Richard Dennis

This CD from EMI features Dennis Brain, in my opinion the greatest horn player who ever lived. In his tragically brief life Brain recorded the definitive versions of numerous works, and although his Mozart horn concertos are my favorites, his treatment of Strauss is a close runner up. Despite these recordings being from the mid-1950s, the musicianship of Brain still makes these the best available. While I like Strauss, I find Hindemith a bit derivative and monotonous, although with Brain's treatment still a delight.

The third in the Glass’ trilogy of operas about men who changed the world in which they lived through the power of their ideas, “Akhnaten”‘s subject is religion. The Pharaoh Akhnaten was the first monotheist in recorded story, and his substitution of a one-god religion for the multi-god worship in use when he came to power was responsible for his violent overthrow. The opera describes the rise, reign, and fall of Akhnaten in a series of tableaus. Libretto (Egyptian, Arcadian, Hebrew, and language of the audience) by the composer in association with Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel and Richard Riddell. Vocal text drawn from original sources by Shalom Goldman.

This Covent Garden performance has transferred to video and DVD remarkably successfully, partly because the singing and acting of the principals is so good, but chiefly because conductor Georg Solti finds an excellent balance between sharp characterisation and sumptuous romance; between wit and mischief on the one hand and profound feelings on the other. Though sensitive to its beauties, Solti keeps the music moving along, never becoming sloppy or over-indulgent.

Philip Glass' 1987 album Songs from the Trilogy is made up of brief selections from his three portrait operas, Einstein on the Beach (1976), Satyagraha (1980), and Akhnaten (1983). It gives a good idea of what the music from the operas sounds like, but at the same time it misrepresents what the music is actually about. In developing his "music with repetitive structures" (the description he preferred over "minimalism"), Glass was creating a new kind of experience, one in which the traditional temporal expectations of a piece of music are overturned, where changes happen incrementally and very slowly over a long (sometimes a very long) span of time.

Holiday In Hollywood was recorded in Hollywood in 1978 and 1979 using members of Toto and Frank Zappa's group. The producer was Andy Di Martino, who had previously procuded a range of artists like Glenn Yarborough, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and The Cascades' 'Rhythm Of The Rain'. The strings were scored by movie great Jimmy Haskell and conducted by Sid Sharp. The backup vocals were handled by the Waters Family singers. The MCA/Infinity Records release of 'Holiday In Hollywood' earned Stepp a Maple Leaf award for songwriting, as well as a Juno nomination for best new male vocalist in 1980.