Customer Reviews

Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite; Gershwin: Porgy & Bess Symphonic Suite "Catfish Row"

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is entirely a review of the Grand Canyon Suite portion of the CD.

If you know the piece, I can say that this is a magnificent rendition, with perhaps the greatest dynamic range I have ever encountered. The cadenza is tremendous.

If you don't know the piece but do know the Grand Canyon, buy it. If you don't know either, buy it, and then go see the Canyon. You will recognize the subject of the music.

Another reviewer complained about this recording's best feature: there is no volume compression. If you want an unfaithfully dull recording of this sonic spectacular (i.e. it's supposed to be spectacular in the concert hall) look elsewhere, or look to the "Midnight Mode" (is that somebody's trademark?) volume compression on your receiver.

Other than that, there is the performance and the piece. It's a perfectly OK performance. Then there's the piece itself. This is a piece that the
real classical music lover cringes every time they hear it, it is (or, rather, was in their childhood) so popular. Sort of like the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #2. And it was written by a popular music arranger, albeit the very best of that genre. The problem with all that is that it really is a first rate tone poem. You really do feel that the music fits the name. "On the Trail" of course is truly evocative of the real thing (as you would realize if you had ridden one of the famous mules.) As a whole its better than Ma Vlast, which suffers from too much shared theme. It's not better than the Moldau part of Ma Vlast, but as good. The thunderstorm is suitably more dynamic than Beethoven's Austrian
version, as befits reality.

Doug McDonald

I choose this music as part of a gift to my son and his future wife. The idea came from the book "The Song of Songs: My Beloved," a new transcription by Carl Japikse. I am also sending them the book among other things. My son is not religious, but I thought he would appreciate an intelligent presentation of the meaning of virtue concerning the marriage vows. The music is recommended in the back pages for the performance of this poem as a masque. Certainly, the CD's will enrich this gift. I have always been pleased with Amazon.com's selections, and although I haven't heard this CD, since it was not opened by me. I trusted in the performer's reputation, which I know quite well.

The music is wonderfull, especially the real thunder. Unfortunately the sound is either too low or too high and the volumn control has to be adjusted constantly to hear the whole CD properly.