Artistic Quality 8     Sound Quality 8

“...Definately worth a listen ...”

“A valuable addition to the Still discography with solid performances ...”

“... these pieces are well worth investigating, for they show a sidelight on American music which has gone relatively unheard over the years. The recording is bright and clear, the performances are excellent, and the notes are good. This is indeed a bargain.”

Want List

“William Grant Still’s music is a powerful antidepressant—a dose of optimism and an infusion of hope. The symphonies suggest Copland at his folksy best, yet are not derivative, and Poem for Orchestra ends with a genuinely moving burst of radiant glory. One feels that all differences—personal, local, national, and global—can be settled as long as it is possible for music such as this to be composed and performed. The performances show a great deal of polish and affection.”

“...The real stars of Naxos 8.559603 are not the symphonies of William Grant Still, but rather the splendid playing of the Fort Smith Arkansas Symphony and the inspired interpretations of its music director, John Jeter.”

Performance ***         Sound ****

“... a pleasantly diverting anthology of 36 of Amy Beach’s  117 songs...”

"...Beach was one of the most successful composers of her time. Many of her songs and her Gaelic Symphony were performed quite often. She began the mass in 1886, and the premiere was given in Boston in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society, one of the oldest (and most conservative) choral groups in the country. The music is ambitious, rich, moving, and very melodic. Ample opportunities are given to the soloists and chorus; and there are few, if any, moments lacking in inspiration or technical accomplishment. This is a fine work that needs to be heard more often. This performance (recorded in concert) is adequate, more." 

“ ... Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat captures the energy and frequent sensuality of Adams's piano music, while never flinching at the technical demands. The poly-rhythmic power of Phrygian Gates is as powerful now as when the piece was written 30 years ago. Top track: Hallelujah Junction, from 1996, captures the full breadth of the composer's style and magnetism. Includes help of pianist Maarten van Veen.”  ***½

“...The performances by Ralph van Raat, joined in Hallelujah Junction by Maarten van Veen, are a triumph of deceptiveness: that is, playing these pieces must require the utmost concentration as you count the bars past, avoid those little modifications to rhythm that a pianist will instinctively deploy to bring a performance alive, but van Raat obtains a near-hypnotic control in the two early pieces, almost mechanical in its reliability, and he bubbles with life in the later two. The recording engineer, Michael Ponder, has given him a rounded piano tone in the warm acoustic in Potton Hall, Suffolk.”

“...This is the third CD of Adams's piano music to appear in recent years and Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat fares well against competition ... Phrygian Gates and China Gates (1977-78) document Adams at a formative stage, experimenting with embedding his Romantic impulses into the cerebral world of Minimalist process music. Van Raat shapes the onward trajectory forcefully, while deploying a fat, meaty piano tone that's entirely appropriate. The two-piano Hallelujah Junction (1996) is a joyous affair, while American Berserk (2001) telescopes boogie-woogie and jazz riffs into unusual perspectives.”

“... It is all thoroughly entertaining and well worth exploring, especially by those (amongst them myself) who took against the earlier manifestations of the minimalist movement after the first excitement of Reich bursting on the scene wore off. A propitious Naxos debut.”

“... Native feeling for the idiom and no mean virtuosity give this duo the Ivesian edge ...”

Ives’s four extraordinary Violin Sonatas were written between 1902 and 1906, and are quite a find. Their erratically stimulating originality is in no doubt, but they are also among his most immediately appealing works, with the usual tantalizing snatches of hymns and popular tunes to spice the melodic flow. The First Sonata immediately shows how well Ives can integrate a dialogue in which violin and piano move comfortably and independently together, not always sharing the same invention. The three movements of Sonata No. 2 explain themselves: Autumn; In the Barn (where the fiddle plays for a square dance with a kaleidoscope of popular themes), while the Revival finale opens very gently and evocatively: its energy suddenly bursts forth and then characteristically evaporates into silence.

The Third Sonata, perhaps the finest of the set, has a reflective opening movement, a hymn of four verses, each with a refrain. The second movement, with its quirky syncopations, ‘represents a meeting where the feet and body, as well as the voice, add to the excitement’. The extended finale, again marked Adagio, has a hauntingly ambiguous melodic flow and ‘the tonality throughout is supposed to take care of itself’.

The last and shortest Sonata, subtitled Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting, is immediately rhythmically catchy. The central Largo is quiet and serious, quoting the hymn, Jesus Loves Me, with the violin ruminating in the background; and the marching finale brings one of Ives’s favourite tunes, Shall we Gather at the River, and ends in mid-phrase.

There is no doubt that the full-timbred Curt Thompson ad Rodney Waters are excellent artists. It is difficult to imagine this music being played better or more idiomatically, and the daunting bravura is readily forthcoming. The recording too is most realistic.   ***

“... engaging, excellent performances ...”

“... Melodic layers are clearly delineated and placed in proper spatial relationship to each other, borrowed tunes are naturally phrased, and dissonances and clashing keys are given due prominence. It hardly gets better than this: the “wild, heroic ride to heaven” Ives’s father inspired him to write…the period popular tunes interrupted by a graphically portrayed explosion are chillingly effective. This is the most speculative work, coming as it does from two surviving pages of sketches, but the style and form achieved by editor David Porter is pure Ives…the Swedish musicians play with precision and warmth here, picking up the idiom as well as did their Northern Sinfonia counterparts in the earlier recording. The sound is good—open and detailed—though the low brass is better balanced in the shorter works than in the Symphony movements. The Malmö Chamber Chorus crowns the last movement of the Holidays Symphony with appropriate fervor…”

Artistic Quality 10         Sound Quality 10

“... Sinclair’s conducting gets everything right: tempos, textures, balances, and colors. He allows Ives’ boisterous high spirits to emerge naturally, effortlessly, and where necessary, raucously. The Malmö orchestra plays all of this music with complete confidence, and the sonics are unaffectedly crisp and clean. An essential release for Ives fans.”