Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces is the BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month! “Honeck’s overriding objective has been to revivify a work that in lesser hands can easily lose its freshness and originality. To achieve this, he has followed Tchaikovsky’s carefully delineated performance instructions to the letter, investing every musical phrase with a wealth of insight, detail and colour. From the outset, Honeck’s infinitely…
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces is a Gramophone Recording of the Month and Editor’s Choice feature! “Manfred Honeck has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony since 2008, during which time they have released many discs together on Reference Recordings, including several that have earned recognition as Editor’s Choice: Dvořák, Mahler and ‘Promethean’ Beethoven (as described by Richard Osborne, 12/15) among others.… And now they…
Fanfare Magazine’s Henry Fogel names Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces a “Not To Be Missed” recording: “this has to be ranked in the upper echelon of the [Tchaikovsky Fifth] discography… [In the Schulhoff] Honeck …[and] Thomas Ille… have done a superb job in creating a version that deserves a place in the orchestral repertoire.… This is a hugely successful recording.” —Henry Fogel, Fanfare See the full review…
The June 2023 issue of International Piano has a rave review for Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recording of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos: “Garrick Ohlsson’s view of the canon reaffirms this authority as a discerning Beethovenian with noble things to impart. … The freshness of these performances, from the 2022 Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, lies in their open-faced honesty. Gleamingly, they promise us the certainty…
The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recordings from Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra are a July 2023 Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice! “whenever [Sir Donald Runnicles] and [Garrick] Ohlsson collaborate, time is never spent in conversation beforehand about tempos, phrasing or other details. They simply begin making music together and thus, in an exercise of intuitive symbiosis, arrive at their joint interpretation. The result, as heard here, is a spacious,…
Anthony Kershaw offers an in-depth review of Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recordings of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos in the Audiophilia Magazine: “I’m not sure whose idea it was to record this repertoire, but one of the US’s most interesting pianists with a fine conductor and a superb orchestra made up of top professional players from the US and further afield in an idyllic summer setting, sounds…
Adrian Quanjer gives Four and half stars for performance and sonics to Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recording of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos: “Long-standing giants like Sir David Runnicles and Garrick Ohlsson, don’t have to prove anything anymore. Their extensive and rewarding international careers say it all. No longer dependent on the moods of critics, they can be themselves and, as we may assume, support wholeheartedly the…
Classical Source editor Colin Anderson has published a rave review on his Colin’s Column site in his “Outstanding” Category for the Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and Grand Teton Music Festival’s Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recording: “I started at the very end, with Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture, to get a feel for recorded sound and the orchestral playing: both excellent, Sir Donald setting a dignified opening against a bustling allegro, an appreciable entrée to Garrick Ohlsson and the five Piano…
Colin Clarke has added Bach Aria Soloist’s Le Dolce Sirene album to his 2023 Fanfare Magazine “Want List”: “this is a well-considered mix… It is worth taking the pieces in running order as one gets an idea of the variety of sound on offer. After that chamber Messiah, an organ sonata movement by Mendelssohn is heard in a grand performance by Elisa Williams Bickers, but one that retains miraculous clarity. Then it’s back to Handel for…
Subscribers can find the full review online or in the May/June 2023 issue of Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare Magazine‘s Ken Meltzer recommends Le Dolce Sirene from the Bach Aria Soloists “with the utmost enthusiasm”: “In Le Dolce Sirene, the BAS explores vocal and instrumental music ranging from Monteverdi to the 21st-century English composer Cecilia McDowall. The emphasis is on Baroque repertoire, performed with such HIP elements as minimal vibrato and ornamentation in repeated sections. Within that foundation, the BAS offers music-making of striking beauty, energy, and an infectious enthusiasm for the works at…
Italian Blues Magazine, Macallé Blues has a new review for Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim in their “Discs to Consider” section: “Doug MacLeod is one of the last and most iconic songwriters in blues that the contemporary scene can still offer. One of those endangered beings who should be preserved by some special law to protect the species and its few devotees. A Soul To Claim is his most recent album and … Despite…
The Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene gets a great review from Laurence Vittes in the March 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine: “The Kansas City-based Bach Aria Soloists make their recording debut on Reference Recordings with a lovely album of Monteverdi, Bach, Handel and Mendelssohn, complemented by Cecilia McDowall and concluding with their own improvisation on La folia. Recorded with the label’s trademark sweet and clear perfection, ‘Le dolce sirene’ achieves that audiophile miracle, sounding even…
Audiophile Audition‘s Fritz Balwit has a wonderful overview and review for the Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene recording: “The most striking feature of this opening track is the keening sound of the violin paired with a minimal cello basso continuo. This was my first exposure to the exceptional skills of the violinist and director of the ensemble, Elizabeth Suh Lane… substantial works that will appeal to fans of modern vocal recitals. They don’t lack…