The Der Rosenkavalier selections arranged by Rodzinski are delightfully fresh and full of vigor. I'm not sure what the deal is with all these opera suites from Honeck, but the music is great and we probably shouldn't complain. Their Tchaikovsky Sixth strikes me as one of the most musical versions available, and so it proves with these suites. Armed with one of the finest brass sections in the world, superlative overall ensemble quality, and almost automatically fine engineering, each CD release becomes an event. In a market where everyone has a favorite conductor and orchestra, that takes guts, and is incredibly refreshing.īut I said they were also self-aware, and they recognize that they have what it takes to become that favorite conductor and orchestra. It's so unusual to hear conductors acknowledge their predecessors in the classical music world, but both here and on that Beethoven release, Honeck dares to mention conductors and artists who have already made their stamp on this music.
As they proved with their last Strauss disc, and especially the evergreen coupling of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh, this partnership is artistically self-aware and able to recognize the legacy set down before them. There are perhaps no better brass players in the world. He has at his disposal an equally talented gift of players, happily back to work after a thankfully short work stoppage. I love his Strauss, his Mahler, his Beethoven, his Dvořák outside that Eighth, and his Bruckner. I have not loved everything from this team, being possibly the only person to not wholly embrace the conductor's Dvořák Eighth, but I am to be counted among those excited to see them revisit Strauss. For me, personally, it was the first album review that gained wider readership, and I am thankful to everyone – at Classical Net, at Reference Recordings, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra – for their support of my (very) modest career as a writer on music.
As the first disc in a newly-minted partnership between the label and the Pittsburgh Symphony, it proved to be an astonishing success.
Back in 2013, a package arrived at my childhood home containing Reference Recordings FR-707.
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