Released as a special project to celebrate "100 Years of the NHK Symphony Orchestra," this collection brings together historic session and live recordings from their decades-long partnership.

Nello Santi, who is regarded as a "god-like" conductor in Europe, conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra on a rare recording of his visit to Japan in 2009. The album features a vivid orchestral work that is both precise and dynamic in scale.

The NHK Symphony Orchestra, which marks its 100th anniversary in October 2026, takes on Mahler's "Symphony No. 5" together with its Chief Conductor Fabio Luisi. The NHK Symphony Orchestra has earned high acclaim with works such as "Symphony No. 8" in 2023 and "Symphony No. 3" and "Symphony No. 4" at the "Mahler Festival 2025" in 2025, and this is a long-awaited challenge in that flow. In the first movement, "Funeral March," deep shadows are carved into the somber rhythm, and in the second movement, a dramatic development in which passion and silence intersect is vivid. In the third movement, a dynamic scherzo centered on the horns evokes the Viennese tradition. In the fourth movement, "Adagietto," impressively used in "Death in Venice," an aesthetic resonance drifts, and in the final movement the music turns dramatically into a surging torrent. This is the birth of a masterful performance in which the aesthetics of Luisi and the NHK Symphony Orchestra come to fruition. Recording: April 16 and 17, 2026, Suntory Hall.

This live recording of a concert given in Tokyo in November 2024 kicks off with a spikily rhythmic account of Suite No. 1 from Roussel’s ballet Bacchus et Ariane. Conductor Kazuki Yamada achieves a punchy sound with finely detailed string and woodwind playing alongside impactful outbursts of percussion.

The NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo is a Japanese broadcast orchestra based in Tokyo. The orchestra gives concerts in several venues, including the NHK Hall, Suntory Hall, and the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall…

Järvi’s version of Zarathustra strikes me as one of the finest ever, a recording to stand alongside those of Reiner, Karajan and Previn. The performance of the opening ‘Sunrise’ makes such an impact that I initially wondered whether the rest of the piece might sound anticlimactic in comparison, but Järvi sustains the intensity through to the end…. The eloquence of the orchestra’s strings also makes a strong impression in Metamorphosen…

The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich.