Suite from Wuthering heights

"This is an intriguing and very enjoyable recording on several levels. Any new disc of music by Bernard Herrmann is to be welcomed all the more so if it contains "new" music. In this instance an extended suite running to 60:13 taken from Herrmann's magnum opus, the opera Wuthering Heights, alongside a string orchestra version of Herrmann's only quartet Echoes. The playing is entrusted to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra ... The playing is excellent and the recording in the orchestra's famed Esplanade Concert Hall is spectacular ... The skilled adaptation of both works is by another unfamiliar name Hans Sørensen. Sørensen is the current Director of Artistic Planning for the Singapore SO. Back in 2011 - when he prepared this suite - he was Artistic planner for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra ... I am genuinely glad for Sørensen (and Herrmann!) that all his hard work of twelve years ago finally gets heard because the result is musically very impressive and wholly enjoyable".

Læs anmeldelse

"Recommended: Bernard Herrmann was an unmitigated Anglophile ... Dedicated to his wife, the opera Wuthering Heights is a "Lyric Drama in Four Acts and a Prologue" ... One thing is for sure; this disc ... has been as surefooted as a mountain goat. Their choice of orchestra, conductors and technical team is nothing short of perfect ... Hans Sørensen is the imperious but discreet voice in the present Chandos project. From an opera that has barely been heard despite a handful of productions and recordings he has crafted what has been termed a "Suite" running to a telling one hour. Steeped in the world of film music and film studies, Sørensen has also been a force for good in Danish broadcasting ... Sørensen has given new life to an extensive work drawn from a little-known opera by a composer popular in the film music world ... This is indeed a great and extremely effective recording, drenched in splendour from treble to bass. Music and performance that is subtle but stern with nothing of the dayglow treatment".

Læs anmeldelse

"Recording of the week: Herrmann is known as a highly inventive orchestrator, and Sørensen thankfully leaves the original instrumentation intact: the angst-ridden opening for timpani, snarling brass and restless piccolo perfectly conjures the dark and stormy expanse of the Yorkshire moors, vividly and colourfully performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under conductor Mario Venzago ... The score is littered with many beautiful moments as ravishing as anything you might find in any Puccini opera".

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"Best known for his film scores for Alfred Hitchcock, including Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds, Bernard Herrmann (1911-75) had parallel ambitions to write music for performance away from the silver screen. His three-and-a-half-hour opera based on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, completed in 1951, was not staged in his lifetime ... Played atmospherically and with top singers: soprano Keri Fuge as Cathy and baritone Roderick Williams as Heathcliff. Williams's opening cry of "Cathy!" sets the chilling tone, with the orchestra's brooding gusts transporting us instantly to the windswept Yorkshire moors".

Læs anmeldelse

"Bernard Herrmann became completely obsessed with his opera 'Wuthering Heights', convinced that it was the work by which posterity would judge him ... The composer who brought such a firm dramatic touch to his film soundtracks seems less sure-footed here ... The recording is beautifully clear and conducted by Mario Venzago with a suitably epic touch ... Herrmann's Wuthering Heights is unlikely to be recorded complete again, still less staged, so this recording fills an important part in Herrmann's discography, with a soundscape attuned to the terrain from which it springs".