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BUZZ: Captured here in excellent sound is Walter's penultimate concert with the Philharmonic before he retired as its Guest Conductor. The Idyll was a work much loved by Walter, and he recorded it in the studio six times during his career. The conductor wrote affectionately of its "fundamental mood of sunny happiness and heartfelt good spirits." This is an expansive performance, played with fervor and great transparency of detail. Harold Schonberg's New York Times review says of the Bruckner performance: "Through the years this has been one of Mr.Walter's specialties... In many respects this is the most interesting of the nine Bruckner symphonies. Its three movements (the composer died before completing the fourth) contain a larger quota of spiked dissonance than the earlier works do; there is a more stringent intellectual discipline and also some rather fascinating allusions in the Adagio to 'Parsifal' and 'Tristan und Isolde." Walter used the Orel edition of Bruckner's original version, with his own changes. This concert has never before been issued in any format; it is released in excellent sound with detailed notes by Mark Kluge, Programme Annotator for the Chicago Symphony. |
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BUZZ: Reviewing Grante's recording of the Chopin/Godowsky Etudes, Gramophone said, "Few pianists would or could take on this assignment. The difficulties are outlandish and immense, yet Carlo Grante's surpassing ease and aristocratic musicianship remain unruffled and superb... These records seem ripe for selection among the most outstanding of the year." CD Review said: "He copes with the unspeakably demanding technical requirements of Godowsky's writing as if its difficulties didn't exist-as for him they obviously don't." The periodical Classical Piano featured a special interview with Grante last year. And Fanfare called Grante "A pianistic superman... and certainly, an artist one is avid to become more acquainted with." |
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© 2012 Music & Arts Programs of America. All rights reserved.
CD-1212(1) BRUNO WALTER CONDUCTS THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll. BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 in d. First release of the concert given at Carnegie Hall, 10 February, 1957. Total Time: 67:16 Digital restoration: 2008. [AAD] UPC # 0-17685-121227
CD-1215(1) LEOPOLD GODOWSKY: RENAISSANCE -- 16 BAROQUE ARRANGEMENTS. THE GODOWSKY EDITION VOL. VI. (Free arrangements of works by Rameau, Corelli. D. Scarlatti. and others). Carlo Grante, piano. Total time: 78:42 [DDD] UPC# 0-17685-121524