Andrew Lloyd Webber: Unmasked (The Platinum Collection) are the all-time greatest hits from one of the most successful composers of our era. The 4CD set collects the finest of his cherished works from the past five decades. Featuring newly-recorded versions of songs by Lana Del Rey, Gregory Porter, Nicole Scherzinger. Plus, a 40 page booklet including an introduction by Andrew Lloyd Webber and new testimonies from artists including Barbra Streisand, Glenn Close, Michael Crawford and Tim Rice.
For her entry into the increasingly popular Great American Songbook subgenre, Diane Schuur de-emphasizes the vocal histrionics that in the past have come close to spoiling some of her recordings and maintains a steady, clear, exuberant tone. Good move: one of Schuur's gifts is her multi-octave range, but she has often over-relied on it at the expense of whatever song she was singing. Here, she takes to the classic compositions of George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, and the like with a respectfulness and glee that allow her to frame and expose these culturally embedded lyrics and melodies without beating on them.
Paavo Järvi’s remarkably fresh-sounding Tchaikovsky Pathétique emphasizes the music’s lyricism and singing line, with flowing tempos and unforced, natural phrasing throughout. Accordingly the strings predominate in this performance, and the Cincinnati players make beautiful sounds, especially in the outer movements. Järvi treats the first movement’s “big tune” as a love song that grows more impassioned with each appearance. On the other hand he leads a quite angry development section, with biting brass ratcheting up the tension. The second movement goes at a lively, dancing pace, while Järvi’s quick-stepping third-movement march generates real excitement in its second-half, with brilliant playing by the Cincinnati brass.
It's only right that Bob Luman had his biggest hit with the jaunty jolt of postivity called "Let's Think About Living" – the swaggering, smiley Elvis homage, where Bob lamented the rash of doom-obsessed melodramatic singles popping up everywhere in the late '50s – it perfectly suited Luman's big, hammy talents. Luman was more of a showman than a rocker, a quality that served him well when he slowly shifted over into the country charts after a stint in the army in the early '60s, but Bear Family's gargantuan 36-track, single-disc 2008 compilation Bob Rocks doesn't concentrate on those tunes: as the title makes plain, this focuses entirely on Bob's rocking sides, plucking singles and unreleased songs that have shown up on Bear Family's two previous comprehensive Luman box sets, two boxes that span a total of nine discs.