Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony Elgar & Vaughan Williams: Enigma Variations & The Wasps Hybrid Multi-Channel & Stereo SACD

Mastered by Prof. Keith Johnson!
The magnificent Kansas City Symphony Orchestra plays works by British composers Elgar and Williams, superbly recorded by Grammy-winning sound engineer "Prof." Keith Johnson. The first project of the label Reference Recordings with the musicians from Kansas, the release The Tempest, was a success with the critics. The second release, Britten's Orchestra, even won the Grammy for Best Surround Sound. For this recording, they worked again with the orchestra as well as with the conductor Michael Stern, son of the world-famous violinist Isaac Stern.
For the present SACD mix of the original data with 24 bit / 176.4 KHz, the orchestra chose Vaughan Williams' setting of an Aristophanes piece, "The Wasps", for which he composed incidental music for the first time. Edward Elgar became known, among other things, for his Pomp & Circumstance March No.1, which is borrowed from the anthem Land of Hope and Glory. His very unique orchestration and dynamic idiosyncrasies have never been better captured on one recording. The sound is natural, with great transparency and depth. Recommendable!
This magnificent symphonic recording with the Kansas City Symphony is now available as a multi-channel SACD hybrid! The disc contains both 5.1 surround and stereo SACD layers, as well as a stereo compact disc layer made with the HDCD process for higher fidelity.
This colorful, beloved English music was recorded and mastered by RR's own Grammy-winning Keith O. Johnson.
The Kansas City Symphony garnered tremendous critical acclaim for their first project on Reference Recordings, incidental music for "The Tempest" by Sullivan and Sibelius (RR-115CD Their second release on RR, "Britten's Orchestra," received a GRAMMY for Best Surround Sound for both engineer and producer, as well as rave reviews everywhere! ("Britten's Orchestra" is now unfortunately out of print). We are thrilled to continue to work with the great musicians of the Kansas City Symphony, with conductor and KCS music director Michael Stern, and with producer David Frost who won GRAMMY awards in 2005, 2009 and 2011 for Classical Producer of the Year.
"Do not, I mean this absolutely, let this one pass you by. It is a treat at all levels, and just you wait till you hear the string section's technical finesse and execution throughout." - Harry Pearson, HPSoundings

Features:

• Super Audio CD
• SACD Multi-Channel SACD Layer
• SACD Stereo SACD Layer
• This Hybrid SACD contains a Super HDCD 24 Bit encoded Stereo CD layer which is playable on most conventional CD Players!

Musicians:

• Kansas City Symphony
• Michael Stern, conductor

Selections:

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Wasps - Aristophanic Suite
1. Overture
2. Entra'acte, molto moderato
3. March Past of the Kitchen Utensils
4. Entr'acte, andante
5. Ballet and Final Tableau
6. Fantasia on "Greensleeves"
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
7-20. Variations on an Original Theme "Enigma," Op.36