SA-CD.net - Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountains

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Post by raffells July 14, 2005 (1 of 2)

Well, I dont know what happened to my earlier review of this disc,,,probably time expired...but....This London orchestra actually hail from LIVERPOOL..and Mr Schwarz is resident composer there nowadays,,,,about to be given the boot....touch of the Montreal situation (Dutoit)...half the (very Large) orchestra wont play for him after contract expires....He is being replaced by a very young Russian with Sir Simon Rattle coming back for the year 2008 festivities.. Its no suprise that you find this orchestra and the recording exceptional...they have been groomed with top line conducters and current visiting in residence Carl Davis seems to live there...He has produced some really Fun Pop concerts over the last few years....with the orchestra in fancy dress ...Take it from me, a cellist in Black suspenders etc makes Ravels Bolero something completely different...no more details will be given....
The main problem is that they recorded for EMI...no sacds...YET?...
Finally I think this sacd ,as stated once before...makes some pretty average music sound better than it deserves.....Dave

Post by Beagle October 4, 2006 (2 of 2)

I blush to admit that I am a Hovhaness fan from 'way back when... probably in the '60s when Alan and I shared the west coast mountains. So it was with some self-indulgent guilt that I ordered this modern DSD recording. I listened to it all last night and the night before. It's spinning right now -- and I don't quite like what I hear....

Is it too close miking of the strings? I can't quite say what I'm hearing, but the air is saturated with very-high frequency white noise. As if the horse-hair were dominating the string tone. And the bass seems dampened.

This evening I've been flipping between this disc and a 1993 Seattle Symphony CD, just to be sure that I still like Hovhaness, and that I'm not just in a bitchy mood. Nope, the rbcd sounds just as mysterious, mystic and mountainous as I remembered it. And I haven't developed an allergy to symphonies on sacd; I just got the Mackerras Kodály/Bartók disc -- and its sound is utterly beautiful to my ears.

I'm putting this in Discussion rather than a Review, because others may enjoy the qualities which I find off-putting. And like the Curate's Egg, 'parts of it are quite good' (winds alone). I'll be ordering the new Hovhannes soon...
Hovhaness: Concerto for Harp and String Orchestra etc. - Kondonassis