Henry Mancini Centennial is a celebration of the legendary Film Composer’s music on his 100th Anniversary. Featuring José María Moreno conducting Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga on the IBS Classical label.

Beyond his virtuosity on the instrument, critics praise the Spanish violinist Jesús Reina for his “sunny and soulful personality” —John Rockwell, for his “freshness and boundless spontaneity”, and for the “beauty of his sound, characterized by true musicality, temperament and charisma.”

The Opera\-Oratorio Passio Christi narrates the events of the Lords Passion from the Last Supper to the dawn of Resurrection. The story is told through the feelings and emotions of some of the characters who took part in it in various ways: Peter, Judas, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the Cyrenean, the soldier Longinus and the Angels.

The composer of the Stabat Mater presented in this sound recording was musically educated in Malaga Cathedral at the end of the first third of the 19th century. The musical chapel of the city’s first tempo had already suffered the onslaught of the yellow fever of 1803 and the French invasion during the Napoleonic invasion (1808-1814), and had yet to receive the lethal blows of the successive disentailment measures of Mendizábal (1836), Espartero (1841) and Madoz (1854).

The recording of such a complex and ambitious work as Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony by the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra (OFM in Spanish) is a demonstration of the determination and enthusiasm with which the group is facing his 30th anniversary.