Patrik Enander wrote:

>I've read a lot of good things about this budget label for example the
>Beethoven Symphonys, Beethoven Cello Sonatas, Brahms Organ Works
>
>Has anyone heard good CD:S from this company?

The Bruckner symphonies with Skrowaczewski are wonderful.  Big, warm, Old
World style, and the Saarbrucken orchestra is great.  As good as any of the
type.  S did all but 2 and 9, I think, and I'm told those were done well by
whomever took them on.  I've heard the Skrowaczewskis, but not the others.

The Janacek Sinfonietta with Neumann is quite good.  The Violin Concerto
would be good if it weren't so laser-like focused on the violinist.
Coupling is a decent suite from Vixen.

I seem to remember the Warlock disc isn't bad, but I haven't played it in
a while.

Skrowaczewski did a bizarre Elgar Enigma.  Gorgeous warm playing and
totally unidiomatic.  Some variations are gorgeous, some are perverse.  The
adjective that applies? Slow, but not as overwrought as Bernstein.  The
Britten Piano Concerto is passable.  You get this one to hear Elgar sound
like Bruckner, but only after you've heard him sound like Elgar first.

The Hanson 2nd and 4th Symphonies disc is not very good.

Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with Michael Gielen is excellent.  Very
exciting, not as warm as most, but a worthy interpretation.  I've mentioned
this one before.

A mixed bag label, in other words.  Which makes it, in that regard at
least, like every other label.  Something tells me there are plenty of
bad ones: I just haven't heard them.

Roger Hecht