The January 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine features a review of Nadia Shpachenko’s recording of Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine: “Lewis Spratlan’s Invasion is a raucous, volatile tone poem for a sextet of piano, saxophone, horn, trombone, percussion and – I assume to provide some local Ukrainian colour – mandolin, written at speed in March this year.… Invasion is the music of indignation and outrage, its combative nature (it does have a more contemplative central section) mirrored…
Gramophone Magazine’s Christian Hoskins reviews the University of Texas and Jerry Junkin’s Migration recording in the November 2022 issue: This generously filled album brings together four works by contemporary American composers either scored or adapted for wind ensemble. Adam Schoenberg’s Second Symphony is a programmatic piece inspired by his wife’s family’s migration to the United States. The first of its five movements, ‘March’, with its imposing brass statements and busy percussion, communicates the tension that…
The November issue of Gramophone features a great review for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Brahms: Symphony No. 4 & MacMillan: Larghetto for Orchestra: “This latest release presents subtly incendiary Brahms alongside an utterance of radically different stripe. … The main work transmits an impression of interpretative renewal. Though capable of cushioned ‘European’ warmth, the Pittsburgh Symphony has a cleaner, brighter edge than traditionally associated with big-band Brahms.… As ever articulation is precisely honed,…
Gramophone Magazine reviews the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s recording of Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 & Leshnoff: Double Concerto in the September 2020 issue: “Manfred Honeck… [in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4] conveys a strong sense of structural integrity while simultaneously portraying the unfolding drama in vivid colours. … the playing itself is exquisite. In the Scherzo, Honeck is meticulous in his observance of piano and pianissimo markings, while the finale packs a wallop. Indeed, the symphony’s final moments are…
Gramophone Magazine’s James Jolly gives praise to the