Search - Barber, Smithsonian Chamber Players :: Metamorphosis

From The Times

Record Collector | Mons, Belgium | 08/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The violins of the Smithsonian Chamber Players are not 'original' instruments, having had their necks, bridges and bass bars altered in the usual way. But they are gut-strung, and the difference is considerable: the sound is mellow, more characterfully voiced, more soulful than with conventional instruments.



"The playing, too, under Kenneth Slowik's direction, is splendidly sensitive to the idiom of the music, with generous portamento and an excellent sense of ebb and flow in the Elgar Serenade. Indeed, this account of the Serenade, with its subtle gradations of dynamics and rhythms, makes it sound a far more substantial piece than usual, and Strauss's Metamorphosen is also done eloquently.



"Slowik's own booklet notes raise some interesting scholarly issues, and the musical examples have been specially recorded to enable the listener to hear them while reading the notes an imaginative idea."

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