Archive for Review – Page 35
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,…
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…