Customer Reviews

From the Top at the Pops

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The classical music world is in good hands. Amazing performances by these young people, especially the cellist.

For many years, I have enjoyed Christopher O'Riley's program, "From The Top," in which he interviews and showcases the top classical performing artists under the age of 21. This album showcases the best of the best of "From The Top" accompanied by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. The youngest performer, 12-year-old Hilda Huang, gives a superb rendition of Bach's Piano Concerto #5 in F minor. Featured also are 14-year-old violinist Chad Hoopes playing the final movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto #1 in G minor, 16-year-old cellist Matthew Allen playing Popper's Hungarian Rhapsodie, Op., 17-year-old Caroline Goulding playing the Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin & Piano in d minor, 17-year-old Ji-Young playing the Grieg Piano Concerto and 17-year-old saxophonist Corey Dundee playing the final movement of Peck's The Upward Stream. All give topnotch performances.

One of the biggest highlights of the CD is "Serenade for Strings," written by 19-year-old composer Stephen Feigenbaum. It sounds very much late-romantic, ala Tchaikovsky, Brahms or Mahler.

My only complaint about this album is that - even though they mention Christopher O'Riley's name on the CD - it lacks any interviews by him of any of these young musicians, which has always been such an integral, enjoyable part of his program. Still, it makes for a pleasant listen, and warms your heart listening to these potential top performers of tomorrow!

I am a big fan of "From the Top", thw weekly program hosted by Christopher O'Riley featuring up-and-coming young (in some cases, REALLY young) musicians. "From the Top" had come to Cincinnati a number of times over the years and I have attended those radio show tapings when I could, most recently in October of 2008, at which time this CD was recorded as well.

"From the Top at the Pops" (9 tracks; 62 min.) brings 9 remarkable young musicians (ranging in age from 12 to 19), supported by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (more on that later). I have nothing but praise for the quality of the performers, both as to the orchestra and as to the young performers themselves, Check out Ji-Yong on the piano in the opener (Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor). One of the biggest surprises on here is the 7 min. composition by Stephen Feigenbaum (age 19), "Serenade for Strings", which is just beautiful. The piano recital by Hilda Huang (age 12) on Bach's "Piano Concerto No. 5 in F minor" is equally amazing, I mean this is a twelve year old! All that aside, a big part of why "From the Top" is such an engaging program is the interplay between host Chris O'Riley and the kids, interviewing them before and after their performances. Regretfully, this CD is not a live recording from the radio show taped here at Music Hall last October, but instead a new recording made the next day, without the interviews, and regretfully without the charm.

Aside from that, pleae note that this CD release is the swan song of the great, late Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, who passed away earlier this year after a short bout with cancer. What a legend that man is in this city, building the Cincinnati Pops into one of the the very best pops orchestras in the country (only the Boston Pops are larger in fame and reputation). As if by coincidence, after many years on Telearc (and close to, if not more then, 100 albums released), this is also the last Cincinnati Pops album to be released on Telearc as the label has stopped producing new albums. What a loss, as the quality of most Telearc releases is nothing short of pristine, as is the case on this release. Without a conductor (the search for a replacement for Erich Kunzel is still underway) and without a record label, the future of the Cincinnati Pops has never been more uncertain.

This is a fitting CD finale for conductor Erich Kunzel, whose death was (as I write this) just a couple of days ago. Kunzel was much concerned with music education of young people. He was solidly behind the expansion of Cincinnati's School for Creative & Performing Arts, soon to be the US's first and only K-12 performing arts public school. Collaborating with Christopher O'Riley and his "From the Top" public radio program on a recording of young musicians must have been a completely natural move for him.

So. We have here the musical efforts of 6 instrumentalists and a composer, all under 20. Of course none of them (yet) has the kind of life experience that a fully mature artist can communicate through musical interpretation, but for at least some this may be the prelude to a career.

Composer Stephen Feigenbaum (FY-gen-baughm? FEE-gen-bom? You tell me) composed his Serenade at the age of 16. He says that he "decided to restrict the work's language to that of the late Romantic period ... Mahler and other composers of his age." I'd say he's been listening to Tchakovsky about as much as Mahler, but I also hear hints of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and, in a repeated descending motive, the old pop chestnut, Heart and Soul! If this young fellow stays focused on his strengths, I predict his pockets will jingle with filmscore commissions in a few years' time.

Seventeen year old pianist Ji-Yong, from Midland NJ, already has the bravura to attack the Grieg. Regrettably, we get to hear her play only its first movement. What will she do with it once she's subdued it? She has a nice legato touch, though to my ears the Pops sing a little more believeably.

Hilda Huang seems to be tilting toward a Baroque keyboard specialty, with studies in harpsichord. I'd like to say she's channeling Glenn Gould in the Bach BWV 1056 concerto, but I'm not sure, as I can't hear much past the Pops' turgid accompaniment. Every time I've heard Kunzel aim his baton at anything prior to about 1800 (which hasn't been often), the music has fallen, mortally wounded. I rather wish that Telarc had dispensed with 2 of the Bach's 3 movements and made room for, say, more of the Grieg concerto. Someday, I'd like to hear this 12 year old with a real Baroque orchestra.

I'm not much of a Russell Peck fan, so I'll let someone else pass judgement on saxophonist Corey Dundee. Let me hear him in the Ibert concertino or the Debussy rhapsody, and we'll talk.

If you know Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, be prepared to hear things you've heard before in David Popper's Hungarian Fantasy. It's all showpiece and 16 year old cellist Matthew Allen, who's already a tenured member of the Tallahassee Symphony, is fine with that. He has a wee intonation slip or two, and could probably let himself swallow a bit more of Popper's slurpy syrup, but he sure nails those double stops.

Caroline Goulding has been making waves since she was about 14, and she doesn't disappoint here. The engineer of this recording went backstage after hearing her in a solo gig with the Cleveland Pops, and eventually signed her up (Telarc has just released her first solo CD with pianist Christopher O'Riley). This 17 year old from Cleveland Heights, Ohio studies with the noted teacher Paul Kantor at CIM. She already has a prodigious technique, and her playing shows a surprising emotional sophistication for a 17 year old. Regrettably, the piece she plays here, the early and little-known Mendelssohn d-minor concerto for violin and piano, isn't the best vehicle to demonstrate her strengths (or anybody's, for that matter).

Pity that Ms Goulding didn't get the concerto that 14 year old Chad Hoopes got. Hoopes is from the same general area, Shaker Heights, Ohio, but doesn't seem to have the same depth of understanding of the music that Ms Goulding had when she was his age. His reading of the finale of the Bruch g minor strikes me as competent but wooden. I don't particularly need to hear him play the rest of this concerto.

As for the recording quality, it's nice and clean, but it makes me wonder (again) what Concord were thinking when they dismissed Telarc's iconic producer and engineer, Robert Woods. Had he been in the control room, he might have tapped engineer Tom Moore on the shoulder and reminded him that, in real life, a piano is usually considerably narrower than the orchestra.

Now, who might be the intended audience of this disc -- other than the relatives and schoolmates of the kids involved, that is? If your interest is solely in the works programmed here, I have to say that there are other good choices. But there's something to be said for buying this as symbolic support for music education and for these specific kids. I suspect that Erich Kunzel fans will want it simply for the fact that it's his last recording for Telarc.