Oleg Caetani

Artist ∙ Classical

Conductor Oleg Caetani, among the last students of Nadia Boulanger, has been equally active in operatic and symphonic repertory. His career has been marked by frequent moves from one organization to another. Caetani made his debut at 17 with Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. He won Italy's RAI Competition in 1979. In 1987, he made his recording debut with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 3, Op. 44. With the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Caetani recorded a complete cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies. He resurfaced in 2022, backing violinist Charlie Siem in a recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

August 4, 2022 at PDT
Beethoven: Violin Concerto and Romances
When Charlie Siem gets asked what he did during the pandemic lockdowns, the answer is this recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, planned and prepared during weeks of isolation in Florence, where he just happened to be holed up at the same time as conductor Oleg Caetani. “We spent ages,” he says, “going through original materials, comparing rival performances, and figuring out our own approach to the piece. When the lockdowns finished, we then brought it to London and recorded the concerto with the brilliant Philharmonia Orchestra.”

The end result is a considered reading that moves fast but smooth, with long lines and, in Siem’s words, “more notes to the bow” than many recordings. But what also filters through is a decisive sense that this is music played not just with style, but with love. “For any violinist, the Beethoven is a landmark score, the first great Romantic concerto from which all the others take reference. But for me, it has extra resonance because it was the first musical experience I can remember—aged three, in a recording by Menuhin that introduced me to the violin. Sadly, I never got to meet him, but the emotional impact of that childhood encounter has been with me all my life.”

Getting the chance, at last, to make his own mark on this music means a lot to Siem: so much that he decided not to follow common practice and couple the concerto with another of the big beasts of the fiddle repertoire. “I thought it had to stand alone,” he says. Instead, he pairs it with the two Romances by the same composer: earlier works for violin and orchestra that might be thought of as trial runs for a concerto—or at least the middle movement of one, unassumingly infused with what Siem calls the “classic, pastoral simplicity of early Beethoven. A joy to play and, hopefully, to hear.”
5 Tracks
December 31, 1988 at PST
Donizetti: Poliuto
36 Tracks
December 31, 2005 at PST
Tansman: Symphonies Nos. 4, 5 & 6
11 Tracks
April 11, 2013 at PDT
Early Verdi Arias
21 Tracks
October 6, 2014 at PDT
Gounod: Symphonies 1-3
10 Tracks
October 31, 2009 at PDT
Tansman: Symphonie de Chambre, Sinfonietta No. 1, Sinfonietta No. 2 & Sinfonia piccola
15 Tracks
July 3, 2006 at PDT
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11
4 Tracks
August 31, 2007 at PDT
Tansman: Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9
12 Tracks
July 3, 2006 at PDT
Shostakovich: Symphonies No. 9, Op. 70 & No. 10, Op. 93
9 Tracks
July 3, 2006 at PDT
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
4 Tracks
August 27, 2009 at PDT
Pizzetti: Canti Della Stagione Alta
5 Tracks
July 18, 2008 at PDT
MSO Live - Tchaikovsky: Complete Symphonies
29 Tracks
August 31, 2008 at PDT
Tansman: Symphony No. 2, Quatre Mouvements pour Orchestra & Symphonie Concertante
13 Tracks
September 6, 2007 at PDT
MSO - 100 Years Vol 7: Oleg Caetani
10 Tracks
November 6, 2006 at PST
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13, Op. 113, "Babi Yar"
5 Tracks
December 31, 2002 at PST
Shostakovich: Symphonies No. 5, Op. 47 & No. 6, Op. 54
7 Tracks
July 25, 2006 at PDT
Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 1 & 15
8 Tracks
December 31, 2015 at PST
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44
3 Tracks
October 6, 2005 at PDT
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 "The Year 1905"
8 Tracks
December 31, 1998 at PST
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Discoveries
8 Tracks
November 30, 2004 at PST
Stephan: Music for Violin and Orchestra & Music for Orchestra
3 Tracks
December 31, 2015 at PST
Weber: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & Clarinet Concertino in E-Flat Major, Op. 26
7 Tracks

Oleg Caetani

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