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…
Back in Stock — TUTTI! Orchestral Sampler Double-LP! TUTTI! is on The Absolute Sound Super Disc List TUTTI! is Italian for “all together now,” as in the sound of a full orchestra playing in perfect ensemble. TUTTI! is also a full-length sampler of RR’s classical orchestral releases —PLUS a special BONUS track available nowhere else in the RR catalog! Artists include Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Jose Serebrier and the…
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…
The June 2023 issue of International Piano has a rave review for Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recording of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos: “Garrick Ohlsson’s view of the canon reaffirms this authority as a discerning Beethovenian with noble things to impart. … The freshness of these performances, from the 2022 Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, lies in their open-faced honesty. Gleamingly, they promise us the certainty…
Blues Blast Magazine has announced their 2023 Blues Blast Music Award Nominations and we’re thrilled to share that Reference Recordings artists Doug MacLeod and Jimi Bott have been nominated for multiple awards! Nominations Jimi Bott Doug MacLeod How to Vote Fan voting begins July 1, 2023 and continues until August 18, 2023 at BluesBlastMagazine.com. Voting is free, and and open to anyone. You may only vote one time. If you are not currently a Blues…
The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recordings from Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra are a July 2023 Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice! “whenever [Sir Donald Runnicles] and [Garrick] Ohlsson collaborate, time is never spent in conversation beforehand about tempos, phrasing or other details. They simply begin making music together and thus, in an exercise of intuitive symbiosis, arrive at their joint interpretation. The result, as heard here, is a spacious,…
It has been my pleasure and honor to have had a lifelong friendship with Jose Serebrier, one of the world’s greatest conductors. Reference Recordings is very proud to have several albums conducted by Maestro Serebrier on our label. His biography, José Serebrier: Portraits of the Maestro, is a fascinating book, be sure to check it out! I just learned it recently received a 2022 “Certificate of Merit” Award for the Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical Music…
Anthony Kershaw offers an in-depth review of Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recordings of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos in the Audiophilia Magazine: “I’m not sure whose idea it was to record this repertoire, but one of the US’s most interesting pianists with a fine conductor and a superb orchestra made up of top professional players from the US and further afield in an idyllic summer setting, sounds…
Adrian Quanjer gives Four and half stars for performance and sonics to Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recording of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos: “Long-standing giants like Sir David Runnicles and Garrick Ohlsson, don’t have to prove anything anymore. Their extensive and rewarding international careers say it all. No longer dependent on the moods of critics, they can be themselves and, as we may assume, support wholeheartedly the…
The Blues Foundation Announced its 44th Annual Blues Music Awards in Memphis on May 11, 2023, and Reference Recordings is thrilled to share that Doug MacLeod was announced as the winner of the 2023 Acoustic Artist Award! Congratulations to Doug MacLeod! Doug MacLeod Recordings on Reference
Classical Source editor Colin Anderson has published a rave review on his Colin’s Column site in his “Outstanding” Category for the Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and Grand Teton Music Festival’s Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recording: “I started at the very end, with Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture, to get a feel for recorded sound and the orchestral playing: both excellent, Sir Donald setting a dignified opening against a bustling allegro, an appreciable entrée to Garrick Ohlsson and the five Piano…
The May 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine features a must-see four-page feature on the Grand Teton Music Festival and the orchestra’s recording of the Beethoven Piano Concertos with Garrick Ohlsson and Sir Donald Runnicles. See the piece, titled “Climbing Everest in the Rockies” by Thomas May on Page 23! “To perform all five Beethoven piano concertos as a cycle is to ascend one of the repertoire’s proverbial Everest-like peaks. … a winning combination of factors…