| Review by raffells January 15, 2009 (4 of 5 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics:  |
An interesting and rewarding round up of 20th C American music.The suprising highlight has to be Douglas Moores 2nd Symphony.A 4 movement well written musical piece, entertaining and pleasant on the ear.
The disc starts with Morton Goulds Cowboy theme Opus which is a delicious hotch potch of tunes relating to the theme with a touch of Dvoraks New World,(actually a Scottish tune.)
At no point you could consider this less than entertaining or well written.
The so called title work by Harris is as usual a mixed bag.Two distint halves of approximate 10 minutes and weirdly for a symphony starts with a curious piano tune.
From a listening point there is some really nice stuff which tends to lose the plot by half time and the second half starts in a much better vein.The constant use of a blazen trumpet tune near the end may have you hoping for a speedy end but Im sure fanatics will see some hidden motiv for this.
The very lightweight Effinger short symphony is probably postioned incorrectly as third item.
Its in total contrast with its almost Mozartian orchestration and a valuable counterweight to the other works.
Now for the 2008 recording which was originally CD quality remastered by Zarex process.
I do wish Albany would get the right gear into the studio in the first place.The Orchestra and conducting are first rate and deserve better.
Surely they must be able to hear the difference between an acceptable upscaled CD and pure DSD.
Its now almost universally accepted that 44.1 sampling loses a lot of the tonal qualities of recording and Zarez doesnt replace it.The old complaint with CD sound as to glassiness still manifests itself to a lesser degree.Ok for some of this music.
Nice interesting and detailed booklet and a proper CD case (Appropriate)
Could do with a better title,
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