Charles Mann

Opalescence while not one of Herbie Mann's best albums is still a fun, enjoyable album to listen to. A little different I think from what you are use to hearing from Mann "Opalescence" has some great cool Latin jazz sounds to it that makes it a perfect album to curl up and relax to after a hectic day or if you are planning on having a quiet romantic dinner. Herbie as usual gives an outstanding performance throughout this disc. He knows how to get into what ever song or style of music he is playing and give it heart an soul. He truly was a master at the flute and this is one more album of many he released through the years that displays that talent.

Canadian Works for Oboe and Piano is a sweeping 2-CD compilation of fine Canadian repertoire for oboe and piano from the past 70 years. A celebration in honour of Canada’s sesquicentennial, the collection highlights the oboe’s personal, singing quality and is unified by the lyrical essence of all the works. This recording includes several Canadian oboe classics, three new works created especially for this project, three new arrangements of existing pieces, and a few interesting discoveries, including the world premiere of a work written some 40 years ago by a major composer but never performed live. The two discs feature an even mix of sonatas, shorter stand-alone works, and what could be considered suites. With one exception, all the works on these discs are receiving their first recorded performances here.

The first two Toccata Classics volumes of the orchestral music of the English composer David Hackbridge Johnson (b. 1963) presented three mighty symphonies, conceived on a large scale and powerful in their utterance. The Fifteenth Symphony, tone-poems and other works offered here show a change in focus: an engagement with the natural world, reflecting the poetry of changing light and shifting winds, with man’s impermanent presence dwarfed by the implacable grandeur of nature. Here Paul Mann, a frequent Toccata Classics artist, conducts the orchestra of the very town – Liepāja, on the coast of Latvia – that inspired the Fifteenth Symphony.