Archive for Review – Page 23
Break The Chain is a “Simply Cool Release”
Order Now “I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Break The Chain, from Doug MacLeod and it’s a cool, textural documentary of contemporary observations. Opening with boogie rocker, Goin’ Down To The Roadhouse, Doug gets into a real nice groove with slide on resonator joined by Denny Croy on bass and Jimi Bott on drums. On Lonesome Feeling, Doug really gives his National steel body a rough workout. His wailing and…
Audiophilia Review for Break The Chain
Order Now “Break the Chain does not do musically what the title implies. We have brilliant consistency. Here, you’ll find eleven songs and a ‘holler’ (story). Audiophiles will especially like the spoken voice track as they are so difficult to get right on recordings. … As the Reference team was together in Marin County’s Skywalker Studios, including recording engineer marvel Prof. Keith O. Johnson and diva dynamo producer, Jan Mancuso, the sound on all twelve…
HRAudio Gives Pittsburgh Shostakovich/Barber Five Stars
HRAudio.net has an advance ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review for our upcoming Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5/Barber: Adagio for Strings recording: Order Now “The inevitable question of ‘do we really need another Shostakovich 5’ must be answered with a clear and unequivocal YES. … Recorded in the autumn of 2013 it is only now, almost four years later that…this further example of the extraordinary marriage between Honeck and the Pittsburghers comes to light.…
Add Adam Schoenberg’s Orchestral Music to Your Summer Playlists
The Kansas City Star has some suggestions for your summer classical playlists, and the Kansas City Symphony’s recording of Adam Schoenberg’s Orchestral Music is at the top: Order Now “At the top of the list is the latest recording from the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Michael Stern. The disc is devoted to three works by 36-year-old composer Adam Schoenberg… Schoenberg is a masterful orchestrator, and his use of orchestral color serves him well in…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Strauss Opera Suites wins Record of the Year!
For the second year in-a-row, The Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck have won Opus Magazine‘s “Record of the Year” award! This year’s distinction goes to their recording of Strauss’s Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier Opera Suites: Order Now “In the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s sixth recording of the Pittsburgh live! series, conductor Manfred Honeck and Czech composer Tomáš Ille have once again joined forces (after their 2014 and 2016 collaborations on the Jenufa symphonic suite and the…
American Record Guide Praises ¡Viva Segovia!
“Roberto Moronn Pérez continues his exploration of the Segovia Archive—pieces written for the Maestro but which he never performed. …I have to give the nod to Pérez, especially in the three strongest works, the Scott Sonatina, Berkeley’s Four Pieces, and Desderi’s cheerful neoclassical sonata. …[the music] is simply a joy to hear, and Pérez sounds like it’s also a joy to perform. All this program is a pleasure…You won’t regret purchasing…” —Ken Keaton, American Record…
Midwest Record on Break The Chain
Order Now “A cat that’s perennially at the top of all the short lists in modern blues, MacLeod let’s loose here by telling all boundaries to shove off and then delivering unassailable goods, dropping hits to all fields. A long time vet that’s still young enough to call his best merely penultimate… Hot stuff throughout, this is a load of blues that’s directly from the soul. Well done throughout.” Chris Spector, Midwest Record Doug MacLeod:…
Shining A Spotlight on The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra
Order Now “As another San Francisco Ballet season draws to a close, it’s a good time to turn the spotlight on the magnificent SF Ballet Orchestra, led by music director Martin West, which plays such a vital role in the success of the Company’s performances. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, this Grammy Award-winning ensemble, under West’s direction, has recently released a delightful album of music by Moritz Moszkowski (1854 -1925), entitled From Foreign Lands. ……
Classical Candor Rave for ¡Viva Segovia!
Order Now “As I said about Mr. Perez in an earlier review, he does justice to each composer. Perez plays with flair but also with nuance and subtlety. His guitar opens up each work and expands it seemingly beyond the limits of a single instrument. Although you won’t find any (or if you are a dedicated classical guitar fan, many) familiar pieces here, if you are like me you will find each work entertaining, touching,…
Adam Schoenberg Orchestral Music a Recording of the Month!
Order Now The Kansas City Symphony‘s Adam Schoenberg Orchestral Music recording is a MusicWeb International Recording of the Month! “There is no doubt that the music is technically challenging and the writing is often complex. However, it seems to me that Schoenberg’s achievement in these three scores is that he has written music that, no matter how technically demanding it may be, never leaves the listener behind. There’s absolutely no condescension to the listener yet…
Don’t be without Pittsburgh Symphony’s Rosenkavalier Suite
Order Now “The Pittsburgh Symphony is one of America’s more Germanic orchestras and is well suited to Strauss. The brass are terrific, and the strings play with a powerful Teutonic sound. Reference Recordings is known as an audiophile label, and it earns that distinction here, particularly in Elektra, whose extreme demands it meets especially well. Even opera purists should enjoy this program. Honeck’s booklet notes include detailed time indiciations of what is going on in…
Manfred Honeck’s Strauss Opera Suites Recording is Groundbreaking!
Order Now “This is a groundbreaking recording—and a wonderful one!…Manfred Honeck himself catalysed the effort, in collaboration with Czech composer Tomás Ille. … Strauss pushes the borders of harmony in Elektra and employs a complex orchestra of 110, larger than most of his tone poems. … Honeck has marginally rescored it down to the merely mammoth forces customarily used in Strauss’s tone poems. Most importantly, he has woven the punchy, mercurial, polyphonic score into a…
Textura Raves for Schoenberg’s Orchestral Music
Order Now Textura Magazine offers high praise for composer Adam Schoenberg and the Kansas City Symphony’s recording of his orchestral music: “There’s something distinctly American about Adam Schoenberg’s music, and it’s not just because one of the pieces on this recording bears the title American Symphony. Largely tonal, melodically rich, and rhythmically robust… If any composer looms large as a point of reference, it’s Aaron Copland, though there are moments when one might be reminded…
Adam Schoenberg is a Rising Star
Order Now “Currently teaching at Occidental College in Los Angeles, [Adam Schoenberg]’s a rising star, his tonal, tuneful, colourfully scored music performed by orchestras across the US. … [Finding Rothko] successfully mirrors Rothko’s art — atmospheric, meditative and imposing, with shimmering colours that effectively play against each other in unexpected ways.… Schoenberg’s five-movement American Symphony (2011) begins and ends with buoyant optimism, powered by quasi- minimalist ostinatos. Two solemn, slow movements, built on sustained Coplandesque…
ClassicalEar on Adam Schoenberg’s Orchestral Music: Superb
Order Now “Schoenberg’s painterly soundscapes fall very easily on the ear… Best in my view are the Picture Studies, especially the Stravinskyan ferocity of ‘Kandinsky’ and ‘Miró’, which is bouncy and percussive, with telling use of an E-flat clarinet. The closing piece, ‘Pigeons in Flight’ after a photograph by Francis Blake recalls, like certain other works on the disc, the gently pulsing, harmonically pleasing delirium of Reich, though Schoenberg’s style more approximates the composing manners…