Turnage: From the Wreckage / Speranza London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding & Håkan Hardenberger

• Mark-Anthony Turnage (1960): Speranza
• 1 From the Wreckage 15:52
• 2 I. Amal 11:56
• 3 II. Hoffen 09:54
• 4 III. Dochas 06:35
• 5 IV. Tikvah 11:23
• Total Runtime 55:40

Info for Turnage: From the Wreckage / Speranza

LSO Live presents the world premiere recording of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s large-scale orchestral work 'Speranza' (Hope), a piece commissioned by the LSO as part of Turnage’s residency with the orchestra in early 2013. Turnage is one of the most admired composers of his generation and has long been associated with the London Symphony Orchestra. Daniel Harding appears in his conducting debut for LSO Live.

'Speranza' is in many ways Turnage’s most ambitious and symphonic composition for orchestra to date. The piece is a monument to the power of optimism in a bleak world: 'I started working on the piece while thinking about the absence of hope. I wanted to lift people up', says Turnage. Each of the four movements are titled ‘Hope’ in a different language: Arabic, German, Irish and Hebrew.

'Speranza' is coupled here with 'From the Wreckage', described by The Times as 'outstanding: the music begins hellishly but gradually picks up a bluesy swing'. Premiered in 2005, the original soloist, Håkan Hardenberger, reprises the role. The three internal sections of 'From the Wreckage' are marked by the soloist’s change of instrument – first flugelhorn, then trumpet, and finally piccolo trumpet.

“The sound is arguably the finest to have come from LSO Live in recent years, having a lustre and depth that highlight both Turnage’s orchestration and the LSO’s realisation of it to the best advantage… Readers are urged to acquire this disc and assess the qualities of Speranza for themselves.” (International Record Review)

“From the Wreckage walks a tightrope of atonal angst and quirky jazz-like sounds. Håkan Hardenberger is magisterial...At some moments [in Speranza], you may feel as though you’ve been battered black and blue by Daniel Harding’s conducting baton, frantically poked and prodded by the sharp-edged string section of the LSO, and partaken in delightful revelry with the xylophonist.” (MusicWeb International)

Håkan Hardenberger, flugelhorn, trumpet, piccolo trumpet
London Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Harding, conductor