I'm not often enticed by cover art, but I have to admit this one did it to me. Seeing that big basset-clarinet up close to a normal clarinet was so fascinating (having never seen one in person) that I had to give this disc a try. And Mark van de Wiel, being the principal clarinet of the Philharmonia, sealed the deal.

And it's a mixed bag, I'm afraid.

Beginning with the Phibbs Concerto, I read in the wonderful booklet that it was written for (along with a "creative friendship" with) our soloist. It was premiered with the Philharmonia in November 2017 and this recording was made shortly after. And what a wonderful, fresh, energetic creation it is! It is structured in an ambitious 4-movement layout and is expertly and colorfully orchestrated. The first two movements are very reminiscent of Copland's more famous clarinet concerto. Yet it possesses such a unique voice (and colorful orchestration) the Copland flavor simply brought smile after smile while listening. Then with the Adagio, and especially the finale, Phibbs establishes a more original and secure individuality. While the preceding is decidedly American-esque, the remainder sounds firmly French. The Adagio often reminds me of Henri Tomasi (specifically his glorious saxophone concerto), while the finale takes it another daring step further into the realm of Connesson, with its dazzling virtuosity for both soloist and orchestra. 

The playing here is simply fabulous. This is a studio recording but sounds for all the world like a live performance, with its effortless spontaneity and unbuttoned exuberance. There is a sense of occasion and an ever-present feeling of new discovery. It is also spectacularly recorded, with the orchestra given thrilling presence.

The Mozart, unfortunately, is not as satisfactory. It was recorded "live", with a different orchestra in a different hall. It is well played and the London Chamber Orchestra is incisive and alert. But there is a touch of the routine in Mr. van de Wiel's playing. But what spoiled it for me was his propensity for showing off those low notes of his basset-clarinet. He honks them out with unnecessary force, disrupting the melodic line and sounding quite out of character for Mozart. I guess I should have expected such ostentation, given the cover art; but Mozart's glorious score must still be given top priority. I suppose signum classics might be partly to blame, as the  soloist is very closely mic'd. However, the sound of his clarinet overall does not strike me as outrageously spot-lit throughout most of its range. But every low note honks out unnaturally. Maybe the soloist leans in toward the mic as he plummets down there. Or is he trying much too hard to fill the hall with sound? Who knows. Regardless, this Mozart didn't do it for me. And it is instantly followed by rapturous applause, which I certainly could have done without.

This disc is worth it for the glorious Phibbs concerto. But if your main interest is with the Mozart, I'd turn to any number of other recordings of that. 

I haven't reviewed many discs this summer - for a variety of reasons (stereo issues, mainly). Now that things are getting back to normal, it's time to get back to what I love. Starting off with this ridiculous bunch of nonsense on DG's latest "star-marketed" album doesn't get me motivated, I'm afraid. But here it is - short and very sweet. ​

I'm scratching my head trying to comprehend why John Williams participated in this mess. He doesn't need the money; he doesn't need the fame; he doesn't need the exposure. He certainly doesn't need a job! So then why would he stoop to a project requiring him to make syrupy sweet, elevator Musak arrangements of all these wonderful tunes? 

I guess DG should be admired for making it happen. Because there is not a whit of musical value to it. I personally could not listen to much of it. It's like eating chocolate mouse, followed by chocolate cake and finishing the meal with chocolate cream pie. It's so sickeningly sweet, it's simply nauseating. And Mutter's slow, wide, sea-sick vibrato only increases the urge to hurl. 

John Williams is my hero. He's one of my very favorite composers - ever. I probably listen to more John Williams music on the stereo than any other composer - certainly more than any other living composer. And yet this CD just makes me sick to my stomach. But people will buy it and go "Ga-Ga" over it because it's John Williams and it's Anne-Sophie Mutter, who they think they're supposed to just love. But I just can't. 

DG, good job; you'll make your "classical" quota this quarter. Mr. Williams, I'm shocked you had any part of this. Dear readers, do not waste your money or support/encourage this kind of trash.

​These fantastic Dohynanyi/Vienna Stravinsky and Bartok recordings have been reissued many times before (on Decca and Eloquence). For once, they are worth the repeated appearances. They are magnificent in every way - exciting, colorful, atmospheric, superbly played and spectacularly recorded.

If this Eloquence release seems familiar, it is - sort of. The Dohnanyi items were issued separately on 2 Eloquence CDs in 2004. For this current release, Eloquence has helpfully combined them as a two-fer, and had the brilliant idea of adding Maazel's 1974 Rite of Spring. This addition brings together all 3 famous Stravinsky ballets, plus the Bartok, making this a very attractive and extremely generous bargain. Indeed, the playing times are 80'33 and 79'31!

One remark about Maazel's 1974 Rite: this is somewhat of a rarity. To my knowledge, it is has only been issued on CD in Decca's massive box set of every Rite of Spring Decca/DG ever recorded. (That is a splendid collection, by the way!) To have it here, separated from a 20-disc set, is cause for excitement. It is a splendid performance, in great sound. I prefer this one over his subsequent recordings of the piece. It is more natural and less over-the-top, yet still splendidly full of drama, color and spectacle. And it is superbly played by the Vienna Philharmonic. The vintage 1970s Decca sound is typical of that era - with some minor spotlighting, but yet natural enough.

Hopefully, these Dohnanyi recordings are well-known to most collectors. If not, they should be. Not only are they among the very best (certainly some of the most exciting) of this repertoire ever committed to disc, they're also some of best recorded. And for those who are often disappointed with the inaudible organ contribution in most Miraculous Mandarines - you are in for a real treat with this one. Wow.

I have enjoyed Volumes 1 and 2 in this series from Chandos, with some notable exceptions. But Volume 3 will be my last. (Please see my reviews for the earlier volumes below.)
​
So here's how it's going:
Volume 1 - thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end (well, with the exception of the Marimba Concerto). Beautifully played and recorded.
Volume 2 - a mixed bag. Some more of the richly atmospheric, lyrical expression heard in Volume 1, plus some atonal nonsense in the form of his Symphony #2. And there's a truly disappointing performance of the saxophone concerto, played with unpleasant tone by a poorly chosen soloist. Recording quality becomes questionable and variable.
Now comes Volume 3, which is more of RRB's atonal serialism we heard in the symphony on Vol 2. Ugh.

His Symphony #1 begins with an unpleasant, unmusical, uninteresting motif and it continues similarly for 22 long minutes. I'm certainly glad RRB eventually outgrew this phase. But I'm not glad Chandos has decided to subject us to it.

Zodiak (symphonic poem) is more of the same - atonal, but not quite so "serial-ist"; not quite the obvious "paint-by-numbers" formula heard in the first two symphonies. More tolerable, and rather more pleasant, is Reflections for String Orchestra, which was written for our conductor here, John Wilson. But surprisingly, I found this reading of it to be rather reserved and uninvolving. One would have thought Mr. Wilson would have poured his heart and soul into this one, being its dedicatee and all. But nope. I found it curiously unmoving. I didn't listen to the vocal selection, as that is simply not my thing, even under the best of circumstances.

The sound is good in the traditional Chandos manner, especially in SACD. But I'm over Richard Rodney Bennett now. Mr. Wilson (and Chandos), please move on to something else.

I do not normally review audio equipment on this blog, but a recent acquisition of a new power conditioner prompted me to inform others of my experience with it.

​I was excited when AudioQuest announced this unit and its bigger brother, the PowerQuest 3, both of which are affordable alternatives to their big-boy power conditioners in the Niagara line. But, alas, as with everything, you get what you pay for.

This unit ($200) is all plastic, as to be expected at this price point. But it comes with its own, captive power cord. On one hand, this saves you the expense of buying an after-market cord; but on the other, also prevents you from upgrading it to something better. I was pleased though to find it was a custom-made AudioQuest cord with a 3x14 awg rating. That's pretty impressive on such a relatively inexpensive unit, and should provide the necessary current for a complete home theater system. It has an on/off switch and a reset button, which protects the unit in the event it is tripped by an actual surge/spike.

What makes this unit so enticing is that it offers: 
1) a high current outlet, which is very useful for those with a high output amp or receiver; and 
2) a special plug specifically filtered for a high-def (4K) television. The owner's pamphlet states this plug may be beneficial for blu-ray players as well. I did not try it with a disc player, but it seemed to work wonders for the crispness of picture and richness of colors on my 55" Samsung TV.

This unit did not fare nearly as well on sound, though. Right out of the box, it was ill-focused, dark, muddy and dynamically polite, which can be expected from a brand new unit. And, sure enough, after several days of constant use, it began to open up and dynamics and focus improved considerably. Unfortunately, what began as a rather dark sonic character eventually lightened up too far in the opposite direction. The resultant sonic palette was rather gray and washed out, lacking warmth and richness. It was refined and had a pleasant perspective (not too forward, not too laid back), but lacked fullness, color and real power. I attribute this to its inherently lean sound. Deep bass was tight but light. This overall sound did not benefit full symphony orchestra recordings or movies.

Worst of all, however, I eventually began hearing distortion here and there on a variety of movies and CDs, which worsened as time went on. Combined with its thin sound, I began to suspect something was amiss. I removed the unit and upon close examination, I discovered a 1" long, deep cut in its power cord, which went all the way through to the wires inside. I do not know how detrimental this defect was to its overall sound, but I can state with almost certainty it was causing the distortion I was hearing (which went away completely once I removed this unit).​

It's disheartening to realize that even a reputable company like AudioQuest can fail at quality control. This is a serious defect which is, frankly, unacceptable. I returned the unit back to Amazon and received a full refund. I may consider AudioQuest's new Niagara 1200 power conditioner, coming in April, 2019. For $995, I expect it would be a significantly better-sounding unit. However, I now have reservations about AudioQuest, particularly as it is well known that much of their product offering is made in China these days. And their quality control can suffer as a result.
​
Incidentally, the only difference between this unit and its more expensive sibling, the PowerQuest 3 ($300), is the number of outlets. The "3" offers two high current and two HD TV plugs, along with the identical 4 standard plugs. 

UPDATE 03/30/19 - AudioQuest commented on my review - as posted on Amazon.com - and offered sincere regrets for the problem I encountered. More importantly, they also kindly pointed out there is a significant difference between the PowerQuest 2 and PowerQuest 3, other than just the additional plugs I noted above. On the 4 standard plugs, the PQ3 provides "Ultra-Linear" filtering, while the PQ2 offers just "Linear" filtering. Not knowing what this means, I did a little research and found that "Ultra Linear" provides both Common-Mode AND Differential-Mode filters, while "Linear" is just the Differential-mode circuit. I cannot say how much this additional filtering will affect the overall sound, but theoretically, the PQ3 should offer better performance than the 2. And the extra circuit accounts in large part for the additional $100 in cost. 

​After being so impressed with two previous releases from this source (conductor, orchestra, record label), namely those of the music of Shostakovich and Stravinsky, I found their Debussy surprisingly disappointing. In La Mer and Iberia, competition is fierce. And despite sumptuous SACD sound from the magnificent team at Pentatone, the result here is distinctly "blah". Gimeno goes for an overly sonorous, homogeneous sound above all else. String articulation and pizzicatos are so smooth and buried in the mix, much of it is inaudible. The overall sound palette fatally obscures details and seriously diminishes power, involvement and excitement. This is most detrimental in the final sections of both works, where the adrenaline simply fails to flow and climaxes simply refuse to expand. It's a real pity too, especially in La Mer, which begins most promisingly. I enjoyed the 1st two movements very much. They possess beautifully expressive playing, have good momentum and enough detail to be interesting. But then in the 3rd movement, concentration sags and the orchestra remains steadfastly earthbound and limp. 

Even in Iberia, characterization of mood is minimized and the listener instead wallows in dark, rich sound. One is left completely unmoved. It's kind of like eating a meal comprised only of chocolate cake and fudge and no main course. After awhile, even chocolate isn't appealing. And while it's a shame there was room on the disc for only the central Iberia section from Images for Orchestra, rather than the entire piece, it's probably just as well with such low voltage. The present program lasts 78 minutes.

Not that any of us needed yet another Iberia anyway. Thus, the real attraction here are the new orchestrations of Images for Piano (Book One only) and Six Epigraphes antiques. The former was done at the commission of this orchestra by the enormously talented Colin Matthews. The latter by Rudolf Escher (not to be confused with a previous orchestration by Ernst Ansermet). Both are fascinatingly impressive in how very much they sound like Debussy's own orchestral writing. They certainly in way improve upon the piano originals, but they are interesting and completely satisfying. Gimeno's misty textures and slow-moving tempos suit these dreamy works much better than in the more famous orchestral works contained on this program.

In sum, sumptuous sound is the predominate characteristic here. Involvement, excitement and power are in very short supply. (If only Gimeno had brought forth some of the energy from his fabulous Stravinsky and Shostakovich sessions.) But the rare and fascinating orchestrations included here are enticing. Unfortunately, they only account for about 30 minutes of this disc. 

​As performances, I rather like these. They are youthful, zestful, well-articulated and energetic. They do lack some of the inner joy which should be found in Haydn. But, other than the sour oboe (why was this tolerated so often in orchestras from this era?), the orchestra plays well. But there is a snag.

There is a reason these are just now making their first appearance on CD. Frankly, they sound terrible. They were recorded at 3 different sessions, in 2 different halls. It's so interesting that a change to a different hall didn't improve the sound. It just made it different. And equally bad.

Symphonies #44, 46 and 49 were recorded in George Watson's College (Scotland) in what sounds like their gymnasium. And I'm not joking or being sarcastic. It is an outrageously over-reverberant, bath-tubby acoustic which was in no way mitigated by the recording engineer. Worse, there is a bounce-back of the acoustic being fed back into the mics from the back of the hall, just behind the beat, almost to the point of an echo. Add to this the thin, hissy string sound and buzzy reeds and we've got an almost unlistenable recording. I frankly am shocked Eloquence actually lists a Remastering Engineer, implying they made an effort to remaster this disaster. But they also dutifully list the original recording engineers, who surely enjoyed very short careers after this.

The other symphonies, #45, 47 and 48, were recorded in Henry Wood Hall, which should have been an improvement. And regarding the outlandish reverberation, it is. But now, all sense of air, space and the acoustic itself have been smothered. The orchestra here sounds muffled, congested and woefully claustrophobic. And energy level has also dropped several notches.

I've been a strong proponent of the Eloquence label. It has brought to market hundreds of wonderful releases, often of rare and neglected recordings, all freshly remastered in fabulous sound. Hearing this latest release (and seeing the lists of others titles in recent months), one wonders if they have reached the end, scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the label going. I sure hope not. But this one is an absolute stinker. And it's a pity, because the readings are actually quite good. But the egregious sonics prevent any kind of a recommendation. 

Petatone's new star conductor, Gustavo Gimeno, is turning out to be a bright light in the firmaments and a true find for the good folks at Pentatone. This conductor first caught my attention with a fantastic 2017 Shostakovich collection, which includes an absolutely splendid 1st Symphony. Their Ravel complete Daphnis and Chole awaits my attention in the stack, but this new Stravinsky set captured my immediate interest and thus rose to the top of the must-listen-to discs.

Let's get the caveats out of the way first. 

What instantly attracted me to this set was the inclusion of the lesser-recorded ballets, Jeu de Cartes (Game of Cards) and Agon. Both are totally genius mid-life Stravinsky, and a most-welcome change from the earlier, more famous ballets. Also included is the enchanting and alluring Concerto in D (a "Sinfonietta" for Strings in all but name), and the newly discovered Funeral Song from 1909, which received its premier recording last year from Chailly and Decca. The caveat? Well, I was dismayed to see yet another Rite of Spring, especially considering everything but that would have neatly fit onto one generously filled, innovative disc (70 minutes). But by insisting upon including the ubiquitous Rite, the program had to be spread onto two much less generously filled, full-priced discs. 

I suppose the producers determined the Rite just HAD to be included here for two reasons: 1) Pentatone's recent Rite offering from Andres Orozco-Estrada was a routine, perfunctory reading which sorely needed to be improved upon, and, 2) the Rite sells records and Agon doesn't. I get that. Fortunately, as it turns out, this Rite is mostly excellent (more below), so I guess I can accept paying for two discs rather than just one.

The second caveat is regarding the recording itself. The works on these discs were recorded in two different sessions, months apart - and that is apparent from disc to disc. Disc one is transferred at a significantly lower volume than is disc two, thus losing some sheer impact in the Rite. It's also less spacious and presents a flatter perspective, with less hall ambiance. As a matter of fact, I even hear some odd balances, perhaps from carelessly placed microphones. For example, the trombones and clarinets (and violas, at times) are thrillingly projected in the mix, while the percussion and trumpets are backwardly balanced and rather weak - which is not beneficial in The Rite of Spring! Another more serious drawback to this otherwise splendid Rite is the bass drum, which plays such an important role all through the work - and not just in the slam-to-the-gut blasts, but also in the many pianissimo sections where it should add a delicious "pillowy" shutter of color (e.g. the "Spring Rounds" in the First Part, and the opening of the Second). As recorded here, it sounds like it's a large empty cardboard box being struck ("thud"). And the pianissimo "puffs" are inaudible. Otherwise, this Rite is nearly perfectly conceived, with perfectly chose tempos and a thrilling feel of the dance. Overall it is fast, energetic, richly colorful and very exciting (quite the opposite of the ho-hum version mentioned above conducted by Orozco-Estrada). But do remember do give the volume dial a big boost before settling into it.

The softer-focused recording perspective works better in Funeral Song. This performance is much more involving than Chailly's disappointing premier recording on Decca, which plodded along uneventfully and without much interest. Gimeno brings a more organic, colorful, flowing sense of direction to the work. And Pentatone provides a much more transparent sonic picture than Decca's dark, thick textures for Chailly. It is much more musically coherent in Gimeno's hands. No, it's still not a lost masterpiece, but it does now at least sound like Stravinsky!

Getting on to disc two, matters continue to improve, impress and delight. The recording is much better in every regard. It is more firmly focused, "present" and realistic. It is airier, clearer, and more naturally balanced. And Gimeno's incisive approach to these later ballets brings enormous rewards. Everywhere, the playing of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg is exemplary - refined and virtuosic. And Gimeno exhibits a natural flair and real feel for the variety of moods and color - and most importantly, tempo. These scores unfold with such natural, unfussy, musical flow, they make more sense than usual and are at once more involving and much more exciting too. And Pentatone cannot be praised highly enough for such spectacular sound.

In sum, this is a splendid release. I've already listened to it, in its entirety, 3 times, which almost never happens! Gimeno brings these less-familiar Stravinsky scores to life in a way few others have. Hopefully they can replace that cardboard box with a real bass drum on future recordings.