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The Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin, which was founded by musicians from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, presents French chamber music from around 1900 on this recording. The featured composers – Théodore Dubois, Vincent d’Indy and André Caplet – may have been overshadowed by their better-known contemporaries, but they nevertheless played major and original roles in the development of music in France, bequeathing us an appreciable quantity of remarkable works. At the same time, they represent three generations in the development of music at the dawn of the 20th century.
REVIEW:
The concert is thoroughly professional and artistically convincing. Timbres are resonant; and the balance, blend, and teamwork are terrific. The slow movements are warm and lyrical; and the fast movements are vigorous and sparkling. Each of the scores here deserves more frequent performances; and the Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin gives a masterclass in how to play them. Every serious chamber music collector should have this album.
-- American Record Guide
Of the three works on this disc, the one by perhaps the least well-known composer, Caplet, turns out to be the most virtuosic for the wind instruments, the most colorful, and the most enjoyable. … Caplet was a master orchestral scorer. And it sounds to me like his Suite persane demands the most in technical skill from the Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin’s ensemble of 10 wind players. The performance is really quite outstanding. The vivid and vibrant playing from this all-wind band is executed with absolute accuracy of pitch and such clarity of detail that all the rhythmic complexity and brilliance of Caplet’s scoring take on a three-dimensional quality.
-- Fanfare
Overall, this is a very enjoyable recording. None of the individual movements is longer than nine minutes, so there is never a sense of them overstaying their welcome...[nor] of the aimless burbling that I used to associate with the few wind ensemble works I had heard in the past. The playing of the wind section of Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin seems, to my inexperienced ears, to be very good. In the Dubois, there were a few moments when the violins were a little harsher than the music seemed to require. The recording blends the instruments naturally, and there are no extraneous noises from the players or the instruments.
-- MusicWeb International
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