Tragic Lovers / DePreist

In this 35th Anniversary year of the Delos label, we celebrate with a new release by Delos’s very first conductor, James DePreist. The distinguished American conductor’s Delos discography of 17 recordings spans 33 years, and includes acclaimed recordings with the Royal Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. This new DePreist recording is the final release in his series with the Oregon Symphony. Bravura, the first Oregon Symphony recording, set the tone for the brilliant series that followed: “James DePreist’s incandescent performance and John Eargle’s spectacular engineering blaze new trails.” (Audio) More recently, DePreist has dazzled us with his Respighi, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Korngold and more. The Oregon Symphony recordings are an important part of the Delos “Virtual Reality Recording” series of symphonic spectaculars, and have been consistently praised for their clarity and sonic dimension. DePreist’s performances are also infused with musical poetry, as evidenced in his treatment of the three musical versions of Tragic Lovers. 

The epic drama of Tristan and Isolde, the tender intimacies of Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet, and the condensed vision of Shakespeare’s tragedy in Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy-Overture are highly affecting in DePreist’s hands. The nephew of the legendary contralto Marian Anderson, DePreist is also a published poet. He is Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at the Juilliard School. He is now Laureate Music Director of the Oregon Symphony. In 2005 the President of the United States presented DePreist with the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence.

Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde 

Berlioz: Romeo et Juliette, Op. 17 – II. Scene d’amour 

Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture