Customer Reviews

Virtuoso American Flute Works

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

 

 

I had the opportunity a few years ago to work with Katherine Kemler one-on-one. She is truly one of the great players of our time. When I worked with her, she gave me this CD and I loved it right from the beginning. Her playing is very accurate but it's wonderfully musical at the same time. This is the best recording I have heard of Muczynski's Flute Sonata to date. A great buy!

I am too used to Galway and that group of more popular classical artists, so this cd is much over my head. it is not the composers who make this Cd too esoteric; Debussy, Ravel,Satie wrote beautiful music .but unless you area musician yourself ,you will find this much too intellectual,A great gifty for your musician friends.

It's a shame that this is one of the few recordings of the Liebermann Sonata available. Katherine Kemler's rendition of the Muczynski sonata isn't too bad, but her Liebermann has some serious problems with it. Wrong notes are abundant, and the execution of the piece is just very sloppy in general (particularly in the second movement). I'm not particulary impressed with her use of vibrato or choice of phrasing either, although perhaps this is a matter of taste. But in an edited recording there's really no excuse for so many blatant errors. The Liebermann Sonata is a good piece, and it deserves better.

The most offensive thing about this CD is not the stiffness of the performances or that the music never takes flight, but the blatant disregard for the score. The most egregious example is the Liebermann Sonata, in which both musicians change notes to accomodate their whim, and the pianist even re-composes the last climactic note in the second movement, dropping the left hand to a "B" from the written D#. I have no doubt that these musicians are capable of better and perhaps this recording was created under difficult circumstances of which I'm not aware. Alas, humility should be one's guide in creating a recording; not only in respect to the composer, but in shaping one's own legacy.