| Required listening (review from amazon.com) |
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| This recording of Gabrieli's music brought together the greatest compilation of talent in history in any profession and the performance is incredible. Most people never hear anything of this quality - yet these guys forgot to tune up. Listen as long or as short as you like, whether you're a brass fan or not. You'll never regret it.
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| Great sound ,but sadly only 2.0 Stereo (review from amazon.com) |
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I was pleased with this SACD recording,however it would have earned 5 stars if it had been multi-channel(ie. 5.1).
Edd Kerr; iegolden@shaw.ca
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| A trap for the unwary (review from amazon.com) |
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| This CD may well be lovely - that's why I ordered it. Unhappily, it is recorded in a special custom proprietory SONY format ("Super Audio") which (according to Sony themselves ; I phoned) cannot be played except on a new special Sony player ($279 locally), which I don't have. The catalogue information in Amazon, above, only says "Enhanced", which means nothing, and indeed describes the format as "Audio CD", which is incorrect. It does not indentify the disc as a Sony product. The correct description would be something like "Sony Proprietory Super Audio CD". It is in-compatible with everything else (even my new Dell computer!). Buyer Beware, and Amazon should do a better job of CD format description and warning.
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| The original Super-band (review from amazon.com) |
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| I was a music student at university when this first came out (and no, I'm not a brass player). This recording created an absolute sensation. We all knew, or knew of, all these musicians - they were individual superstars of the classical world - and we had spent hours listening to them and debating their relative merits and that of their orchestras. Now here they were all together! It defied belief. I think I wore my first copy of the LP flat, I played it so much. 35 years later I can still hear it if I close my eyes. Few of us knew anything about Gabrieli, so our admiration for the incredible musicianship on display also brought us into the whole new world of Renaissance music. (Younger people probably couldn't believe this part, but the Early Music revolution was still some ways off. This was all new then.) All the above comments apply to the Gabrieli part of the recording. Until I bought it and opened it up I didn't realise that Sony was giving us the other [Glorious Sound of Brass] LP in the same package. I personally don't find that portion of the disc nearly as successful... it's good, but not a standout. Doesn't matter: the Gabrieli alone is worth the price of admission. Sound is excellent - better than the CD of course, but also even better than the LP - much more apparent sound stage and the subtle differences between the various players' sounds are more readily noticed. [One point of argument with the only low rating... it's a brass record. Says so right on the cover. Picture of all those cats with trumpets and such. Why are you surprised? Seems a bit perverse to criticise a brass record for having too much brass. Don't want an hour of brass? Buy something else. This isn't supposed to be an SACD demo disc - it's about the music, silly.]
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| Excellent Transfer of a Landmark Recording (review from amazon.com) |
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| After reading the above reviews I felt strongly compelled to add my two cents. Let's put this recording in its proper context: the Gabrieli portion of the release is perhaps the greatest symphonic brass recording ever made. There have been other outstanding brass recordings since the late 1960's, many making use of digital technology, but none can touch these performances for the sheer caliber of playing. The Gabrieli works capture the brass sections of three of the five class A orchestras at the peak of their game, at the end of the tyrant/conductor era when all five orchestras--especially the brass sections-sounded so remarkably different (sadly not so true today). I grew up with these recordings and wore out several LP copies--like so many others who aspired to be orchestral brass players. The SACD transfer is the best version of the recordings yet. Played side-by-side with the regular CD release, the SACD has markedly superior separation, placement and clarity. It also unfortunately shows all the cosmetic flaws of the original analog recording. Microphone distortion in high volume passages and reverberation at the end of some the works (Andrew Kazdin, what were you thinking?) is all the more glaring on the SACD disc. However, I can more than live with these detractions considering the transparency of the sound on the new release. Unless you're a brass player or serious fan, listening to this entire recording in one sitting may be a bit much (this is, after all, a brass recording). Instead I recommend listening to tracks 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 13 to get the best idea of the disc. I have other SACD recordings that sound better, but none that I enjoy more than this one. If you're a fan of brass music, this release is an absolute must. Six stars.
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