arresting orchestral music draws heavily on folk influences and constitutes some of the most striking Finnish music of its time. Renowned soprano Susan Gritton and the BBC Concert Orchestra under the inspired baton of Martyn Brabbins give spellbinding accounts of this gloriously colorful repertoire.

Gary Boyle formed the jazz-rock band, Isotope, in 1973, recruiting three other stalwarts from the jazz field; Nigel Morris, Brian Miller & Jeff Clyne (ex Nucleus). Gary and Nigel had previously been part of Stomu Yamash'ta's band, East Wind. Prior to that, Gary had worked with Dusty Springfield, Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll. Isotope released three albums during the mid 70s, which gained wide acclaim and favourable comparisons with John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. This compilation is comprised of an Isotope BBC concert and an Old Grey Whistle Test show, plus a Gary Boyle session recorded for John Peel. None of these recordings have ever been released before…

Something very special indeed to close the show for this year's Festival In A Day. We're delighted to have Jeff Lynne's legendary ELO performing on a festival stage for the first time in 28 years…

Siouxsie and the Banshees at the BBC is a stunning 84-track, all digitally-remastered, 4 disc hard-back book set of exclusive BBC sessions, live concert tracks and TV performances recorded between 1977 2001 split across 3CDs and a DVD. All tracks hand picked by the band and featuring Siouxsie s introduction to the liner notes.