Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Leroy Anderson Tribute, 17 Feb 2009
This and the other four Naxos (vols 1,2,4 &5) Cd's were recorded so as to form a Tribute to Leroy Anderson in time for his centenary in 2008.
Leroy Anderson is a rare species,a truly unique composer.
Where Mahler and Bruckner can take up to 2 hours,and Wagner even longer to expound their musical themes Anderson does it all in about 5 minutes,and often much less.I think you could call them "condensed symphonies" containing as they do such lyricism,invention and above all gentle humour.
The 5 CD's in this release contain ALL Andersons orchestral compositions.They are played here with affection but above all heart felt conviction by the BBC Concert Orchestra,conducted by that Anderson champion Leonard Slatkin.
I leave others to review individual tracks, a hard job when there are 5 CD's!
I would urge you to buy all 5,and given the bargain price that they are selling at it's not difficult.
Once you have heard them you won't want ever to be without them again
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Leroy Anderson, America's Iconic Light Music Composer, 14 Aug 2008
In the wake of two lauded earlier volumes of Leonard Slatkin's recordings of orchestral music by Leroy Anderson comes this volume containing such favorites as 'Plink, Plank, Plunk', 'Sleigh Ride', 'The Typewriter', 'The Syncopated Clock' and 'A Trumpeter's Lullaby'. Of the three volumes this is the one with the largest number of the best-known pieces and it is, of course, self-recommending. And, as in the earlier volumes, Slatkin and the BBC Concert Orchestra, supply the music with all the light-heartedness, élan and suavity one could wish for.
Lovely as the well-known pieces are, for me the best parts of the CD are those less familiar but equally attractive pieces, the ones that many of us have never heard before. 'Serenata' is drenched in Spanish atmosphere and features two marvelous tunes. 'Mother's Whistler' (pun intended) is an early piece that Anderson withdrew but it was found in the library of the Boston Pops and saw the light again years later; it features an insouciant whistling tune in the high violins. 'The Phantom Regiment' features muted trumpets and depicts a ghostly troop of marching onto the scene and then off again. 'Sandpaper Ballet' requires the percussion section to use three grades of sandpaper to imitate the rhythms of a soft-shoe routine.
Anderson's take on 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' is laugh-out-loud funny with its imitations of barnyard sounds. And his arrangement of Meredith Willson's 'Seventy-Six Trombones' cleverly mixes Willson's tune with some of the familiar marches of John Philip Sousa. And then Anderson wrote an endearing arrangement of 'Wintergreen for President', from George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing'. Altogether more staid, but equally attractive, is the longest piece on the CD, Anderson's 'Suite of Carols for Brass Choir'.
No doubt about it, this is a CD to lift one's spirits and set one's toe tapping. Anderson is indeed an American musical treasure and his music is always welcome, particularly in such fine performances by Slatkin and his orchestra.
Heartily recommended.
Scott Morrison
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