Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra - Brickman: Baltic Sketches - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Moore / Bathgate / White - Stories For Ocean Shells [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/20/2016

Australian composer Mark John McEncroe and Navona Records present SYMPHONIC SUITE NO. 3 THE FOREST AND THE MOUNTAINS featuring three orchestral movements that draw inspiration from the natural world- InchMeandering in the Forest I,Inch InchRunning Mountain Streams II,Inch and InchWandering in the Mountain Wilderness III.Inch Brought to life by Zagreb Festival Orchestra, McEncroe's unique voice and filmic quality flow throughout, with musical illustrations painted by striking crescendos and gentle string and woodwind melodies. Born in Sydney, Australia, Mark John McEncroe commenced music studies in his adulthood. He had a varied interest in many kinds of music, not just classical, which led him to working in the music/record business for EMI Records in his early 20s and 30s. For much of that time he was a tag Manager, first with EMI Australia and then with EMI Sweden. To date McEncroe has recorded and released 12 albums of piano and orchestral works.

It is tempting to compare Matej Meštrovic's compositional style to his great predecessors in the late-Romantic tradition. After all, much of the Croatian composer's style and techniques would be right at home in Rachmaninoff's concertos, Tchaikovsky's works, or Prokofiev's neoclassicism; and the name of the album's first work, Danube Rhapsody, naturally evokes associations with Smetana's similarly river-themed Vltava. Add to all of this that Meštrovic, like most of his great musical ancestors, is a talented virtuoso pianist, and it's easy to see why 3 Rhapsodies is bound to meet with enthusiasm. Of course, a skillful composer like Meštrovic doesn't confine himself to mere epigonism. And indeed, there is an original voice which constantly rises out from tradition. This is partially achieved through Meštrovic's clever instrumentation the Danube Rhapsody's scoring includes, among others, a cimbalom and a tamburitza (the Croatian long-necked lute), which immediately tells the listener that he or she is hearing the Balkans, not Russia or Czechia. Similarly, the Chinese Rhapsody employs traditional Chinese instruments such as the pipa, erhu, and zheng, gorgeously contrasting them against the tremolo strings of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. American East Coast natives will find themselves swept back home in Meštrovic's New England Rhapsody, a composition initially as comforting and sentimentally heart-warming as the Transatlantic accent in a 1940's film. It's a deceptive respite, however the final movement, interspersed with jazzy rhythmic elements and Meštrovic's resurfacing Croatian voice, takes the listener right back to the exalting ardor of the album's beginning. Instead of fizzling out like lesser compositions might, it finishes with a bang. There is no way around it 3 Rhapsodies is a triumph. It is not at all unlikely that future generations, when asked to nam