"SCREAMERS" - Circus marches by Thomas S. Allen, Orion R. Farrar, Henry Fillmore, Julius Fucik, John C. Heed, Will Huff, Getty H. Huffine, Fred Jewell, Karl L. King, John H. Ribble and Charles E. Duble. Military marches by Edwin Franko Goldman, Kenneth J. Alford, Henry Fillmore, Robert Browne Hall, David Wallace Reeves, Roland Forrest Seitz and Richard Rodgers.
Eastman Wind Ensemble/Frederick Fennell, cond.
MERCURY SACD 475 6619 (M) (ADD) TT: 65:50

"BALALAIKA FAVORITES" - Fantasy on Two Folk Songs (Budashkin), At Sunrise (arr. Gorodovskaya), The Linden Tree (Kulikov), Kamarinskaya (Osipov), Fantasy on Volga Melodies (Mikhailov-Shalayev), In the Moonlight (Andreyev), Midnight in Moscow (Soloviev-Sedoy), Under the Apple Tree (Andreyev), Dance of the Comedians (Tchaikovsky), The Living Room (Shishakov), Evening Bells (arr. Mossolov), My Dear Old Friend Please Visit Me (Poponov), Waltz of the Faun (Andreyev), Flight of the Bumble-Bee (Rimsky-Korsakov).
Osipov State Russian Folk Orch/Vitaly Gnutov, cond.
MERCURY SACD 475 6610 (M) (ADD) TT: 49:30

PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26. Toccata, Op. 11. RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F# minor, Op. 1 SCHUMANN: Variations on a Theme by Clara Wieck. MENDELSSOHN: Song without words, Op. 62 No. 1. PINTO: Three Scenes from Childhood.
Byron Janis, pianist/Moscow Philharmonic Orch/Kiril Kondrashin, cond.
MERCURY SACD 475 6607 (M) (ADD) TT: 68:55

ENESCU: Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1. LISZT: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1 in F minor. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in D minor (arr. Matthey). Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3 in D. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 4 in D minor. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 in E minor (Héroïde Elégiaque). Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D (Carnival in Pesth).
London Symphony Orch/Antal Dorati, cond.
MERCURY SACD 475 6185 (M) (ADD) TT: 73:50

Here are four more important SACD reissues, now heard in the three tracks originally recorded and sounding better than ever in the SACD format. All were previously available on Mercury Living Presence CDs which were superb, but these are even better. We have the rousing Fennell marches played to perfection by the crackerjack Eastman Wind Ensemble (recorded October 1957/May 1962), the vivid collection of "Balalaika Favorites" with its pungent sounds (recorded June 1962), Antal Dorati's vivid Enescu/Liszt rhapsodies (recorded June1960/July 1963) and the Byron Janis recordings (June 1962). Choice of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 1 is rather strange as Janis had recorded it five years earlier with Reiner and the Chicago Symphony on RCA, a performance I prefer to the later one. Had they chosen the Concerto No. 4, we would then have all four Rachmaninoff concertos recorded by Janis.

For all of these recordings, Wilma Cozart was recording director, Harold Lawrence musical supervisor, and C. Robert Fine "chief engineer and technical supervisor." They all did their tasks superbly, and we look forward to future releases in the series.

R.E.B. (May 2005)