Hi-Fi Album Choice

“…Both works reward investigation by anyone who only knows the Herrmann of Psycho and Vertigo.”

International Classical Music Award 2024 Nomination in the Premiere Recordings category

“… These romantic scenes are beautiful in their music, libretto, and Herrmann’s rhapsodic orchestrations, and should be required listening… The performance is all you could ask for…”

“…The Singapore Symphony Orchestra plays magnificently for Mario Venzago and the two singers are masterful. Keri Fuge’s dashing soprano catches Cathy’s air of recklessness and longing, while Roderick Williams’s burnished baritone and way with the text make for a refreshingly pensive Heathcliff. It certainly whets the appetite for a decent recording of the complete opera…” ****½

“…Williams’s opening cry of “Cathy!” sets the chilling tone, with the orchestra’s brooding gusts transporting us instantly to the windswept Yorkshire moors… don’t pass up this chance to hear another side of this fertile composer.”

“… Hermann couldn’t have asked for a finer advocate than Keri Fuge, her voice well attuned to her character’s plight. Roderick Williams relishes Heathcliff’s great cry ‘I’m the gaunt crags/I’m the radient sky!; his vocal prowess is never in doubt… The recording is beautifully clear and conducted by Mario Venzago with a suitably epic touch… It’s [Echoes] a well-crafted expressive piece of writing for strings that deserves a wider hearing in the pantheon of music written for that idiom… this recording fill an important part in Hermann’s discography, with a soundscape attuned to the terrain from which its springs.”

“…this is a fascinating project … certainly one to revisit…” ****

Recommended

“…Chandos have given us a Herrmann disc that ranks up there with the Herrmann greats … This great and extremely effective recording is drenched in splendour. Both music and performance are subtle, stern and of the utmost eloquence. If that praise is high then it is more than merited.”

“…It’s a two-sided collection, featuring the leads that are Cathy and Heathcliff, sung admirably by Keri Fuge and Roderick Williams, both deeply involved in their respective roles as well as exemplary in terms of enunciation and, therefore, compelling purveyors of emotions and descriptions … The Singapore Symphony is in excellent form with Mario Venzago a sympathetic conductor, and the recorded sound is first-class, the vocalists always clear without spotlighting, the Orchestra vivid and dynamic… the twenty-minute Echoes proves to be austere and bittersweet, its secrets not easily given up, the music suggestive of isolation … Now conducted by Joshua Tan, the Singaporean strings field a depth of tone and a sheen that connects totally to Herrmann’s writing and communicates it impressively.”

“…This is impassioned advocacy for this American genius, in heartfelt performances full of unbridled emotion and unaffected sincerity. An invaluable addition to the Herrmann catalogue, in sumptuous sound and irreproachable booklet notes, it comes fervently recommended.”