Reference Recordings proudly presents the beloved Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" of Ludwig van Beethoven, with Steven Stucky’s "Silent Spring," in exceptional performances from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. "Silent Spring" was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book "Silent Spring", the seminal work by Pittsburgh native Rachel Carson. The music, like the book, can be heard as a call to action to love and to save nature and the earth. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 125 years, is credited with a rich history of the world’s finest conductors and musicians, and is deeply committed to Pittsburgh and its region. This release is the thirteenth in the highly acclaimed Pittsburgh Live! series of multi­channel hybrid SACD releases on the FRESH! imprint from Reference Recordings. This series has received GRAMMY® Nominations in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.

Please note: this Hybrid SACD will play on any CD player.

REVIEW:

This is yet more fine Beethoven from Honeck and his orchestra. The coupling with the Stucky is fitting. Taken with the album’s bracingly clean engineering and insightful liner notes (including the conductor’s in-depth discussion of his approach to Beethoven interpretation), and we’ve got ourselves another winner in this ongoing Pittsburgh/Beethoven series. Warmly recommended.

-- The Arts Fuse

Silent Spring is not a novel, but more a treatise on how mankind’s pursuit of profit, particularly with the use of certain pesticides in intensive farming methods, is slowly destroying the planet. Unsurprisingly condemned and dismissed by the agricultural industry, as well as, more surprisingly, the media at the time, Ms. Carson’s work has proven to be chillingly prophetic with as much relevance to the planet today as it was some sixty years ago when it was first published.

-- Lee Denham (MusicWeb International)

If you’ve followed Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven symphonies with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Reference Recordings, presumably a complete cycle in the making, the first from an audiophile label (the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth have already appeared), you’ll know what to expect from this “Pastoral”—swift tempi, lean, even sec sonorities (vibrato held in considerable check), great clarity of line and texture, the live recording impressively wide in dynamic range if a tad short on atmosphere and bloom. The arrival in the countryside is brisk and bracing, the brook never dawdles along its merry way, the peasants’ dance is bumptious and high-spirited, the thunderstorm rages with hair-raising ferocity, and the plangent, beautifully phrased “Shepherd’s Song” rises to a strong climax. The late Stephen Stucky’s Silent Spring fills out the program, a powerfully expressive suite of four meditations on Rachel Carson’s environmental classic of the same title. The Pittsburgh Symphony play like gods and angels in both works. If a richer, more relaxed and expansive “Pastoral” is desired, try Bernstein/Vienna (DG) or Walter/Columbia (Sony), while Szell/Cleveland (Sony) ideally mediate classical rigor and early romantic ardor. Still, those who’ve liked Honeck’s previous Beethoven needn’t hesitate.

-- The Absolute Sound

After collections celebrating the label’s 40th year that focused on sacred, orchestral, and chamber/soloist music, respectively, Capriccio’s fourth and last Anniversary Box now features the singing stars in the label’s history. There’s that pioneer of ‘counter-tenorism’, Jochen Kowalski, for example. We hear unexpected works from icons like Peter Schreier (with lute accompaniment) and Hermann Prey (singing Operetta music), Italian fare from Alfredo Kraus and Ramón Vargas, and Cecilia Bartoli – discovered and first recorded by Capriccio – in her first (and presumably only) Wagner role! Also opera rarities the kind with which Capriccio made a name for itself – with a cast that would have turned heads even at the finest opera houses.

Classical Music

Recordings like this restore one’s faith in the possibility of true musical greatness. Manfred Honeck conducts this music as do few others today. He’s not afraid to have a good time, nor is he a strict literalist. In his notes he speaks almost apologetically of a couple of liberties he takes–in the judgment scene of Till Eulenspiegel (with the dynamics of the solo clarinet), and at the moment of death just before the coda of transfiguration, where he lets the tam-tam reverberate for a few extra bars – surely what Strauss intended in both cases, even if it’s not exactly what he wrote.

What Honeck doesn’t mention is the added bass drum part in Don Juan, or the extra thud for the same instrument in Till Eulenspiegel. All of this is done quite sensibly, to be honest, but the point is that these and other distinctive touches never sound mannered or gratuitous. Rather, they offer evidence of Honeck’s remarkable engagement with the music, his belief in it, and his willingness to do whatever he deems necessary to realize Strauss’ programmatic vision as vividly as possible. For all of their larger-than-life qualities, Honeck remains sensitive to every dynamic nuance, intricacy of balance, and rhythmic quirk. Every one of these versions ranks with the best available.

The Pittsburgh Symphony plays the living daylights out of this music. Really, is there another group out there today that can play with this kind of bravura? For example, listen to the way that Honeck slows down for the big horn tune in Don Juan (sound clip), and my goodness, how these players make a meal of it! The live sonics are, typically for Reference Recordings, of demonstration quality whether in stereo or 5.1 surround sound, and the audience is almost perfectly silent. This disc is the first in a new partnership between Reference Recordings, Pittsburgh, and Honeck–a rebirth for the label, and a huge victory for serious classical music lovers everywhere.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

“I have realised that, notwithstanding the immense progress we have attained … the questions I have come across in the literature of a nation we refer to as primitive still accompany us. They are the questions of friendship, love and death. In the epic of Gilgamesh, we encounter a very acute and almost anxiously distressful yearning to find the answers, which we have been seeking in vain to the present day.” The music Martinu created during the last decade of his life demonstrates his penchant for religious and spiritual texts. The idea of setting the epic written 4,500 years ago matured in the composer for 15 years. Although differing boldly from the avant-garde of the 1950s, it is an utterly modern piece, reflecting Martinu’s intense interest in Baroque music and the Notre Dame school. The oratorio, premiered on 23 January 1958 in Basel, was a tremendous success. Its performance in Prague in January 2017 by the Czech Philharmonic and a superb international team of soloists, conducted by Manfred Honeck, brought back to life the work’s English version, based on Reginald Campbell Thompson’s translation. The recording, featuring a unique constellation of performers, renders the spiritually profound aspect of Bohuslav Martinu’s work with an exceptional emotionality.