Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · 4832869 · 80 minutes
Nino Rota’s film scores occupy this strange, wonderful middle ground where circus melancholy and Mediterranean warmth collide, and The Fellini Album captures that duality with real affection. Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala clearly feel the music in their bones — there’s a looseness and a glow here that never tips into kitsch, even when the material is unabashedly sentimental. Eighty minutes of Rota done this well is basically a gift.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 21st June 2019
- Diapason d’Or — Summer Issue 2019
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2019
- Diapason d’Or de l’Année — 2019 — Winner – Artiste de l’année
“It’s plain from the performances here that both conductor and orchestra understand and, indeed, love the music and the man.”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2019,5 out of 5 stars
Gewandhausorchester, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · 4787471 · 3 hours 53 minutes
Brahms spent decades wrestling with the symphony — haunted by Beethoven’s shadow — and what emerged was music of extraordinary structural weight that can easily turn leaden in the wrong hands. Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester take a bracingly different approach here, leaning into the rhythmic energy and forward momentum that Brahms actually wrote into the scores rather than draping everything in romantic thickness. The result picked up the Gramophone Recording of the Year in 2014 for good reason — these four symphonies feel genuinely alive, taut, and argued with real conviction.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — October 2013 — Disc of the Month
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2014 — Orchestral Finalist
- Gramophone Awards — 2014 — Recording of the Year
- Building a Library — April 2018 — Also recommended
“Dynamic and dramatic readings, faithful to Brahms’s intentions. Powerfully conceived, they are rhythmically alert, without an ounce of undue sentiment and never for an instant losing sight of…”
— BBC Music Magazine, December 2013,5 out of 5 stars
Siegfried Jerusalem, Susan Dunn, Brigitte Fassbaender, Hermann Becht, Peter Haage, Hans HotterRoyal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Städtischer Musikverein Düsseldorf, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · E4737282 · 2 hours 31 minutes
Schoenberg wrote Gurrelieder before he’d fully committed to atonality, and the result is this enormous, almost reckless late-Romantic spectacular — an orchestra so massive it required custom-printed score paper, wrapped around a medieval Danish love story that builds to something genuinely overwhelming. Chailly conducts with a sense of scale that never lets the piece collapse under its own weight, and having Hans Hotter narrating the final section is like having history itself step into the room. Siegfried Jerusalem and Susan Dunn bring real warmth to Waldemar and Tove, making the tragic arc feel personal rather than just mythically grand.
Awards:
- Building a Library — February 2005 — First Choice
- Building a Library — March 2017 — Also Recommended
“This vast cantata, a direct descendant of Wagnerian music-drama, was for the turn-of-the- century musical scene the ultimate gorgeous sunset. Schoenberg’s forces are, to put it mildly, extravagant….”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly
Accentus Music · ACC20309
Mahler’s Seventh is the symphony that keeps even devoted fans guessing — five movements that swing from nocturnal strangeness to a finale so brash it still divides opinion a century later. What Chailly and the Gewandhaus bring here is an almost physical sense of architecture, letting those eerie Nachtmusik movements breathe while keeping the whole sprawling structure from feeling loose. The orchestral playing is genuinely jaw-dropping, with BBC Music Magazine singling out solo after solo — that tenor horn at the opening, the trumpet sailing clean through the finale’s most exposed moments — and you can hear exactly why this one walked away with the International Classical Music Award for Video Performance in 2016.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — December 2015 — Editor’s Choice
- Gramophone Magazine — December 2015 — DVD/Blu-ray of the Month
- International Classical Music Awards — 2016 — Winner – Video Performance
“the Leipzig players do [Chailly] proud. There are so many stunning solos, from tenor horn at the start to the first trumpet who never splits brilliant top notes in the finale, that names should…”
— BBC Music Magazine, February 2016,5 out of 5 stars
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · 4786775 · 65 minutes
Brahms wrote his two Serenades before the symphonies, and there’s something wonderfully unguarded about them — you hear a young composer stretching out, luxuriating in orchestral color without the weight of expectation pressing down. Chailly understands this completely, keeping the music buoyant and natural rather than loading it with Brahmsian gravitas it doesn’t need. The Gewandhausorchester bring a warmth and ease to the playing that makes 65 minutes feel like the most pleasant afternoon you’ve had in a while.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 2nd February 2015
- Sunday Times — 2015 — Albums of the Year
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2015
“they are substantial pieces in their own right, and they emerge irresistable thanks to the easy flow of Chailly’s conducting and the superb playing of his orchestra…Chailly and his orchestra…”
— BBC Music Magazine, Awards Issue 2015,5 out of 5 stars
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · 4833080 · 85 minutes
Riccardo Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra bring a kind of textbook clarity to these Strauss showpieces — the playing is immaculate, and Also Sprach Zarathustra in particular gleams with orchestral refinement. What you notice pretty quickly, though, is that the interpretations sit on the careful side of things, more polished gem than wild ride, which is exactly what the BBC Music Magazine criticism points to. If you love Strauss for the danger and the swagger, this might leave you wanting a little more heat under the collar.
Awards:
- Diapason d’Or — October 2019 — Nouveauté
- International Classical Music Awards — 2019 — Nominee – Symphonic Music
- Diapason d’Or de l’Année — 2019 — Winner – Artiste de l’année
- Gramophone Magazine — December 2019 — Critics’ Choice
“Interpretatively, it’s Riccardo Chailly business as usual: exemplary textures…but not as much forward movement or flying through the air as there should be.”
— BBC Music Magazine, December 2019,3 out of 5 stars
Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · 4853950 · 64 minutes
Verdi’s choral writing hits different from anyone else’s — there’s a theatrical electricity running through even the simplest unison lines, as though the stage is always just offstage. Chailly and the Scala forces know this music from the inside out, and you hear it in the way the dynamics breathe naturally rather than being imposed from the podium. BBC Music Magazine gave it five stars for good reason: the choral tone is full and warm without ever getting muddy, and the orchestral playing has that clean, bright Verdian sparkle that makes these familiar pieces feel genuinely alive.
Awards:
- Opus Klassik Awards — 2023 — Nominated – Conductor of the Year
- International Classical Music Awards — 2024 — Nominated – Choral
“Chorus and orchestra are both on their mettle here: the orchestral playing is clean and brilliant, the choral tone full and healthy. The range of tone and dynamics available is well displayed…”
— BBC Music Magazine, April 2023,5 out of 5 stars
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly
Decca · E4737222 · 2 hours 15 minutes
Hindemith wrote the Kammermusik series as a kind of deliberate cold shower after all that swooning Expressionist excess — lean, angular, almost brutally clear-eyed music that still manages to crackle with wit and energy. Chailly and the Concertgebouw bring exactly the right combination of precision and warmth to it, never letting the neoclassical austerity feel dry or academic. The Gramophone Award this one picked up back in 1993 was well earned, and two-plus hours of this music in such capable hands is a genuine pleasure.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1993 — Winner – Orchestral
“Hindemith’s series of Kammermusik (‘Chamber Music’) began in 1921 as an iconoclastic response to the hyperintense emotionalism of German Expressionist music over the previous 15 years. It continued…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
