Customer Reviews

James Galway Plays Khachaturian

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

 

 

The Rampal transcription of the Violin Concerto is brilliantly played here by Galway, which is also one of the finest flute players around. The interpretation is smooth and vivid, with enough strenght on the needed passages, and taking care of the details. Khachaturian played in a very clever and brilliant way, highly recommended!

I agree with the previous reviewer -- but he didn't say it strongly enough.

Both the original solo violin part -- AND the solo flute part as transcribed by Jean-Pierre Rampal -- have long passages in the lower register of the flute, which has a beautiful, dark timbre. That makes it terribly hard for a flutist to pull off a live performance of this concerto since the flute's lower register tends to be very soft.

James Galway has an amazing lower register -- one of the strongest of any flutist around, plus, since this is a recording, the flute can easily be miked up. Nevertheless, he chose to transpose much of the concerto up (TWO octaves, not one.) Instead of the rich, gutsy low tones, we get the shrill, piercing high register. Galway is a great flutist and he plays this kind of music very well, but he really missed the mark on this one. The composer's intentions are very clear as to what kind of sound he wanted, and Galway simply ignored them. A bad job -- also because whenever the part goes too high, Galway has to transpose back down one octave, sometimes jumping down right in the middle of a passage.

Good playing but poor (inexcusably so) musicianship on the flute concerto. The rest of the CD is beautiful, but the concerto is the reason I bought it.

I was looking for a replacement of my recording of Jean-Pierre Rampal's rendition of the Flute Concerto, and decided to give Galway's version a spin. Khachaturian's Concerto is a smoldering melodic journey through the steppes of central Asia, using the flute's sonorous lower register to an unusual degree. Unfortunately, Galway's very first entrance was 8va!!! Galway's tone color is too bright throughout the performance, making this interpretation completely off the mark.

The Royal Philharmonic does an adequate job, better than the ORTF who accompanied Rampal.

James Galway plays Khachaturian es una muestra más del gran virtuosismo de este excelente flautista que con su sonido extraordinario y peculiar, demuestra porque es uno de los mas sobresalientes musicos del siglo XX y cuya carrera de solista es arrolladora desde comienzos de los 70. El concierto de Khachaturian es un concierto exigentísimo, compuesto originalmente para violín, se escucha con una originalidad y frescura desbordante.
Esperamos los admiradores de este gran artista que pronto salgan las ediciones en cd de algunos trabajos que han quedado en lp como "James Galway plays Stamitz", "The French Concerts" o "James Galway plays Telemann".