Concerto Net gives a four-star review to the Kansas City Symphony and Michael Stern’s One Movement Symphonies recording:
“Each of these stylistically different composers solves the challenges this form would inherently present, and each proves it to be a liberating and artistically durable form for their eras.… Conductor Michael Stern’s exquisite pacing in this performance points up the specificness of Barber’s command of the concept… Barber’s oceanic strings and coloratura brass find the composer at his most dramatically lyrical best, here brought to its full impact by the KCS… Stern’s balance of Sibelius’ full dimension of sound, without leaning on its sonic drama, is masterful, crucially not defusing the chamber music intimacy of the piece. … The intoxicating sound in this rarely performed work [by Scriabin] is fully realized by the KCS. Capturing the scale and subtleties of the KCS performances of these symphonies in a two-day session June 24-25, 2016 were engineers Keith O. Johnson and Sean Royce Martin.”
—Lewis J. Whittington, ConcertoNet