Galleria

Undoubtedly one of the central figures of 1960s/70s Italian film music, Alessandro Alessandroni defined the very essence of the genre with his vocal group, I Cantori Moderni. Renowned for his pioneering reverb guitar sound, sitar exploration and a phenomenal whistling technique, (Perhaps best known for his contribution in shaping the famous ‘Spaghetti Western’ sound) Alessandroni’s vast and innovative contribution to Italian soundtracks is unparalleled. Recording countless sessions for many Italian film composers of the period including Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani and Francesco De Masi (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, All the Colours Of The Dark, Sweden: Heaven and Hell and Alla Scoperta Dell’India respectively), his importance as a sideman often overshadowed his own work as a solo artist. Complementing his session work, Alessandroni was an amazingly inventive composer in his own right; his unique compositions were issued on many Italian, French, and German Library labels throughout the 1970s.

Between 1961 and 1986, Herbert von Karajan made three recordings of the Mozart Requiem for Deutsche Grammophon, with little change in his conception of the piece over the years. This recording, from 1975, is, on balance, the best of them. The approach is Romantic, broad, and sustained, marked by a thoroughly homogenized blend of chorus and orchestra, a remarkable richness of tone, striking power, and an almost marmoreal polish. Karajan viewed the Requiem as idealized church music rather than a confessional statement awash in operatic expressiveness. In this account, the orchestra is paramount, followed in importance by the chorus, then the soloists. Not surprisingly, the singing of the solo quartet sounds somewhat reined-in, especially considering these singers' pedigrees. By contrast, the Vienna Singverein, always Karajan's favorite chorus, sings with a huge dynamic range and great intensity, though with an emotional detachment nonetheless. Perfection, if not passion or poignancy, is the watchword. The Berlin orchestra plays majestically, and the sound is pleasingly vivid.

Antonio Vivaldi - Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernes barbarie
Orchestra da camera dell'Angelicum di Milano - Alberto Zedda
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 374 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Sarx Rec. # ANG 97007-2 | Country/Year: Italy 1997, 1964
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Sacred, Oratorio

"Italian conductor and musicologist Alberto Zedda is widely recognized as one of the world's most prominent authorities on the operas of Gioachino Rossini. (…) Although his work on behalf of Rossini remains widely appreciated, Zedda's handling of early opera composers has drawn criticism, particularly as he eschews period instruments and prefers to devise modern orchestrations for seventeenth century operas.

“…Returning to Galleria, let me recommend without reservations a splendidly played and recorded Shlomo Mintz recital with Clifford Benson of Kreisler encores, including all his most famous pieces, such as Caprice viennoise, Liebesleid, Liebesfreud and Tambourin chinois, plus arrangements and pastiches of music by Albeniz, Weber, Wieniawski, Dvorak, Glazunov and others. This infectious recital comprised part of Mintz's recording debut for DG in 1981 and very entertaining it is, backed by a recording that is realistically full of presence.”

Though it lacks a first movement, the 1944 Karajan Bruckner Eighth is both a notable performance and an astonishing piece of engineering. The finale, which was recorded in the studios of Berlin Radio in September 1944 in experimental 'two channel' sound, has occasionally been available on LP or CD, though never in such spectacular sound. For what we have here, as I understand it, is not the reproduction of a rough dubbing of the original mastertape but a transfer from the 30ips mastertape itself, part of a recently released hoard of tapes the Russians confiscated after the fall of Berlin in 1945. As for the second and third movements, recorded in mono towards the end of June 1944, these have never previously been released.

Robert Schumann often described the opposing “Florestan” and “Eusebius” facets of his own personality. The contrasts between the mercurial, exuberant Florestan and the more considered and introspective Eusebius comes into sharp focus when you compare these spectacular Chicago performances of Schumann’s Second and Third symphonies under Daniel Barenboim with their more recent Decca counterparts with Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra.

At times quite sprightly, at other times ponderous not least in its treatment of dotting and though played with the professional efficiency one expects of the ECO, this recording fell short of medal-ranking when it was first issued. During the intervening 16 years even middle-of-the-road performances of the Music for the Royal Fireworks have become more attentive to scholarship and there are now several excellent recordings of the kind available (not to mention others on period instruments) on CD.