MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Ned ROREM (b.1923)
Chamber Music with Flute
Mountain Song, for flute and piano (1949) [3:09]
Romeo and Juliet, for flute and guitar (1977) [19:46]
Trio, for flute, cello and piano (1960) [16:53]
Book of Hours, for flute and harp (1975) [18:28]
Four Prayers, for flute and piano (2006) [12:36]
Fenwick Smith (flute); David Leisner (guitar); Ronald Thomas (cello); Ann Hobson Pilot (harp); Mihae Lee (piano)
rec. Campion Center, Weston, Massachusetts, 25 April 1993; First and Second Church, Boston, 23-25 September 1993; Sonic Temple, Roslindale, Massachusetts, 27 August 2008. DDD
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS 8.559674 [70:52]

Experience Classicsonline

Reading the small print on the back inlay reveals that only the Four Prayers on this disc are newly recorded - the other four works date back to an EtCetera CD released in the 1990s (KTC 1184). Nevertheless programme continuity is ensured by American flautist Fenwick Smith and Korean-born pianist Mihae Lee, coming together to record Four Prayers fifteen years on from the Trio and the rest.

For Ned Rorem there is a much bigger gap between first and last - these works span nearly sixty years of astonishing creativity. Although at a mere eighty-eight Rorem is half a generation younger than Elliott Carter, this is still a composer of such longevity that his early works predate Richard Strauss's so-called Four Last Songs, and his First Symphony predates Vaughan Williams's last three!

Rorem's career has been less critically feted than Carter's, due in part, no doubt, to the fact that his basically tonal idiom and general antipathy towards the avant-garde kept him on the outside of establishment cliques in the US. That Rorem writes attractive, listener-friendly music is clearly demonstrated by this gently atmospheric, introspective and thoroughly genial programme from Smith and co. Smith gives a master-class in flute technique and presentation, never let down by his various co-performers who are no mere accompanists. In his CD notes, Rorem himself praises these soloists highly, so their accounts may be considered fairly definitive.

Rorem's flute music has a largely neo-Classical feel to it, being nuanced, intimate, well-structured and generally melodic, with only a brief foray into more mordacious modernist territory here and there. Describing his early love of the "breathy gold wafting through the French forests" sound of the flute, Rorem notes that "among my opus-minus-one notebooks are many a flute solo, unused but not forgotten."

Sound quality is very good, all the more so considering the age of most of the recordings. Rorem's one absent flute work, the 1987 quintet with piano and strings, Bright Music, has already been recorded by Fibonacci Sequence for Naxos, on a disc which also includes their reading of The Book of Hours - see review. As if that were not listening joy enough, Naxos offer further Rorem volumes, of his orchestral and vocal music, including the Flute Concerto, the three Symphonies and selected songs, and there is even another recording of The Four Prayers in their 'American Classics' series (8.559629).

Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.