MusicWeb International critic, Michael Cookson, offers high praise for Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony‘s Barber: Adagio recording:
“Samuel Barber’s renowned Adagio for Strings is his best-known work an arrangement for string orchestra from the second movement of his 1936 String Quartet, Op. 11. … In one of the finest performances I have heard, Honeck ensures the Adagio for Strings is played with an affecting vulnerability maintaining the emotional tension in the writing at an elevated level. … Under music director Manfred Honeck the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is on fine form, and it feels as if these polished performances are genuine labours of love. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is outstandingly played, and the release contains one of the finest accounts of Barber’s Adagio for Strings I have heard.”
Full review on MusicWeb International
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