Search - George Gershwin, Ferde Grofe, Recorded Sound :: Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite; Gershwin: Porgy & Bess Symphonic Suite "Catfish Row"

Excellent recording

Doug McDonald | USA | 06/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Another reviewer complained about this recording's best feature: there is no volume compression. If you want an unfaithfully dull recording of this sonic spectacular (i.e. it's supposed to be spectacular in the concert hall) look elsewhere, or look to the "Midnight Mode" (is that somebody's trademark?) volume compression on your receiver.



Other than that, there is the performance and the piece. It's a perfectly OK performance. Then there's the piece itself. This is a piece that the

real classical music lover cringes every time they hear it, it is (or, rather, was in their childhood) so popular. Sort of like the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #2. And it was written by a popular music arranger, albeit the very best of that genre. The problem with all that is that it really is a first rate tone poem. You really do feel that the music fits the name. "On the Trail" of course is truly evocative of the real thing (as you would realize if you had ridden one of the famous mules.) As a whole its better than Ma Vlast, which suffers from too much shared theme. It's not better than the Moldau part of Ma Vlast, but as good. The thunderstorm is suitably more dynamic than Beethoven's Austrian

version, as befits reality.



Doug McDonald"