This selection is a HDCD (High Definiteion Compact Disc) recording.

All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

Winner of the 2014 Blues Music Awards' 'Best Acoustic Artist' and 'Best Acoustic Album,' Doug MacLeod is a unique, powerful guitarist with a rich and soulful voice, singing original songs based on his own life. This is 'Genuine Original Acoustic Music' at it's very best!

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts features the new and exciting period-instrument ensemble Baroque Nouveau (Charles Sherman, harpsichord; Anthony Martin, violin; Stephen Schultz, baroque flute; and Josh Lee, viola da gamba). All of these superb musicians perform with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and other specialist groups.

This repertoire is a collection of Rameau's most appealing, tuneful compositions with improvisational embellishments galore! We recorded this project in June 2008 at famed Skywalker Sound. - Reference Recordings

An adventurous program of European masterworks for flute and guitar from scintillating young artists Viviana Guzman and Jeremy Jouve, captured brilliantly by Grammy®-winning recording engineer Keith O. Johnson. A winner for all audiophiles and music lovers! This album is a musical journey full of emotion, from the soothing and mellow music of Fauré and Satie, and the driving excitement of “Bolero” and “Carmen,” to thrilling modern music by Dyens, Duplessy, and Ourkouzounov.

Described by the New York Times as “an imaginative artist,” Chilean-born flutist, Viviana Guzmán performs over 80 concerts a year throughout the world. She has been featured on programs for PBS, NBC, and NPR, seen on the cover of Latina Style Magazine, and in COSMOPOLITAN en Español and has played in 118 countries including South Africa, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Bali, India, Peru, and Greece featuring flutes from her collection of over 100 gathered from concert tours.

2 CDs for the price of 1!
These discs were previously issued separately as Reference Recordings RR-64CD and RR-74CD

These celebrated HDCD recordings were greeted with critical raves when first released. American Romantic George Chadwick wrote music full of orchestral color and wide dynamic range. The Symphonic Sketches have long been an audiophile favorite, but have been sorely in need of a new, top-quality recording. Aphrodite, Tam O‘Shanter, Melpomene and the other works have equally appealing qualities.

R E V I E W S

"This is warmly recommended for fine rare repertoire and typically sprung, lively sound with power and subtlety aplenty."
- MusicWeb International

"The Suite symphonique (1909) sounds surprisingly like Elgar, especially in this key, since both composers drew on similar continental sources... Aphrodite (1912) is a full-blown, half-hour symphonic poem based on a classical Greek statue taken to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Chadwick imagined the events which must have occurred around the harbour where the goddess had stood witness for centuries and he constructed a set of eight scenes based on love, death and the sea. The Suite symphonique is rooted in early Wagner, but Aphrodite draws with equal conviction on Tristan or even Franck. Horatio Parker was Chadwick’s pupil – he finally sent him to Rheinberger – and Ives’s teacher at Yale. The Elegy is dignified and restrained, a New Englander’s expression of grief.
Chadwick was not an original composer. In many ways he exemplified the Germanic subservience that Charles Ives hated and later generations of Americans went to Paris to avoid. But what tips the balance in his favour here is the outstanding quality of these performances under Serebrier, brilliantly recorded too. Everything Chadwick imagines comes off and the music seems more personal with repeated hearings."
- Peter Dickinson, GRAMOPHONE
(from review of original release of RR-74)

"This is a definitive set of Chadwick’s best-loved orchestral showpieces. The sound on the reissue – like that of the originals – is ravishing, especially that of massed violins. Dynamics are first-rate. If you love American classical music or need a new sonic spectacular to test our system’s dynamics, this double dose of orchestral Chadwick just might be what you’ve been looking for." – Jim Saxon, soundstage.com

"The performances under the experienced Jose Serebrier are first-rate, and the recording conveys both detail and a sense of space." --Anthony Burton, BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

"Reference Recordings have shown real fidelity to the creativity of Jose Serebrier. Not only that they have encouraged him in some tangy and imaginative repertoire but now some of there earliest projects are being reissued as twofers. [Chadwick] is warmly recommended for fine rare repertoire and typically sprung, lively sound with power and subtlety aplenty." --Rob Barnett, Classical Music on the Web

Reference Classics: First Sampling

The Utah Symphony, celebrating its 75th anniversary in the 2015-2016 season, is one of America’s major symphony orchestras and a leading cultural organization in the Inter-mountain West. It is recognized internationally for its distinctive performances, commitment to music education programs, and recording legacy. Reference Recordings is pleased to announce the release of this new and fresh performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. This work was performed as part of the orchestra’s two-year Mahler Symphony Cycle.

Reviews:

This recording celebrates 75 years of superb orchestral work from the Utah Symphony and it is nice to see them back on record. It’s also nice to see an SACD from that bastion of audio excellence, Reference Recordings… Young conductor Thierry Fischer also proves himself a fine Mahlerian…this is a very competitive issue done by superb partners on each side of the microphone, and is easily recommended.

– Audiophile Audition ( Steven Ritter)

It is tempting to dismiss yet another Mahler First entering a crowded market as simply not needed. In this case it would be a mistake because this does offer something special in several respects. First and most important, a reminder that the Utah Symphony Orchestra is clearly still a splendid band for whom this complex work, with which they have a long recorded history, offers no terrors. Conducted briskly by their well established Music Director Thierry Fischer, these players respond with as rhythmically vital a performance as you could wish to hear. Tempi are a little faster than the norm but compared with some of the great Mahlerians like Abbado, Walter and Bernstein, Fischer is little different in terms of timings. He is different in approach, encouraging a dance-like quality from music where we are used to more pauses for introspection. One could support his upbeat view by reference to Mahler's own programmes but since the composer admitted these were often written after the music as a means for audiences to access it more easily, we will avoid such quotation. For whatever reason, Mahler's 'Titan' is often presented as positive. For example, the first movement has lots of characterful and very rhythmic woodwind playing, a sort of Mahlerian jam-session. It is a perfectly valid view. The second movement is in any case rhythmic, here it becomes more so, encouraged by Fischer's brisk tempi. It is an exciting virtuoso display. I have one small but significant criticism of the third movement. The double-bass solo is much too well played. There is none of the straining that Mahler must have expected. He could not have predicted how good modern players would become. As a result the theme gets a rather too sophisticated presentation. The explosive opening of the finale, helped by a very present bass drum and gong, pins one back in one's seat just as it should. The mystery and angst others find in this music is replaced by a lively and confident traversal through Mahler's teeming ideas ending with an eruption of sound that must have stimulated loud cheers from the Utah audiences but which the engineers have excluded for the home listener. Since the hall resonance has time to fade away this is either a 'patch' job, or the audience were asked for restraint.

The recording level is quite high but with digital media this doesn't matter. The Soundmirror engineers, long famous for their skill, have captured a convincing concert hall acoustic and though extra microphones were used beyond the five main ones, it does have a feeling of reality not often captured. Finally the notes are well written, detailed, extensive, give historic context and, thank you notes editor, printed in a readable size font.

– MusicWeb International (Dave Billinge)

R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190 & Interludes fr

Fiesta!

BACH Fantasia and Fugue in g, BWV 542. Sheep May Safely Graze. Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C, BWV 564. St. Matthew Passion: Finale. Prelude and Fugue in a, BWV 543. Air on a G String. Prelude and Fugue in D, BWV 532. I Call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ • Virgil Fox (org) • REFERENCE 107 (66:19) Live: San Francisco 9/1976


From Professor Keith Johnson, the man committed to producing state-of-the-art vinyl recordings, who once claimed his company would never succumb to the siren call of CDs, comes this 24-bit HDCD transfer of a live recital given by Virgil Fox on the Ruffatti pipe organ and the Rodgers “Royal V” touring organ in San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Cathedral.


Virgil Fox remains a controversial figure in serious organ circles. Often looked upon as the Liberace of organists, Fox was noted for his flamboyant style and an approach to his craft that often put theatrics above respect for the composers whose music he played. The story, quite possibly apocryphal, is told of a visit Fox paid to the Wurlitzer electric organ factory. VIP that he was, he was conducted on a tour of the facility by the president of the company himself. At tour’s end, Fox was escorted into a sealed, temperature-controlled room that contained a pipe from an actual pipe organ. The president proudly announced that the pipe was used as a standard against which Wurlitzer’s organs were measured. To which Fox replied, “Fancy that, a real organ pipe in an electric organ factory! That’s like finding bird poop in a cuckoo clock!”


Not that Fox ever showed much discernment for the instruments he played on. His was a phenomenal technique often wedded in equal proportion to excess and lack of taste. His last years in particular, devoted to his “Heavy Organ” concerts and psychedelic light shows, were especially sad; though in his defense it could be said that he exposed many young people of that generation (the late 1960s and early 1970s)—even if it was through a haze of pot smoke—to the world of classical music.


This will not be a CD for those who take a serious view of the organ in general or of Bach’s masterpieces for the instrument in particular. But no one can take away from Fox his virtuosity or his showmanship. Nor can anyone take away from this recording its astonishing presence and stunning sound. For an organ spectacular to impress friends and alienate neighbors, recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Portland, Oregon roots artist Lloyd Jones has recorded six critically acclaimed albums, toured internationally, and racked up dozens of major awards and accolades. Many roots heavyweights, not to mention legions of CD-buying fans, sing his praises. Jones is a master of the soulful understatement, the raw growl, and the groove. From his roots in muddy Oregon soil, he’s forged a 30-plus-year career as an impassioned singer and fierce guitar slinger, a clever and soulful songwriter, bandleader, record producer, and an almost strident torchbearer for all that’s true and good about America’s music.

Reference Recordings is pleased to present the second release in the series from the PaTRAM Institute, rising stars whose debut album on our label, Chesnokov: Teach Me Thy Statutes, has recently garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance. The music performed on this new recording of Russian Orthodox choral music in the English language was written by Dr. Kurt Sander. Conductor Peter Jermihov writes: “The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Kurt Sander is unique in several respects. Within the body of repertoire contained in the Russian-based jurisdictions of North America, it is the first and only complete setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English. Rooted in the 19th Century Russian models of such masters as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff, and others, Sander’s Liturgy grows out of the monumental choral edifices of these masters and rightfully belongs in their midst.”

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REVIEW:

Within the body of repertoire contained in the Russian-based jurisdictions of North America, it is the first and only complete setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English. Rooted in the 19th Century Russian models of such masters as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff, and others, Sander’s Liturgy grows out of the monumental choral edifices of these masters and rightfully belongs in their midst.

– WFMT-FM (98.7 FM), Chicago, IL (Lisa Flynn)

Thrilling live performances from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in brilliant audiophile sound! This release is planned as the first in a series of multi-channel hybrid SACD recordings on FRESH! from Reference Recordings. Several additional recordings for the PITTSBURGH LIVE! series are already completed and we expect to release two per year. - Reference Recordings (2014)

"This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.

Arnold, as a lapsed trumpet player, seems a natural for the brass band. And so it proves here in a collection that some may have wondered about simply because of the US origin of the performers. Point 1: this is a stunning performance and is recorded to match: lots of bass extension and raspberry ripe tone for the blatant moments and plenty of subtlety for the poetry. Point 2: if any music is to survive and succeed internationally it needs to find acceptance amongst the best in other countries and so it proves here.
This is a generous collection and is well worth adding to your Arnold collection. Those who love the symphonies and the film music need not feel short-changed or put off. The music is played not for brass band specialists (this is after all for wind symphony anyway!) but for lovers of good music and especially of Arnold's gorgeous tunesmithery."
Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International