Tippett: Symphonies 3 & 4; Symphony In B-Flat

Rachel Nicholls (soprano) & BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins

The first opportunity to experience Tippett’s unique symphonic voice stretching across nearly half a century, from the early B flat symphony (here receiving its first recording) to the extraordinary ‘birth-to-death’ span encompassed by No 4.

Tippett:
 Symphony in B flat
 Symphony No. 3
 Symphony No. 4

"What the new accounts have are the virtues of Brabbins’s versions of Tippett’s First and Second…: a purposeful intentness, with care for dynamics and rhythmic precision…though with no lack of virile energy and lyrical grace in the response of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and a finely-contoured delivery of the taxing soprano role in the Third from Rachel Nicholls."
BBC Music Magazine - April 2019 ****

"Brabbins and his attentive recording engineers ensure that clarity of detail always serves the broader symphonic processes that remain at the heart of Tippett’s visions. In this context it is especially rewarding to have the first recording of the recently resurrected Symphony in B flat."
Gramophone Magazine - April 2019