Bergen Po/Litton - Prokofiev:Symphony No. 5

Following on from the highly regarded recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton here present their take on the composer's Symphony No. 5 in B flat minor. Written in 1944, at a time when the Soviet victory over the retreating Germans was only a few months away, the symphony was intended as a patriotic work, heroic and ultimately optimistic - the composer later described his aims as follows: 'I thought of it as a work glorifying the human spirit'. The closing work on this disc - the Scythian Suite - originated in 1915 as Ala and Lolli, a ballet score for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes based on a synopsis set among the Scythians, an ancient people of the steppes of Southern Russia. However, when plans for the ballet were terminated he extracted from the original score the colourful four-movement Scythian Suite for concert performance.