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Beethoven: Complete Sonatas & Variations - Haimovitz, O'Riley        (8 of 9 found this review helpful)
  February 7, 2015

If forced to guess the performers' age based on playing style alone in Beethoven's early Opus 5 sonatas, I'd estimate early twenties, tops. Tempos are fleet, accents fierce, tonal beauty ever-yielding to passionate expression, breathless and impatient forward momentum always. In fact the performers ... more
Prokofiev: Symphonies 1 "Classical" & 2, Dreams - Alsop      (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
  November 27, 2014

Tempos in the tricky Symphony 1 are lickety-split, 13'47" total, which seems to be the norm for this symphony. I prefer conductors who slow down and give the woodwinds a bit more time to characterize their solos, but apparently I'm in the minority. The Sao Paolo SO ably hammers out all the notes ... more
Atterberg: Orchestral Works Vol. 2 - Järvi        (7 of 9 found this review helpful)
  April 19, 2014

This is a messy, perfunctory run-through of Atterberg's great Second Symphony. As usual Jarvi is in a hurry to just get it over with already, which makes no sense in this languorous, near-Impressionist work. The overall tempo in the first movement is too fast anyway, violins sawing away desperately ... more
Zelenka: The Capriccios - The Bach Sinfonia      (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
  March 26, 2014

This music is hilarious. I'm going to assume that Zelenka knew what he was doing when he wrote stratospheric parts far above the comfortable range of valveless hunting horns in his Capriccios, high notes that would make a lot more sense on trumpets. I'm also going to assume that our present ... more
Remote Galaxy by Flint Juventino Beppe      (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
  March 22, 2014

Aesthetically this is high-quality middlebrow movie music, reminiscent of Tim Burton's go-to composer Danny Elfman. It's essentially tonal, shot through with a degree of chromaticism that wouldn't offend Richard Strauss. 2L has recorded another disc of this composer's music, back when he called ... more

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