Live from Vienna
offers a collection of works arranged for the curiously spelled brass group
phil Blech Wien
(roughly "Vienna Brass Philharmonic") and organ, here played by the forward-looking
Olivier Latry
on the giant instrument at the Musikverein in Vienna. According to
Franz Welser-Moest
, who contributes an elegant liner note, the pieces, ranging from
Giovanni Gabrieli
to
Ottorino Respighi
's rather unusual
Church Windows
, "were chosen with the aim of bringing the tradition of Viennese sound to a wider circle of listeners and making it more broadly appreciated." This might seem a rather specialized aim, although
Welser-Moest
's reflections link instrument-making and wider Viennese culture in an intriguing way, the album could equally serve an audience of audiophiles.
Deutsche Grammophon
's engineers have done an absolutely exemplary job, in a live recording situation no less, of teasing out not only the subtle strands of closely related organ and brass sounds, but of defining the sounds of the individual instruments to which
refers. Credit must also go to
conductor
Anton Mittermayr
, who is also a timpani maker who has constructed instruments for the
Vienna Philharmonic
and thus is a living representative of the Viennese instrument-building traditions. The arrangements, all by trombonist
Mark Gaal
, also contribute to an album that offers an absolutely distinctive sound world. ~ James Manheim