The project has been started by the Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov and by this album, his discography was polished. Actually, the project stretches on two continents, with three orchestras. Its beginning was in London with a series of three concerts with the BBC Harmonium's Orchestra, in October 2016 at Barbican Center. A similar series is about to take place over the ocean, with Semyon Bychkov conducting the Harmonium's Orchestra in New York, this month. He has also recorded the repertoire which he proposed to the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra. This is the first volume of the project which was already released on the 14th of October 2016.

The album has also a special meaning for the Decca record company. It was released after almost 40 years from the edit of the first collection dedicated to Piotr Ilic Tchaikovsky and it's the first album with high-definition recordings of the works of the Romanticism's Russian maestro. Decca record company promises the same quality for the entire simphonies, concerts for piano and other works for orchestra, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

Pathetique and the Fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet

I loved Tchaikovsky's music for a long time and like all first loves, it hasn't died and never will- says Semyon Bychkov.

Therefore, I invite you to listen in premiere at CD Review the recordings of this first volume of the Tchaikovsky Project, envisioned by the conductor Semyon Bychkov. A project which starts with the 6th Simphony op. 74 in B minor Pathetique, one of the valuable creations of the Russian composer about which Tchaikovsky himself said: It was my best composition.

Pathetique by Bychkov and the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra is worthy of consideration. The work's peak points are well created, the fragments dedicated to brass winds underline the Czech orchestra's qualities. It's an honest performance, a well proportioned sonorant construction, solid, with a certain and emotional substance of a connoisseur and lover of Tchaikovsky's music. We should appreciate Semyon Bychkov's intuition and performance. So you'll listen to, in a way, a "Classical" 6th Simphony "Pathetique" by Tchaikovsky, interpreted by the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

The Fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet is a really dinamic show, filled with romantic essences. Semyon Bychkov underlines, with the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra, the story of this drama with a lot of warmth. The emotions' intensity is well graduated, the characters coming to life naturally, and the dead march at the end, thanks to the high-definition sound, seemes even more impressive.

After these two auditions of the Tchaikovsky Project's recordings by Semyon Bychkov, I can say that in the version of the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra, we are being proposed an incredibly pleasant audition of the Russian composer's music, full of beauty and intense passion. It's being preppared orchestral works of Tchaikovsky comparable with the most valuable ones until now.

But we should wait for this project to take shape step by step and to enjoy for now the recordings that are broadcasted on the 12th and 13th of January at CD Review, from Volume I of the Tchaikovsky Project by the Czech Harmonium's Orchestra, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.