Search - Leo Brouwer :: La Obra Guitarristica V.4

Great Pieces, Mediocre Recording

Sor_Fingers | Boulder, CO USA | 04/23/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Elegiaco and Toronto are probably Brouwer's most famous and most frequently played concertos. These pieces are fabulous. The two pieces were written for Julian Bream and John Williams respectively and they both feature virtuosic playing and great orchestral parts. Unfortunately, this is probably not the recording to get. It is convenient to have these two staggering modern masterpieces on one recording, but one listen to this recording will convince you to stay away from it. Rey Guerra's guitar playing is actually quite good (though he does make a few mistakes on this live recording). However, the orchestra is absolutely awful. The strings on Elegiaco aren't so bad, but when Brouwer employs winds on Toronto, things get nasty. The clarinets actually oscillate in and out of tune. The flutes are really airy. The horn solo at the beginning sounds like the horn player has a pillow in the bell. The orchestra sounds really unrehearsed and incapable of playing the music. Brouwer's orchestration may contribute some to the parts that make my ears bleed (let's face it, he's a guitar composer, not an orchestral composer), but still, it is clear that there are students in conservatories around the world that could play better than the players on this recording. Also, the recording quality is really low. It sort of sounds like some one sat in the audience with a mini disc recorder and a Radioshack microphone and released the audio as a bootleg. In quieter parts of the piece, you can hear audience members hacking up phlegm and squirming in their seats. For a good recording of Toronto get John Williams' recording on Sony. If you can find Bream's recording of Elegiaco, get it, but it appears to be out of print (like much of the rest Bream's recording). There is also a recording of both of these works played by Ricardo Cobo, which may go better than this one. Save your money, pay for a better recording."