<<  -- 3 --  Bill Newman    SHARING THE RESPONSE

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have a series of live recordings taken from concerts at Philharmonic Hall. Produced by Michael Ogonovsky and engineered by David A Pigott with Jonathan A C Small as Executive Producer, they were recorded on a Genex GX8000 MO disk recorder and monitored on B & W Loudspeakers by Merseyside Sound Recordings. Altrichter features on two.

RLCD203 contains Respighi's rarely heard Church Windows, a performance fully the equal of older recordings by Dorati and Ormandy, showing the colourful range of the orchestra's various sections, with its wonderful resplendency during the closing pages. Kodály's Dances of Galanta is full of expertise, although the reading is hardly Hungarian in feeling.

On home ground, Janácek's Taras Bulba is finely paced, a perfect example of how Czech music should be performed. Performance dates: September 1999/February 2000.

RLCD101 features music from the Russian mainstream. From the concert on 17 October 1998 come Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla Overture, an exciting opener, Mussorgsky, arr Rimsky-Korsakov A Night on the Bare Mountain -- listen to the rasping trombones -- and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, spacious in the first movement, dramatic in the second, ardent in the third and magnificent in the fourth.

An encore: Shostakovich's Galop, Moscow Cheremushki brings the house down.

Transfers favour the acoustics of the hall, with no added reverberation or spotlighting. My only regret is that I have to boost the volume level up to maximum to obtain optimum results.