Record Review

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Music: Classical

A thorough look at the week's classical music releases, plus news and recommendations.

A thorough look at the week's classical music releases, plus news and the Radio 3 Disc of the Week recommendation.

Record Review: Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony with Mark Simpson and Andrew McGregor

Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony with Mark Simpson and Andrew McGregor

BBC Radio 3 - Record Review, Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony with Mark Simpson and Andrew McGregor

Mark Simpson chooses his favourite recording of Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony.

Mark Simpson chooses his favourite recording of Richard Strauss's epic An Alpine Symphony, plus a new box set showcasing the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

9.30 Building a Library 
Mark Simpson compares recordings of Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie and chooses his favourite.

The epic Alpine Symphony is Strauss's vivid evocation of the thrills and spills of a day out in his beloved Bavarian Alps, including dangerous moments and a glacier on the way up to a spectacular view from the summit. On the way down there's a violent thunderstorm and at the end, as the sun sets and night falls, the deep, emotional satisfaction of having completed an arduous and exhausting journey. The 1915 tone poem thrillingly tests an orchestra, at once collectively, its individual sections and its principal players. And it also tests a conductor who has to convincingly marshal a score calling for 130-plus musicians including 34 brass players (with 12 offstage horns) and a percussion section stocked with, among other things, wind machine, thunder machine and cowbells. Spare a thought, too, for the recording engineers...

10.40
Sarah Devonald has been listening to a box set of newly released live radio recordings made in the late 90s and early 2000s by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, including symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.

11.20
Record of the Week
Andrew recommends an outstanding new release.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony with Mark Simpson and Andrew McGregor

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