Only last month, the Bergen Philharmonic filled the Recording of the Month slot with their extraordinary recording of Salome on Chandos. This followed a spring release of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (4/25), and in November we’d praised their recording with James Ehnes in Sibelius's Violin Concerto and other works. ‘He and Edward Gardner are a meeting of minds and sensibilities … The orchestral detail, both accompanying and soloistic, is ear prickingly "present", revealing inner voices too often covered in recordings of the piece’ wrote Edward Seckerson. The connecting thread is, of course, the conductor praised there, Edward Gardner, whose relationship with the Norwegian players has been one of deep rapport and musical instinct. (They’ve also appeared in our pages with Dejan Lazić in Mozart piano concertos, conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend on Challenge (2/25)). After nine years Gardner has now stepped down – though retains a role as Honorary Conductor – but what a tenure, and this nomination seems a perfectly appropriate way to mark the moment.

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