Winner Orchestral Disc of the Year

"This great ballet score has never been served better on disc. Under Gergiev’s direction the score is so compelling that you can put aside the booklet and let the music carry you forward to the stunning tragic climax"

Choice of the Month - Orchestral

"Gergiev’s pacing of events is masterly What really impresses, though, is the tenderness and poetry that are so often overlooked in Prokoviev, and not just in the love music. Gergiev frequently lets the strings and solo woodwind linger in a beguiling natural rubato, whilst maintaining an architectural grasp of the tragic whole. The shaping of the Epilogue wrings the heart, with the LSO exhibiting exceptional control. Strongly recommended."

"Rarely does a new recording supersede all before it, but that is the case with the LSO’s new performance of Prokoviev’s ballet acore, Romeo & Juliet This is an indespensable release." *****

 "...I gave the concerts full marks and am happy to do so again for these scintillating CD’s." *****

Artistic Quality 9     Sound Quality 9

"... this is a very fine performance ... You won’t be disapointed ..."

Editor’s Choice

"Gergiev is in his element ... A winner"

 

’Editor’s Choice’

"... this marvellously dance-infused performance of the complete score by Valery Gergiev and a devilishly on-form LSO is an essential item. Rarely has Prokofiev’s score sounded so orchestrally powerful. The LSO brings the passion back to Prokofiev’s star-crossed lovers"
 

CD of the Week

"This is music in which Gergiev has few peers today he brings an epic, symphonic and dramatic integrity to its vast, multifaceted canvas his London forces respond to Gergiev’s often hair-raising volatility with some of their most dynamic playing – the death of Tybalt has rarely sounded more coruscating in its raw depiction of Lady Capulet’s grief. Juliet’s early music positively scampers with youthful delicacy and grace, and the love music shimmers with a rapt beauty the entire performance carries an inevitable tragic momentum"

"... one could be forgiven for thinking that the LSO is Russian, such is the passion and energy with which it attacks Prokofiev’s score. The brass playing is superb the woodwind team is on fine form the LSO powerhouse strings are quite magnificent throughout. Gergiev’s new version is hard to beat"

"... Gergiev has courageously taken the complete score out of the ballet theater and into the concert hall, to make the music-drama stand on its own orchestrally as with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Nutcracker, and Sleeping Beauty. The live recording is sensational in its realism’" *****