LSO Live celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2010 and the label's first release of the year features Prokofiev's spectacular score for the ballet Romeo & Juliet conducted by Valery Gergiev. Gergiev is a tireless champion of Prokofiev's music. His complete cycle of the composer's symphonies with the LSO won a 2004 Gramophone Award. Shortly afterward, Gergiev was named Principal Conductor of the orchestra and spent much of 2008 and 2009 touring Prokofiev's symphonies with the LSO in Europe, Japan and the USA. Gergiev's forthcoming LSO Live releases include a Rachmaninov symphony cycle as well as music by Ravel, Stravinsky, Debussy and Strauss.

Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet has a strong claim to being the greatest ballet. Not only does it contain much of the composer’s finest and most instantly appealing music, it is also considered one of the most exceptional musical realisations of Shakespeare.

Reviews:

Disc of the Year

Best Orchestral Recording

'For the LSO to win our prestigious Disc of the Year award is testament to the orchestra's continuing brilliance under Valery Gergiev. Hearing this score 'live' gives this music extra frisson, almost as if we were joining the audience for the performance' BBC Music Magazine Awards 2011

Editor's Choice 'Gergiev is in his element ... A winner' Gramophone (UK)

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' Classic FM Magazine (UK)

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’ Sunday Times (UK)

‘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’ International Record Review (UK)

***** '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' Audiophile Audition (US)

Performance ***** Sound ***** ‘Der akustisch vorzügliche Mehrkanal-Mitschnitt dieser beiden Konzerte unterstreicht eindringlich die historische Dringlichkeit dieser Aktion. Denn trotz 140 Minuten Dauer entpuppt sich das abendfüllende Opus als Feuerwerk kurzweiligster musikalischer Attraktionen, die einen in 52 Szenen Prokofjews unerschöpflichen musikalischen Einfallsreichtum um die Ohren schlagen' Fono Forum (Germany)

Choice of the Month – Orchestral BBC Music Magazine (UK)

Clef de ResMusica ResMusica (France)

Best Modern Recording BBC Radio 3 Building a Library (UK)

***** The Australian (Australia)

***** Mail on Sunday (UK)

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James Mallinson producer; Neil Hutchinson and Jonathan Stokes for Classic Sound Ltd balance engineers; ; Recorded November 2008, Barbican, London; DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording