Class Brass - On The Edge

This is one of the most inspirational CD's I have ever listened to. Not only is the playing perfect, the choice in music for the CD is perfect. It provides the listener with several different styles, and yet many similar styles. The group plays the traditional Russian pieces with flair and great musicianship, such as the Stravinsky and the Shostakovich. The main reason that I enjoy this CD is that each player is performing their best for this album. Each player sounds even more amazing than they usually do. I especially enjoy when Sam takes the tuba solo from Russian Sailors' Dance down an octave. Each performer from this group is one of the best in the world on their respective instruments. In conclusion, all I can say is that this CD is amazing. --seangold Listen to samples

Rachmaninov: Concerto No.2/Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini

This is one of the finest performance and recording of these pieces available. Gary Graffman shows his brilliant talent in these interpretations of Rachmaninoff. Far too many think that speed is critical in performing specific passages when in fact patience is required. One may have the skill to play all the notes but lack the talent to perform the music. Graffman performs with nuance and subtlety as well as skill and decision in bringing the souls of these pieces to life.

Highly recommended. (You'll throw your other recordings away after hearing this!) --Rob Smout Listen to samples

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos No. 2 & 3

Byron Janis' celebrated recordings of these two concertos have never sounded better than in this new remastering by Mercury's Wilma Cozart Fine. Talk about recordings usually focuses on the artists and composers, and rightly so, but there are some people in the industry whose names you should know, producers and engineers whose work is as artistically excellent as the performers they record. During the late 50s and early 60s the Fines, husband and wife, created a catalog of recordings, which, when all is said and done, is probably title for title the finest in existence. There isn't a single one that isn't worth hearing, and some, like this one, belong in every collection. --David Hurwitz Listen to samples

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1; Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 [Hybrid SACD]

Both the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1 and the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 are two of my all-time favorite Romantic piano concertos. Van Cliburn's performance is historic making (he was the 1st American to take the Gold Medal in the first Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958). His playing is absolutely brilliant in musicianship, tone, and in capturing the different moods of the piece. This is my favorite performance of this concerto. My second favorite would be that of Martha Argerich's recording in 1972 w/ Charles Dutoit as the conductor.

Equally outstanding is the Rachmaninoff. From the somber and dramatic beginning of the first movement leading to the climactic build-up at the end, Cliburn captures the different moods and dynamics of the work brilliantly. (It's hard to express this in words). The second movement is very touching and the tone in Cliburn's playing is masterful. Van Cliburn's performance rivals that of any other pianist (Artur Rubinstein, Lang Lang, Garrick Ohlsson, etc.)

For other brilliant recordings of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto, I would recommend the following:

Martha Argerich (Deutsch Grammophon) 1971 w/ Charles Dutoit (conductor)
Barry Douglas (RCA Victor Red Seal) w/ Leonard Slatkin (conductor)
Garrick Ohlsson (Hanssler) 1997 (this is also coupled w/ Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2)

For another outstanding recording of the Rachmaninoff, I would highly recommend
Jeno Jando's recording (1988, Naxos label)
Garrick Ohlsson (1997, Hanssler label)

One great advantage of this CD is its low price and its excellent sound quality in the SACD format. Highly recommended!! --moviemusicbuff Listen to samples

Concerto No.2 In C Minor For Piano And Orchestra

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

During the period between 1890 -1895, Rachmaninoff's career as a composer suffered two major setbacks, the failure of the First Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor followed by the equally emphatic failure of his First Symphony. Convinced that he was without talent and, as a result, close to a complete nervous breakdown, Rachmaninoff enlisted the help of a prominent physician by the name of Dr.Dahl. Through the powers of autosuggestion, Dr. Dahl succeeded in restoring the composer's shattered confidence and the will to compose

The second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was written in this period of revived self-confidence and appropriately the concerto was dedicated to Dr.Dahl. The second and third movements were composed and performed with great success pior to the completion of the concerto.

The first movement was assed in 1901 and the premier performance of the entire concerto was given on October 27, 1901 with the composer as sololist with the Moscow Philharmonic Society. The concerto was a triumph and assured Rachmaninoff's reputation as a composer throughout the world of music.

FESTIVE OVERTURE, OP.96

Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

“Festive Overture” was written in 1954 between the Tenth Symphony and the violin Concerto. The American premier of the Overture was given by the Utah Symphony Orchestra, Maurice Abravanel conducting, on November 16, 1955.

Despite the pomposity of the opening fanfares and the brass build-up just before the final presto, the character of the composition is exactly what the title claims : a joyous opener. Many precedents in Russian music from Glinka’s “Russian and Ludmilla Overture” to Kabalevsky’s “Colas Bruegnon Overture” can be found for this overture but it has its own contemporary roots and serves as an excellent curtain raiser by one of the great contemporary composers. Shop here

PIANO CONCERTO IN G MAJOR

Marrice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

Maurice Ravel is another French composer, of Basque descent on his mother side, whose family moved to Paris when he was three months old. He entered the Conservatoire in 1889 to study the piano with Beriot and composition with Gabriel Faure. From his earliest works, composed in the late teens, his maturity of style and use of unorthodox harmonies were regarded with suspicion by the academics of the day, and he was repeatedly denied the highest award in the Prix de Rome. The last occasion was in 1905, when his elimination at the preliminary stage caused such an uproar that the director of the Conservatoire was forced to resign. He is today best known for the inescapable Bolero, a piece for orchestra without music, as he himself described.

The Piano Concerto in G major, on which the composer worked for two years, was completed in time for the Festival Ravel at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, and first played there January 14, 1932, with publication the same year. The composer conducted the premiere, with Marguerite Long as soloist, to whom the concerto is dedicated. There are three movements: Allegramente, Adagio assai and Presto. Ravel himself called this concerto the complete expression of his own development as a composer, and stated that he had put the best of himself into the music.

Ravel once called his G major Concerto a concerto in the strict sense, written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saens. He added, less paradoxically, “I believe that a concerto can be gay and brilliant, and that there is no necessity for it to aim at profundity or big dramatic effects. It has been said that the concertos of some great classical composers were written not for but against the piano, and I think that this criticism is quite justified.”

I. Allegramente. The gossamer lightness of the opening, with its sparky little tune for piccolo solo against shimmering bitonal arpeggios for the piano, soft string tremolos, pizzicatos, and a scarcely audible roll of the side drum, is an effect to remember. Hardly has the piccolo introduced the melody when it is taken up by a glittering trumpet solo, and it returns again to cap the climax of the brilliant first movement.

II. Adagio assai. The slow movement begins with a long nocturne-like solo for unaccompanied piano. The ease with which the melody seems to flow may be misleading, for Ravel has told us that the constructed it very la laboriously, two bars at a time, taking the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet as a model.

III. Presto. The finale is a dazzling piece of virtuosity for the sololist with light-textured, witty orchestral accompaniment. The many fragments of American jazz idiom are easier to hear than the alleged rondo form of the finale. In any case, the entire conclusion flies at such supersonic speed that it seems to finish before it has started. Listen to samples