Archive for Review – Page 34
BBC Music Magazine Gives Five Stars to Pittsburgh Symphony’s “Strauss”
BBC Music Magazine gives the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Strauss recording five stars! “Manfred Honeck’s interpretations have huge personality, and mostly in the right way. … The poetry is intense, yielding in Don Juan the most beautiful oboe cantilena ever. … The orchestra plays passionately and luminously, with the brass thrusting when they need to be. … the recorded Strauss celebrations are going well in 150th-anniversary year.” —David Nice, BBC Music Magazine Read the full review on…
MusicWeb International Says Miraculous Metamorphoses is “Well Worth Hearing”
MusicWeb International‘s John Quinn has a new review for the Kansas City Symphony’s Miraculous Metamorphoses recording: “Stern has selected a challenging and exciting programme.… Stern and his players put the music across with dash and no little brilliance. This [Hindemith] score has been a favourite of mine ever since I first encountered it through Abbado’s Decca recording over forty years ago. I enjoyed this Kansas performance very much. … There’s much to admire in the…
Classical Candor Reviews Dvořák and Janáček
Classical Candor‘s John J. Puccio has a new review for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s new Dvořák & Janáček SACD: “This new rendering of [Dvořák] No. 8 by Manfred Honeck and his Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on a live Reference Recordings Fresh! hybrid SACD stacks up pretty well. … There is great exuberance in the conductor’s handling of the various themes, while the sounds of nature, like the birdsong of the flute, create a truly sweet atmosphere.…
ClassicsToday gives top scores to the new Pittsburgh Symphony SACD!
ClassicsToday gives a 10/10 for Artistic Quality and a 10/10 for Sound Quality to the new Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Dvořák & Janáček recording, hailing it as “Honeck’s Incandescent Dvořák 8th!” “There are few things more wonderful in the life of a record collector than a really great recording of a repertory warhorse. … along comes a performance by a conductor who loves the music, who has genuine ideas about how it should go and what…
Pizzicato Magazine with a Rave for the Pittsburgh Symphony!
Luxemburg’s Pizzicato Magazine has a new rave review for the Pittsburgh Symphony and their new Dvořák and Janáček recording: “This is one of the most gripping performances of Dvořák’s 8th Symphony that I ever heard. Honeck and Pittsburgh excel themselves and definitely team up to one of those great partnerships like Solti and Chicago, Ozawa and Boston, Bernstein and New York, Szell and Cleveland, Tilson-Thomas and San Francisco.” —Alain Steffen, Pizzicato Read the full review…
“You won’t be disappointed” with the New Pittsburgh Sympony SACD
Film music critic, Thomas Kiefner says “You won’t be disappointed” with the new Pittsburgh Symphony Dvořák/Janáček SACD: “One of the keys to the success of this recording is the superior sound which you’ll best hear in SACD… When I played it through my stereo system the result was nothing short of spectacular. Yes you’ll hear the occasional rustling of the papers and a stray cough but at least to me I didn’t find it distracting…
Gramophone Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Miraculous Metamorphoses
Gramophone Magazine’s July Issue of “Sounds of America” features the Kansas City Symphony and their latest release, Miraculous Metamorphoses: “The Kansas City Symphony have been on a roll with Michael Stern…[Miraculous Metamorphoses] are works that provide conductor and musicians with a spectrum of atmospheres and colours into which they can sink their respective teeth. Stern and his orchestra do so to captivating effect, without resorting to sonic exaggeration. … Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of…
Audiophilia Recommends New Pittsburgh Symphony SACD
Audiophilia recommends the new Pittsburgh Symphony Dvořák/Janáček recording in their July Recommended New Releases: “Here, under a warm Bohemian sun, the Pittsburgers and their man have scored a home run. … And, though the opera Jenůfa is about child loss and redemption, conductor Honeck’s ‘conceptualization’ of the opera’s themes into a ‘Suite’ makes for very enjoyable listening. The pathos is there but with such wonderful and infectious rhythms, it’s hard to feel down. … Taken…
Film Music Critic Reviews The Banner Saga
Film music critic, Thomas Kiefner, takes on Austin Wintory’s The Banner Saga Soundtrack on his blog, Film Music: The Neglected Art. “The opening cue ‘We Will Not Be Forgotten’ a scant forty seven seconds does set the mood for the remainder of the score. It is a proud majestic opening featuring the horns of the Dallas Winds. ‘How Did It Come To This’ opens like an orchestra tuning up before it switches to a contrabassoon…
Culture Spot LA Reviews New Pittsburgh Symphony Release
Culture Spot LA, which reviewed the first Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra recording on FRESH! From Reference Recordings, is already raving about the next installment in the “Pittsburgh Live!” series: “Anyone who is familiar with the Dvořák G major symphony will find Honeck’s interpretation remarkable. Like his interpretations of the Strauss tone poems, Honeck takes great liberties with the tempo and dynamics in order to realize his vision. … The result is a fresh and exciting version…
Classical Candor Praises the latest Andrés Segovia Archive Installment
John J. Puccio’s Classical Candor blog praises the performances of Roberto Moronn Pérez in the French Composers edition of the Andrés Segovia Archive: “Perez does each man and his work fair justice. He 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. …if you are like me you will find each work entertaining, touching, or enlivening as the…
Autrement Blues Reviews “There’s A Time”
“There’s A Time” gets a rave review in French magazine, Autrement Blues: “Slide/resonator master Doug MacLeod’s latest album is a genuine bit of brilliance, with changing tempo, skillful picking and thoughtful, laid-back lyrics. Indeed, so good, that it has just swept the board at the Blues Foundation’s awards 2014 in Memphis in May. MacLeod’s work is always strong and sound; music that is always eagerly anticipated by acoustic blues fans everywhere. With this latest CD,…
Respighi LP Gets Five Stars from Audiophile Audition
Our latest Reference Mastercuts LP, Respighi, gets a five-star review from Audiophile Audition‘s John Sunier: “This is fantastic orchestration and impressing sonics that are of demonstration quality. Engineer Keith O. Johnson’s efforts on this got a Grammy nomination for the Best-Engineered Classical Album. Also lovely artwork on the LP cover and plenty of space inside for detailed notes in large enough print to actually read.” —John Sunier, Audiophile Audition Read the full five-star review on…
GameMusic.net review of The Banner Saga
The Banner Saga Soundtrack gets compared to a novel in a rave review from GameMusic.net: “The Banner Saga is mainly a turn-based strategy, therefore combat music native to slashers wouldn’t be a very wise choice. The interesting thing about this album is that there is no typical battle track. The cause of such situation is related to the process of album creation which, to be honest, is even more surprising. Particular parts from the game’s…
The Daily Album Reviews The Banner Saga Soundtrack
Sean Elliot, of The Daily Album has a thorough review for Austin Wintory’s The Banner Saga score: Wintory’s The Banner Saga is a wonderful experience on its own. A union of classical string and wind sections, ethnic instruments like the didgeridoo, and some fine vocal talents are at Wintory’s disposal, and to say he makes good use of them would be understating things. Wintory runs the emotional gamut here and even as the pace slows,…