In this expert, sweet-toned and affectionate music-making, Galway and friends audibly enjoy themselves hugely, responding to Arnold's idiomatic and resourceful writing as to the manner born.

In this expert, sweet-toned and affectionate music-making, these fine artists audibly enjoy themselves hugely, responding to Arnold's idiomatic and resourceful writing as to the manner born. I especially enjoyed Galway and friends in the sparkling early Three Shanties for wind quintet (written in 1943 for the composer's LPO colleagues) and the delicious Divertimento for flute, oboe and clarinet (1953). Cast in six pithy movements (and masterfully played here), the latter piece contains invention of great freshness and charm, with definite echoes of the English Dances from the same period.

In the wistful central Andante of the First Flute Concerto (1954), Sir Neville Marriner and his beautifully prepared Academy strings provide a poignant backdrop to Galway's ravishing playing, and this music's kinship with the great slow movement of Arnold's Second Symphony (completed the previous year) is most perceptively brought out. In fact, the performances of both concertos strike me as probably the best we've had since dedicatee Richard Adeney's admirable 1979 versions (now restored on an well-filled Eminence release devoted to six of Arnold's wind and brass concertos). Galway himself was, of course, the lucky recipient of the Flute Sonata (whose première he gave at the 1977 Cardiff Festival), and he and Philip Mull do full justice to this work's entrancing mix of lyricism (the lilting Andantino centrepiece boasts a particularly indelible main idea) and exhilarating virtuosity.

Recording quality is nicely integrated, too, with Galway never overprominently balanced, though Moll's piano can sound just a touch rough in its lowest reaches. A delightful anthology all the same.

-- Gramophone [4/1998]

Track Listing
1. Samba Cantina - Paul Desmond
2. Our Waltz - Gary Burton
3. I'll Take Romance - Dominique Eade
4. Isfahan - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
5. Sweet Lorraine - Coleman Hawkins/Henry "Red" Allen
6. Lazy River - Hoagy Carmichael
7. Petals Danse - Tom Harrell
8. My Ship - Sonny Rollins
9. Blues for Bessie - Bud Powell
10. After the Rain - Don Braden

Personnel: Dominique Eade, Hoagy Carmichael (vocals); Romero Lubambo (guitar, acoustic guitar); Everett Barksdale, Jim Hall, Peter Leitch (guitar); Joe Venuti, Regina Carter (violin); Ron Lawrence (viola); Akua Dixon (cello); Greg Tardy, Jimmy Dorsey, Buster Bailey (clarinet); Johnny Hodges (saxophone, alto saxophone); Don Braden (saxophone, tenor saxophone); Paul Desmond (alto saxophone); Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Benny Golson (tenor saxophone); Tom Harrell (trumpet, flugelhorn); Henry "Red" Allen (trumpet); Tommy Dorsey (trombone); Duke Ellington, George Colligan, Herbie Hancock, Marty Napoleon, Bud Powell (piano); Gary Burton (vibraphone); Dwayne Burno, George Duvivier (acoustic bass); Connie Kay, Cozy Cole, Joe Morello, Matt Wilson , Roy McCurdy, Art Taylor (drums).

Recording information: New York, NY (11/30/1930-??/??/1997).

Arranger: Dominique Eade.

"Toscanini's scintillating reading of this music is legendary. The sound is old and cramped, but after a few moments under Toscanini's spell, you forget its limitations." - Herbert Russcol, ( La Mer) Guide to Low-Priced Classical Records, 1968

"One had thought it impossible that every detail should emerge quite so clearly, without to some extent impairing the sweep and surge and swell of this marvelous music." - Edward Sackville-West, ( La Mer) The Record Guide

ARTHUR FIEDLER'S SINFONIETTA

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 26 -

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 3 -

Moonchild's Dream

BEETHOVEN: STRING QUARTETS TO

RCA RED SEAL CENTURY - VOCALIS

Few things are as much fun as big orchestral favorites performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of the legendary Arthur Fiedler. This program, part of the RCA Living Stereo series, features splashy orchestral showpieces by Prokofiev, Liszt and Chopin.
Prokofiev's suite from his opera 'Love for Three Oranges' gets things off to a rousing start. Fiedler and his orchestra revel in the color and grotesque wit of Prokofiev's colorful score. Special note should be paid to the orchestra's sensitive playing in "Le prince et la princesse." Chopin's 'Les sylphides' is one of the most popular scores in the classical dance repertoire. On this recording, the delicate orchestrations of Leroy Anderson and Peter Bodge give the orchestra an opportunity to shine. Each dance is skillfully rendered and Fiedler gives the music ample room to breath. Two grand tone poems by Franz Liszt, 'Les préludes' and 'Mazeppa' round out the program. Fiedler and company are brilliant in 'Les préludes,' grasping the work's heroic soul without resorting to bombast. The RCA engineers provide startlingly vivid sound that is still of audiophile quality nearly forty years later.

STALIN COCKTAIL VLADIMIR SPIV

TCHAIKOVSKY: ROMEO & JULIET, S

This recording received a 1998 "Critic's Choice" award from Gramophone magazine.

Both pianists have the harmonic sense which causes Messiaen's chords to glow like the stained-glass which he numbers as one of the influences on his music.

Peter Serkin's devotion to Messiaen's music is rather like his father, Rudolf's, about forty years ago, to Max Reger. (Inclusion of the Variations and Fugue on BACH at his first Wigmore recital won him an audience which could be counted on the fingers of two hands.) This shows the other side to the young pianist who has recently recorded a substantial number of Mozart piano concertos. His Japanese partner sounds an equally committed Messiaenist. The result is a really stunning account of the cycle. A burning intensity informs it throughout. Both pianists have the harmonic sense which causes Messiaen's chords to glow like the stained-glass which he numbers as one of the influences on his music. Very, very faint echoes and pre-echoes do not really mar an unusually full, bright and rich recorded piano tone, with Messiaen's birds chirruping away in the heights and his sonorous bells and their resonances enveloping the listener as they should.

-- Gramophone [11/1974]

Recorded in 1967.

Altoist Johnny Hodges is heard in three different settings on this reissue CD. Such top swing stars as trumpeters Ray Nance, Cat Anderson and Roy Eldridge, trombonists Buster Cooper, Lawrence Brown and Benny Powell, tenors Paul Gonsalves and Jimmy Hamilton, baritonist Harry Carney, pianists Hank Jones and Jimmy Jones (the latter two sometimes together), guitarists Tiny Grimes, Les Spann and Billy Butler, bassists Milt Hinton, Aaron Bell and Joe Benjamin and drummers Gus Johnson, Rufus Jones and Oliver Jackson are heard in nonets with the great altoist. Despite the many changes in personnel, the music is pretty consistent, with basic swinging originals, blues and ballads all heard in equal proportion. As usual, Johnny Hodges ends up as the main star.

-- Scott Yanow, AllMusic.com