RECORDING OF THE MONTH


RECORDING OF THE MONTH

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
A London Symphony
Oboe Concerto
£11 post free World-wide



RACHMANINOV Elegy, Preludes, Piano concerto 3
£12 post free World-wide

CHAUSSON, DEBUSSY
RACHMANINOV
TRios
2CDs £16 post free World-wide

Search
What's New
Classical CD Reviews
Live Reviews
Jazz CD Reviews
Composers
Resources
Contact Us

Every Day we post 10 new Classical CD and DVD reviews. A free weekly summary is available by e-mail. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free.
  Classical Editor: Rob Barnett  
Founder Len Mullenger   
 



CD REVIEW

EXPLORE
Musicweb - CLICK

------------------
Message Board
Announcements
Twitter @MusicWebINt
------------------


Schubert complete symphonies
Bamberger Symphoniker
Jonathan Nott


Only complete set on the Market
35CDs £67

 


 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Momentous!

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Italian Cello Concertos and Sonatas
3CDS £10.95


Brahms Symphonies Zinman
£26.85

 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Beethoven Symphonies
Thielmann


Magic Moments of Opera
10 Operas Arthaus £95


Brilliant Classics 40CDs


Brilliant Classics 60CDs


9 Symphonies Chailly
£31.90


9 Symphonies C Davis
£18.70

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Absolutely marvellous!
£5.99 post free


Bruch VC1 Gluzman
Quite the finest performance of the Bruch concerto I have ever heard.


The best opera DVD of the year so far [ST]


Mahler Song Cycles
Katarina Karnéus

Available again

The Raga Guide
4CDs + 196 page book
£33 post-free world-wide
15,000 copies sold

 

 

Would you like a hyperlinked weekly summary of the CDs we have reviewed?

Click for further details

Sample: See what you will get

Editorial Board
Classical Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Seen & Heard
Editor Emeritus
   Bill Kenny
Editor in Chief
   Stan Metzger
MusicWeb Webmaster
   Len Mullenger
Assistant Webmaster
   David Barker

 


alternatively AmazonUK

John Philip SOUSA (1854-1932)
Music for Wind Band Vol. 6
Easter Monday on the White House Lawn (From Tales of a Traveller) ed. R. Mark Rogers (1928) [2:20]
The Golden Star (1919) [4:40]
The Dauntless Battalion (1922) [2:51]
Sextet from The Bride Elect (Arr. Herbert L. Clarke) (1897) [2:17]
The Federal March (1910) [2:33]
Three Quotations (Suite for Band) ed. R. Mark Rogers (1895) [13:27]
Liberty Bell (Arr. Brion/Schissel) (1893) [3:45]
The Gridiron Club (1926) [3:21]
La Reine de la Mer (1886) [7:10]
The Chariot Race (1890) [5:31]
The Gladiator (1886) [2:53]
New Mexico March (1928) [3:06]
The Picador March (1889) [3:02]
Royal Artillery Band/Keith Brion
rec. Woolwich Town Hall, 15-16 January 2002. DDD
NAXOS 8.559132 [56:56]



Nearly three years have passed since I reviewed volume 5 of this series (see links below). The two discs were recorded in the same month over five years ago. Life moves on and Keith Brion now leads the New Sousa Band but what is happening to this series – which I imagine has some way to go – is not obvious from either their website or the Naxos one. A compilation box of volumes 1-5 seems to have been issued but is currently more expensive on Amazon UK than buying the six single issues now released. One can only admire Naxos for this kind of undertaking – of which they have many on the go – but is there any good reason to keep potential customers in the dark about progress?
 
Easter Monday on the White House Lawn is a light-hearted and festive opener. The Golden Star then comes of something of a shock – it is a funeral march written in memory of lives lost in World War I. Apart a contrasting section which brings some hope, this is about as dark-toned as Sousa gets. The Dauntless Battalion is a march which returns us to a much more typical vein. The Bride Elect is an operetta from which the liner notes tell us Sousa made and often performed an arrangement for sextet but the version on the disc was apparently made by Herbert L. Clarke. In 1911 Sousa undertook a world tour and for it he composed The Federal March which he dedicated to the peoples of Australia and New Zealand – not that you could tell by listening to it! The Three Quotations form a suite with some rather disparate themes. The first is distinctly humorous, the second reflective and third highly syncopated.
 
I was a little surprised to find Liberty Bell appearing as late as volume 6 but the most well-known items have been carefully spread between discs. I find it impossible to hear this music without thinking of John Cleese and naked pianists – yes, it’s the tune from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Apparently this was Sousa’s first financial success although I presume it was out of copyright by the time it was hijacked by the BBC. The Gridiron Club is another favourite – apparently dedicated to a club of journalists of which Sousa was a member. La Reine de la Mer is the earliest work here and consists of a series of waltzes written whilst Sousa was in charge of a marine band. The Chariot Race is a story by Lew Wallace which was staged on Broadway the year before Sousa produced this rather untypical piece which contains some harmonies that might have been approved of by Charles Ives. There are three more marches – The Gladiator and The Picador March are fairly well-known and come from Sousa’s youth whilst the New Mexico March was written around four decades later. This is notable for containing an adaptation of the state song. The Picador March was a good choice to finish – even though its depiction of a bullfight seems to have an intermission in the middle and is all fun rather than blood and gore.
 
As in previous reviews of the series, I only can only find positive things to say about this well-presented and recorded disc. My feeling about the playing of the Royal Artillery Band is very much as last time round i.e. beautifully clean and slightly understated – probably a good idea if you are going to listen to large doses of Sousa. Of course, there is another, more upfront way and Frederick Fennell on Mercury (see review) offers such an experience in readings which sound more (and are) American. That disc provides the obvious single disc compilation of this composer but Sousaphiles should add this disc to their collection and hope that they don’t have to wait so long for the next instalment.
 
Patrick C Waller
 
 
Links to reviews of previous volumes in the series:
Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 Volume 4 Volume 5

Naxos American Classics page
 



 

 

 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 40,000 Classical CD reviews on offer

Discs received

Having a problem Donating?



Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues:
Prices include postage

There will be NO VAT Rises

[Acte Préalable £13.50]
[Arcodiva £12.00]
[Avie from £6.25]
[British Music Society £12.00]
[CDACCORD from £13.50 ]
[ClassicO £12.50]
[Hallé from £11]
[Heritage £10]
[Hortus £14.99 ]

[Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ]
[Nimbus Special prices]
[Northern Flowers £13.50]

[REDCLIFFE £11 ]
[Sheva £11]
[Tactus £11.50 ]
[Talent from £12.00 ]
[Toccata Classics £10.50 ]

Musicweb
Special Offers

Monthly Best Buys

 

Naxos Classical


New Releases

Hyperion


New Releases


 





MusicWeb sells the Polish
catalogue CDAccord
£10.50 post free W-W


MusicWeb sells the
Arcodiva catalogue
£12.00 post free W-W


£11.75
post-free
world- wide

 

 

Google Ads - for information about privacy matters, click here
Amazon Musicweb International is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

 


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

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
Pat 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




Return to Review Index

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.