Brian Horay of the Huffington Post gave a glowing review of the Oregon Symphony’s “This England” that we recorded. Here is some of what he had to say:
The album concludes with instrumental selections from Peter Grimes, the most successful opera Benjamin Britten ever wrote and arguably the most famous English opera ever written. What’s not at all debatable is the Oregon Symphony’s knockout performance of Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia on this new recording. Violins set the stage for Britten’s scene-changing music, introducing his first interlude with an ethereal melody that transforms into an unanswered question repeated over a beefy-yet-restrained orchestra, evoking the beauty of sunrise with a hint of warning. Sunday Morning, the second interlude, sharply depicts villagers as church-going automatons urged to action by bells and rollicking buoys through the pure, unadulterated magic of a 14-foot chime. And then there’s interlude #3, simply titled Moonlight. Indeed, what a little moonlight can do. Deeply resonating string sections, a smattering of woodwinds, crisp percussive accents… So help me God, it just might be four of the most brilliant minutes ever written for orchestra.
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