Thank you to Pacifica Tribune‘s Peter Tokofsky for this kind feature:
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces recording has been nominated for the 2024 International Classical Music Awards in the Symphonic Music category! See the full list at icma-info.com Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces REFERENCE RECORDINGS® proudly presents Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, in a significant new interpretation from conductor Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It is coupled with Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces, newly…
Mark Donohue of Soundmirror has been nominated for the GRAMMY® Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical for his work as engineer and mastering engineer for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra album Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces (conducted by Manfred Honeck)! Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces REFERENCE RECORDINGS® proudly presents Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, in a significant new interpretation from conductor Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It is coupled with Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces, newly arranged for…
“New releases from this particular conductor/orchestra combo still feel like an event. You won’t find box sets of Beethoven or Mahler in Manfred Honeck’s Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra discography, Honeck preferring to record single discs of pieces he’s fond of, often with striking couplings. So it is with this new Tchaikovsky 5… Honeck’s urgency is thrilling, the first movement’s “Allegro con anima” swift and exciting. This orchestra’s dark, voluptuous timbre feels entirely right for the piece, the Pittsburgh…
MusicWeb International has named Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces their September Recording of the Month! “The first thing to strike the listener is the width of the dynamic range; no compression here. Honeck in his notes makes much of Tchaikovsky’s markings from ppp to fff; particularly helpful is the combination of bar numbers (for those with scores) and timings (for the casual listener) marking where Honeck wishes to…
Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces is the BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month! “Honeck’s overriding objective has been to revivify a work that in lesser hands can easily lose its freshness and originality. To achieve this, he has followed Tchaikovsky’s carefully delineated performance instructions to the letter, investing every musical phrase with a wealth of insight, detail and colour. From the outset, Honeck’s infinitely…
The New York Times published “5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now” featuring a selection of the New York Times Classical Critics’ favorite new releases and David Allen has an absolute RAVE review for Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff Five Pieces recording: “make no mistake, it is a masterpiece, a dark psychological thriller that soars and scars and ends up being rather unnerving. Drawing on Tchaikovsky’s sketches…
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces is a Gramophone Recording of the Month and Editor’s Choice feature! “Manfred Honeck has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony since 2008, during which time they have released many discs together on Reference Recordings, including several that have earned recognition as Editor’s Choice: Dvořák, Mahler and ‘Promethean’ Beethoven (as described by Richard Osborne, 12/15) among others.… And now they…
Fanfare Magazine’s Henry Fogel names Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 and Schulhoff: Five Pieces a “Not To Be Missed” recording: “this has to be ranked in the upper echelon of the [Tchaikovsky Fifth] discography… [In the Schulhoff] Honeck …[and] Thomas Ille… have done a superb job in creating a version that deserves a place in the orchestral repertoire.… This is a hugely successful recording.” —Henry Fogel, Fanfare See the full review…
Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Brahms: Symphony No. 4 and James MacMillan Larghetto for Orchestra is a MusicWeb International 2022 Recording of the Year Double-Nominee! “Indisputably the finest – and possibly the most important – recording to emerge in 2022 was this release of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony by Manfred Honeck. In an age where recordings of the old war-horses are not universally welcomed, the general thought being that everything that has been said about the…
We are thrilled to share that Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY® Award in the Best Engineered Album, Classical category! Congratulations to engineer Mark Donahue on his nomination! “Throughout the symphony, passion is omnipresent, be it in a positive or ominous posture. Honeck unravels with his musicians to infinite perfection a modern version of a symphony that is all too…
We are thrilled to share that the International Classical Music Awards have nominated two of our recordings in the 2023 ICMAs! The final result with all winners will be announced on January 18, 2023, and the Award Ceremony and Gala concert will take place in Wrocław, Poland on April 21, hosted by the NFM Philharmonic. Nominations Symphonic Music Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Contemporary Music Martin West & the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra
Jean-Yves Duperron reviews the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring recording on Classical Music Sentinel: “This ‘live’ performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Manfred Honeck of the iconic Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral” by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), is nothing if not light-footed and yet muscular, airy and yet intricately detailed, naïvely good-natured and yet deeply expressive. Could it be that they’ve hit upon its spiritual…
Phil Muse’s Atlanta Audio Club Mid-Summer Classical Reviews Column features Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 & Stucky: Silent Spring: “What better choice for summertime listening than Beethoven’s time-tested ‘Pastorale’? … Quick but soul-satisfying pacing by conductor and orchestra makes it all come together. … Stucky pays respect to Carson’s dark, uncompromising vision of environmental destruction in musical terms that are positively chilling.… disspirited birdsong in haunting brass and reeds, relentless…
The Arts Fuse‘s Jonathan Blumhofer gives a warm recommendation to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven & Stucky recording: “The Pittsburgher’s performance is nothing if not very well balanced and strongly colored. Solos short and long – for tuba, contrabassoon, and English horn, among them – are all well done. And the orchestra has clearly got a firm grasp on Stucky’s highly intellectual (but still accessible) personal style. … it’s forceful, well-written music and…