UMG - Marie-Eve Munger - Maestrino Mozart - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

NAXOS gives us a superior recording of Copland's 3rd Symphony. James Judd and his New Zealand forces capture all the detail at a pace that's just right. Though Copland provided no program, throughout there is the open expanse of Americana without quotations from folk music. This is his most ambitiousorchestral work. The finale in grand scale incorporates InchFanfare For The Common ManInch which builds and builds to a shimmering full orchestral climax.

Oboist Celine Moinet has already released threealbums on Berlin Classics with music by Bach, Schumann and French composers. Now she returnswith an album, where she pairs Mozart's Adagio forEnglish Horn K580a and Oboe Quartet with worldpremiere recordings of the works by Luigi Gatti Quartet in F major and C major. The Italian composersettled down in Salzburg in 1782, when he was already an acquaintence to the Mozart family. Worth discovering are Gatti's chamber works, created during his later years as a retiree after the secularisation and dissolution of the Salzburg prince-archbishopric in 1803. These works reveal him as a skilled and inventive master of form, as well as an experimenter in instrumentation. The F major quartet, in particular, presents considerable virtuoso challenges, including passages that push the oboe's range even higher than Mozart's quartet, reaching up to high G (g'). This daring extension of the oboe's tonal possibilities marks Gatti as an innovator and serves as a testament to his creative spirit.

The Gathering is the Vanguard Records debut for jazz pianist and vocalist Diane Schuur. It features thoroughly modern and soulful Jazz interpretations of ten classic country songs. The set was produced by her guitarist, Steve Buckingham, with the other members of her quartet, bassist Michael Rhodes and drummer Eddie Bayers. The material features songs by Hank Cochran (InchWhy Can't He Be YouInch and InchDon't Touch MeInch), Willie Nelson (InchThe Healing Hands of TimeInch), Merle Haggard and Bonnie Owens (InchToday I Started Loving You AgainInch), Dallas Frazier (InchBeneath Still WatersInch), Bill Anderson and Roger Miller (InchWhen Two Worlds CollideInch), Kris Kristofferson (InchNobody WinsInch), the team of George Richey, Billy Sherrill, and Tammy Wynette (Inch 'Til I Can Make It on My OwnInch), as well as others. The album also includes a number of special guest spots from Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Mark Knopfler, Kirk Whalum, and Larry Carlton.