Concerto pour piano, Rhapsody in blue, Seconde Rhapsodie pour piano et orchestre [SACD Hybride, Super Audio CD]

L'arrangement original pour big band de cuivres surprend un peu, plus acide que les versions orchestrales. A contrario, il y a la satisfaction musicologique d'écouter quelque chose qui se rapproche de l'original, après tout, ça fait 30 ans que les musiciens baroques prospèrent là-dessus. Dans ce cas précis, ça fonctionne très bien, car la musique s'y prête, et l'inégalable magie de Greshwin emporte le tout.

This SACD recording by Bis is another proof their ability to deliver the goods - and how...!
The Bis recording with Freddy Kempe at the piano and Andre Litton conducting the Bergen Philharmonic, stands a formidable competition from another SACD, namely, the RCA Living-Stereo with Earl Wild at the piano and Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.

The RCA's Rhapsody in Blue, recorded 1959, the Concerto in F & Variations on I got Rhythm, recorded 1961 (the RCA SACD was originally recorded with just few well placed omnidirectional microphones and used tube gear all over). The RCA SACD has only the front channel information while the Bis (2011 recording) has the front and the surround channels information.

And now;
RCA's Earl Wild has found his match with Freddy Kempe on this Bis recording; while Earl Wild has a formidable technical skills and power, the competition winner, Fredy Kempe, has an even more limpid technical skills and overall a greater power of expression and nuances thrown at the listener that (audible) comes all the way through with this Bis modern recording technique. The piano here has some sort of lucidity, decay time captured and an audio expression tone of the "Steinway" piano that the older RCA can not match. Also, the balance between the piano and the orchestra on this Bis recording is quite natural where the piano has sorts of 3-D and is not thrown in your face.

The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton's baton has more 'surprises' for us behind every corner or the score (in a manner of speaking) that makes the listening to the Boston Pops (polished playing) something of a more established 'traditional-viewing' of the score (a feature also prominent with the Previn reading of these works).
With the Bergen Orchestra one discovers passages that were previously 'buried' and now comes to life (the clarinet 'sarcasm' - 'Sexy' sort pronunciation part; Rhapsody in Blue). At certain passages found all over the score of all four Gershwin works recorded here, the Bergen orchestra has more virtuosity, bursts of energy and more topping climaxes captured that eludes the older recording technique from shining thru (actually, the older recording has some congestion on the crescendos that sounds like tape saturation and tape decay; no wonder, since the tapes were transferred to Digital in 2005, some forty-four years after they have been recorded...)

For those listeners who has a capable playback installations that can express and do justice to the virtues of the SACD and to the superb Bis recording technique with its full dynamic and full frequency response - this recording is a must have...
For those who have only front channels SACD playback installations this too, is a great offering.
And for those that has only PCM (normal CD) playback installation - the CD layer on this SACD Bis disk would top any of the PCM (CD) disks available.

Top scores for this Bis SACD - and how...!