OK, everyone stop playing. The game of who can write the best classical music reviews has been won, and the winner is dark horse candidate Vice Magazine. This link came to my attention because Sondra’s CD is reviewed about halfway down the page. She got a teethy smiley face, not a vomit face, and thankfully, not TWO vomit faces like Sting.
SONDRA RADVANOVSKY PERFORMED WITH CONSTANTINE ORBELIAN CONDUCTING THE PHILHARMONIA OF RUSSIA
Verdi Arias
Delos
Maybe
you’re a little burned out on Italian opera composers of the 19th
century. Hey, who isn’t? Well, put on your dancing shoes my friend,
because Sondra Radvanovsky just came to town. This lady doesn’t merely
breath new life into the stale arias of yesteryear–she can act figure
eights around any A-list Hollywood starlet in the biz. Just listen to
her heartbreak, as Aida the Ethiopian Slave, in O patria mia (from act 3 of Aida). If you ever need to whip up some tears for a job interview or jury duty, just pop this bad boy into your iPod.JANITT KLAMSTON
Now let me direct you do some of the other reviews. I wonder what the ArtsJournal policy on swearing is. Well, we’ll find out.
GUSTAV MAHLER PERFORMED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The late Klaus Tennstedt conducts the equally late Gustav Mahler, making this the Life After Death of 19th-century Austro-Germanic late Romantics. Or at least the Tupac: Resurrection
of early-20th-century modernists. Lotsa high-low tam-tams, sassy
woodwinds, and sinister use of C Minor. Not terrible, but not really my
thing. Which I guess is bad news for Klaus and Gus, because now they
both get that little puking-guy graphic.EVA BLATTERHOSEN
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Music of America: Charles Ives
Sony Masterworks
What is this sellout bullshit? Charles Ives on Sony?
Isn’t this the same guy who composed that “F— Sony” sonata a few
years ago? What’s next? Prokofiev doing Pepsi commercials? Pablo Casals
hawking Cool Ranch Doritos? It’s like something out of a Bill Hicks
bit. Ives just couldn’t wait to suck that corporate cock. Unbelievable.BALLS LARSON
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH PERFORMED BY ALEXANDER MELNIKOV
Preludes and Fugues
Harmonia Mundi
Shostakovich
seems like a nice guy, and he got dicked around plenty by the Commies.
So I’d like to cut him a break. And I understand there is such a thing
as Romantic quietude, and I get that he wants to throw in some Russian
folk songs and klezmer for the home audience. Great. But godDAMN these
are some listless preludes and fugues. Makes me feel like a big bean
bag plopped down in an even bigger bag eating a big bowl of Jello.
Harmonia Mundi should include some smelling salts in the jewel case.EVA BLATTERHOSEN
MOZART PERFORMED BY THE ACADEMY OF ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS
Flute Concertos; Concerto for Flute and HarpRCA
Sometimes
you have to decide that you just don’t give a f— what anyone else
thinks. I figured that s— out when I was four. Mozart figured it out
when he was two. This collection of concertos were all written for
flute, an instrument Mozart thought was a pile of s—. And guess what?
Each piece is a brutal Salzburg curb-stomp. That’s what a badass he
was. Concerto No. 2 in D Major was originally oboe-bound, but after
Mozart kicked the living s— out of local amateur musician Ferdinand
de Jean, he thought he’d further humiliate the fat bastard by making
him do one of his pieces on the flute. The only instrument he hated
more than flute was harp. So guess what pops up in Concerto No. 3?
Harp! F-ing Mozart. Man, I’d love to fight that guy.FISTOPHER CLOBBORTSON
I guess it would be wise not to mention I was a harpist if I pitch Vice in the future.
Read the rest of the reviews–including those of releases by the Emerson String Quartet, Timothy Andres, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Jonas Kauffman, Brooklyn Rider, and of course, John Williams–here.
I leave you with this: “No matter how much Michelle Pfeiffer you slap on your album cover, it’s
still going to be a f-ing downer if there’s a bunch of Brahms on the
inside.”
Nah. No winners, because no names.