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Not a big issue so do not misinterpret - I'm not banging a drum of complaint but thought this amusing.
Looking for reviews of the CD "Rossini Six Quartets" by Ensemble Wien-Berlin I found this quote on the ArkivMusic site -
"Sony's recording provides us with a player's ear perspective on the music... It is always a pleasure to hear these gifted players..." -- Gramophone [11/1993]
Yes, they did say that but the full context of the end of the Gramophone review was -
"It is always a pleasure to hear these gifted players - Wolfgang Schulz et al.- but from the repertoire point of view this is a street-weary mongrel of a disc.'
That full context does not make the disc sound nearly as appealing!!!
John
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our individual tastes, says he enjoying 13,000+ albums on a Meridian Sooloos Server.
Follow Ups:
For myself, I usually have a pretty good idea about the quality of the music I want to purchase and so in a review I usually look for opinions on the quality of the performance and the sound quality. Sometimes, I do use reviews to suggest music I don't have. I don't think ArkivMusik had any obligation to indicate that the reviewer doesn't think much of the music itself.Some reviews do go on about the quality and characteristics of great music, say a Beethoven symphony, but usually with an eye to giving an opinion about the way the music was interpreted. It would be relevant to point out whether it was HIP and how that worked. I think the reviewer here used unnecessarily colorful phrasing, but it seems many people like an acerbic critic.
For the premier performance of a work, a reviewer would certainly comment on the quality of the work performed as well as how well it was performed, although these things can be difficult to separate--the early reviews of Rachmaninoff's First Symphony, for example. I suppose popular music is often reviewed like that, since much of it is new.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
Edits: 05/01/15
Those little Rossini pieces are charming, and the Ensemble Wien Berlin is superb. Lighten up, sourpuss reviewer! Everything can't be Mahler's 9th symphony. I'm not sure if I have that particular CD (I think I do), but I do have others by the Ensemble Wien Berlin.
The main beef the reviewer seems to have against the disc is that Rossini never wrote any quartets so he (assume it is a him) considers the actual music unauthentic, although he does admire the playing of that group. Criticising the music content is a bit harsh as many compositions have been successfully transcribed to other formats and that does not make the music any less enjoyable. Quite the opposite, it can be most refreshing to hear it in a different context.
John
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our individual tastes, says he enjoying 13,000+ albums on a Meridian Sooloos Server.
My understanding is that they were originally written by Rossini as string quartets and later transcribed by someone else for winds. They aren't major pinnacles of Western art in either form, but they are sparkling good fun. I've heard (and played) wind transcriptions of much more famous and substantial string quartets and those generally do not do the originals justice. But for these minor but entertaining trifles, no real harm done.
Sorry, I still maintain that's just a sourpuss reviewer.
No need to feel bad about that. He/she obviously was unimpressed but could have been a bit more positive so your sourpuss description is apt.
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our individual tastes, says he enjoying 13,000+ albums on a Meridian Sooloos Server.
Thank You- John.
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