Search - Modest Mussorgsky, Yoel Levi, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov :: Moussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Night on Bald Mountain; Introduction to Khovanshchina

Virtuoso to the Extreme!

03/05/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mussorgsky's revolutionary music comes brilliantly alive in what has to be the most intense recording of PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION available. The orchestrated version is performed with feeling and energy rarely heard. The final two movements especially evoke terror and grandeur with an outstanding wind section and the best timpani performance I have ever heard. A triumph of a recording of the music of a great but misunderstood genius."

A Great Picture of Atlanta

Jon L. Slate | Winston, GA USA | 01/09/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So far, I have only listened to the Pictures at an Exhibition (PaaE) tracks which is the whole reason I bought this CD. This may not be the most popular recording of PaaE, but it's the Atlanta Symphony Orchesra's (ASO) only available version on CD to my knowledge. Playing tuba in the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra ('82-'83) gave me a completely new perspective on the ASO and how a professional orchestra works. I still think the best seats in the house at the Atlanta Symphony Hall are downstairs in their Green Room or Green Lobby, as the case may be. I own both a recording of The Planets by Gustav Holst performed by Charles Dutoit, and Montréal Symphony Orchestra (1987), where Mars sounds like a ballet and another recording by Sir Adrian Boult, The New Philharmonia Orchestra, and The Ambrosian Singers which I can't find on CD. The ASO recording is "far and away" the best recording of the three followed closely by the Sir Adrian Boult offering in my honest opinion (IMHO)."