CSO Resound to release more recordings
The evolution of the classical music recording landscape continues, with symphony orchestras and opera companies in the United States and overseas producing their own CDs, DVDs and digital downloads, and with individual musicians (violinist Gil Shaham, for example) also finding success with their own record labels.
CSO Resound, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's two-year-old label, has found notable success since its launch in May 2007. As of May 12 with the appearance of a disc containing Maurice Ravel's complete ballet score "Daphnis et Chloé" and Francis Poulenc's "Gloria," eight recordings will have been released, six of them under CSO principal conductor Bernard Haitink. The other two are a digital download-only performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony under conductor Myung-Whun Chung, and the highly acclaimed "Traditions and Transformations" disc featuring the CSO in collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble.
For the new "Daphnis et Chloé" and "Gloria" disc, Haitink and the orchestra are joined by the Chicago Symphony Chorus, with soprano Jessica Rivera as soloist in the Poulenc work. The new recording will be available in several formats: standard CD, hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) and digital download. The regular compact disc will go on sale in U.S. retail outlets Tuesday, May 12, while the SACD version will be available internationally beginning May 25. In the United States, the SACDs will only be available online at cso.org or in person at The Symphony Store, 220 S. Michigan Ave. The download version went on sale earlier this week exclusively at iTunes, and it will be available from additional digital music outlets, as well as in high-definition lossless format at HDtracks.com, beginning July 14.
"Daphnis et Chloé" and "Gloria" were recorded during concerts in November 2007, as part of the 50th anniversary season of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, founded by the late Margaret Hillis in 1957. This marks the CSO Resound debut for the full CSO Chorus, now led by Hillis' successor, Duain Wolfe. The women of the chorus took part in Mahler's Third Symphony in 2007.
The quick acceptance of CSO Resound has been reflected in the annual Grammy Awards. "Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago," with Yo-Yo Ma, pipa soloist Wu Man, the Silk Road Ensemble and conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Alan Gilbert, won the 2008 Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Classical, and the two-disc CD/DVD set of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4, conducted by Haitink, won the 2008 Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance. The DVD contains the CSO's "Beyond the Score" exploration of the Shostakovich Fourth as presented during one of the CSO's innovative Sunday concert programs hosted by Gerard McBurney.
So far, Haitink has three Mahler symphonies on CSO Resound: the Third (the initial release on the label in May 2007); the Sixth, released in 2008; and the First ("Titan" Symphony), released earlier this year. The latter two are available in both regular and SACD formats, which will be the norm for most future CSO Resound releases.
The Mahler Second ("Resurrection") Symphony, performed at Symphony Center/Orchestra Hall last November, is under consideration for release. A committee including conductor (in this case, Haitink) and orchestra members auditions all concert tapings for potential CSO Resound appearance.
Incidentally, producer James Mallinson and engineer Christopher Willis have been on board since the beginning of CSO Resound, creating some of the best-recorded sound coming out of Orchestra Hall since the heyday of music director Fritz Reiner in the 1950s. Mallinson's relationship with the CSO dates back to the Sir Georg Solti era with Decca Records when, among other discs, he produced the first-ever digital recording of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, which took home two Grammy Awards in 1981. Because Orchestra Hall was at that time considered acoustically unsuitable for recording, the taping took place at Medinah Temple.
Overall, the CSO's legacy of more than 900 recordings, dating to 1916, includes 60 Grammy Awards, more than any other orchestra in the world.