Audiophile Audition critic Steven Ritter gives a five-star review to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Brahms: Symphony No. 4; MacMillan: Larghetto for Orchestra recording:
“Certainly, the last movement of the Fourth Symphony is the orchestral pinnacle of the age in relation to the variation form. … It is this last movement to which the entire symphony is directed, and its success depends on how well the previous movements are balanced. … Many conductors try to overplay the movement, and make it far too grandiose, which gives it a finale-type emphasis. … Honeck goes out of his way to tell us that this is after all, a kind of limping scherzo (sans trio) and needs to be heard like that, a break in the overall gloomy seriousness with what is, after all, historically, a joke. It works well. And it contrasts beautifully with what we hear at the opening of the symphony, a deep-breathed sigh that starts everything off. … what Karajan lacked in this music—a sense of genuine empathy and feeling, even though it is beautifully played—Honeck delivers in spades. The variations movement is also perfectly paced with lots of contrasts highlighted and not just wound up and let go. … [MacMillan’s] music is quite varied, with little in the way of philosophical musical underpinning (though quite a bit of religious ones) and is generally quite accessible to the classical masses. The Larghetto for Orchestra is a reworking of his 2009 Miserere, a choral work. Macmillan decided that the piece had instrumental proclivities within it, and fashioned this somewhat somber, though ultimately life-affirming piece for the celebration of Manfred Honeck’s tenth season as conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. It is a fine piece, well worth hearing, and quite moving. The sound, captured to perfection by the sound/mirror miracles in marvelous Super Audio, is wonderful, brilliantly detailed, warm, and illuminating when the moment calls for it.”
—Steven Ritter, Audiophile Audition