| Review by rio98765 May 29, 2013 (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
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The enthusiasm shown in the title and style of the cover is well justified. The danger is that some may be put off by an impression of gimmicky contents.
Far from it! The disc is of high musical worth throughout, and I'm very pleased I took the punt. Let's face it — you wouldn't normally venture into cyberspace thinking "Hmm... I think I feel like buying a trombone solo recording today." I'm very grateful to whoever wrote the review that I saw elsewhere some years back. This recording has expanded my musical mindset. I didn't know what the trombone, as a modern "classical" solo instrument, could do!
The pieces are all genuine works for trombone, and some, including the title track, were written for van Rijen. My only caveat is that he's not using a period instrument in the Mozart. Everything else is 20th century or contemporary.
The recording is terrific. In surround you are in a large concert hall. The bigness of the trombone's sound is obvious, but the sound floats over your head. Play it in SACD stereo and you have the trombone in your room, and that is one hell of an experience. At the right volume the instrument sounds dangerously real, best in the solo pieces.
This is an interesting and suggestively innovative use of the stereo track for a solo instrument. I frequently hear solo vocal, violin, cello and harpsichord live in home environments, and rarely hear that small-room loud, immediate and enveloping sound on disc.
The problem with stereo (once your mind is de-programmed from decades of having no alternative), is that all the recorded hall acoustic comes from the front. It isn't natural, and having the music's hall ambiance in surround is what I find so relaxing in opening up the real feel of live music. But if you give up the idea of reproducing a hall sound in stereo? There may be a future for stereo after all...
Highly recommended for the musically adventurous.
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