Archive for Review – Page 35
AllMusic Rave Review for Pittsburgh Symphony Strauss
AllMusic.com tabbed our Strauss CD with the Pittsburgh Symphony a January Editor’s Choice, with critic, Blair Sanderson, saying “Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks receive the finest sound on this hybrid SACD.” “If any music seems ideally suited for the multichannel super audio format, the lavish orchestral tone poems of Richard Strauss must be at the top of the list. This hybrid SACD of Strauss’ Don Juan, Death and…
Original Sound Version Reviews The Banner Saga
Original Sound Version‘s Patrick Gann reviews The Banner Saga and the Austin Wintory Soundtrack behind it: “The Banner Saga sports a 71 minute magnum opus, most of it recorded by a group of musicians known as ‘The Dallas Winds.’ So it’s a wind orchestra, and they’re from Dallas, TX. And they sound absolutely amazing. … Listening to the score over and over reveals one point I cannot stress enough: painstaking care was put into balancing…
RPGFan Reviews The Banner Saga Soundtrack
Just one more week before the CD release of the Official Soundtrack for The Banner Saga and the reviews are rolling in: “These are voices raised to comfort those on a harrowing journey and instruments played to ease the pain of tough travel. Warm horns stoke the fire inside, woodwinds soothe, and drums make marching seem like a part of something larger: a song or a work of art. … After a few tracks, everything…
The Arts Desk Reviews Miraculous Metamorphoses
The Arts Desk‘s Graham Rickson has a new rave for Kansas City Symphony’s Miraculous Metamorphoses recording: “If you’re not familiar with the [Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber] piece, start here. … Michael Stern’s Kansas City Symphony performance shows what can be achieved when a band on inspired form makes the effort to play what’s actually written. …It sparkles, abounding in oft-hidden detail. … And I’ve never enjoyed the chirping winds which…
There’s A Time Wins a “Gruvy Award”
AnalogPlanet’s Michael Fremer has launched a new feature called “The Gruvy Awards” for analog products ranging from records to record cleaners, and Doug MacLeod’s There’s A Time LP is a first-edition New Records category Gruvy Award winner! “Yes it was recorded digitally (at 176/24) on the Skywalker Soundstage so it’s not exactly an “intimate” club date, but if anyone can warm up an empty room and the musicians accompanying him it’s Piedmont style blues specialist…
Doug MacLeod Creates A Blues Fan
Doug MacLeod has been touring all over Europe lately, and in a new review from the UK’s Blues In The Northwest, reviewer Jane Edwards talks about how Doug MacLeod turned her from someone “knowing little about blues music, and nothing about Doug” into a fan: “I went along to Liverpool Marina having seen posters on the door advertising Doug Macleod. What a treat. Knowing little about blues music, and nothing about Doug, I wondered what…
Classical Ear Reviews Elgar/Vaughan William SACD
The Classical Ear iPhone Review App has a new review for our Kansas City Symphony Elgar and Vaughan Williams SACD! “The Wasps makes a dashing curtain-raiser – and what a treat to hear the other irresistible numbers in Vaughan Williams’s inimitably titled ‘Aristophanic Suite’. Stern also masterminds a commendably sensitive, scrupulously prepared traversal of Elgar’s vernally fresh masterpiece… the engineering, which is of simply splendiferous, demonstration-worthy realism… Recommended if…you feel like giving your hi-fi components…
Classical Music Sentinel Raves for Miraculous Mandarin
Classical Music Sentinel with an absolute rave for the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, and the new Miraculous Metamorphoses recording: “Rarely have I heard the multiple and varied orchestral colours of Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber exposed and exhibited as well as they are in this new recording by the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Michael Stern. … It’s just that in this particular case,…
Classical CD Choice Review of Miraculous Metamorphoses
Few can match our new Kansas City Symphony recording, Miraculous Metamorphoses, according to Classical CD Choice: “Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony are on something of a roll in terms of recordings for the label, as this latest collection matches (in sheer energy and authority) earlier recordings, but the Bartok suite in particular is given a reading that points up all the barbarity and violence of the score – and few recordings match this…
Gamespot puts Austin Wintory in Good Company
High praise for the upcoming Fresh! From Reference Recording CD release, The Banner Saga, featuring the Dallas Wind Symphony and music by composer Austin Wintory: “As I played The Banner Saga, I was swept away by its chilled tapestry of brass harmonies and meandering woodwind melodies. It was as if the musical score had been woven together of shimmering mithril, evoking both the bleakness of the frozen landscape and the stubbornness of the varl race.…
Audiophile Audition — Miraculous Metamorphoses a “fine trio”
Audiohpile Audition‘s John Sunier calls says the new Kansas City Symphony’s Miraculous Metamorphoses is a “fine trio of modern masterpieces.” “This is a fine trio of modern masterpieces, and the first recorded in the new Helzberg Hall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, MO, which reminds one of the Sydney Opera House building in Australia. Grammy-winning engineer Keith O. Johnson has created a superb HDCD-encoded disc…” —John Sunier, Audiophile Audition…
Classical Candor Reviews Miraculous Metamorphoses
Classical Candor‘s John J. Puccio gives a thorough look through the new Kansas City Symphony Miraculous Metamorphoses recording: “It’s always a pleasure listening to an album made by the Reference Recordings team of producer David Frost, recording wizard Keith Johnson, and executive producers Tam Henderson and Marcia Martin. They never attempt to attain the kind of absolute transparency so beloved of the audiophile community but instead capture something closer to the actual sound of a…
Film Music Blog Recommends Miraculous Metamorphoses
Thomas Kiefner’s Film Music: The Neglected Art blog has a new review for the Kansas City Symphony’s latest release, Miraculous Metamorphoses: “The Kansas City Symphony which is fast beginning to grow on me performs the suite with all of the necessary emotion. This is a must have for your collection if it has somehow avoided you. … Reference Recordings offer a little bit extra to the listener in terms of clarity, recording (Prof. Johnson), and…
ClassicalNet Says Miraculous Metamorphoses is Christmas in March!
Classical.net‘s Brian Wigman says Miraculous Metamorphoses is like Christmas in March: “Reference Recordings is kind of like the musical equivalent to Santa Claus, in that you realistically don’t know when a nice surprise is going to show up at your door, and you also have no real idea how they did what they did. Hot on the heels of a fabulous Strauss disc with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the label triumphs again with a well-themed, superbly…
ClassicsToday Gives Strauss full 10s!
ClassicsToday gives Pittsburgh Symphony’s Strauss recording a 10/10 in both Artist & Sound Quality! “Recordings like this restore one’s faith in the possibility of true musical greatness. Manfred Honeck conducts this music as do few others today. He’s not afraid to have a good time, nor is he a strict literalist. … For all of their larger-than-life qualities, Honeck remains sensitive to every dynamic nuance, intricacy of balance, and rhythmic quirk. Every one of these…