Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Telarc CD-80668.
Every album seems to
need a gimmick these days. With Telarc’s The
Never-Ending Waltz the deal was to string together snippets of famous
waltzes into a continuous fifty-odd-minute stream. Erich Kunzel and the
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra play the music beautifully, of course, and, to be
snide for a second, if you have an elevator in your house, it will do wonders for
the ride.
As I sat listening,
I couldn’t help thinking of those old “101 Strings Play the Classics” records
of the 1950’s and 60’s, where they would give you about one or two minutes of
every famous classical piece you could think of. The possibilities are endless,
of course. With today’s writable CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-rays, MP3’s and all, people
could take their own favorite Beethoven symphony movements and create their own
new symphony. Let’s see, the first movement of the Sixth, the slow movement of the Fifth,
the Scherzo from the Seventh, and maybe a big finale with the
ending of the Ninth.
There is a method to
this collection of excerpts from Kunzel and the Pops, though: While they play
the music without interruption, they actually divide it into eight categories.
They devote the first nine minutes or so to the waltzes of Johann Strauss, Jr.;
then the next section, called “Vienna Waltzes,” includes music by Lanner,
Ivanovici, Lehar, etc.; followed by “Operetta Waltzes,” “Opera Waltzes,”
“Waldteufel Waltzes,” “Concert Waltzes,” “Ballet Waltzes,” and, finally,
“Tchaikovsky Waltzes.” So, Kunzel and his crew do cover the field. And, to be
fair, the album does make for wonderful background music. The Cincinnati Pops
play with a full, lush smoothness that is quite fetching, and Kunzel does have
the measure of the music.
If it’s only lovely
snippets of musical wallpaper you’re after, this album serves its purpose.
Besides, who can tell, maybe it will encourage fledgling classical fans to buy
complete sets of the material this album includes. Indeed, what the disc did
best for me was make me want to listen to the original tunes in their entirety.
Telarc released the
disc in 2006, and the sound is good, as we have come to expect from this
source, especially in its imaging and its sweet ambient bloom. Still, it seemed
just a touch softer to me, more slightly vague and muffled, than Telarc’s best
stuff. Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I did my listening, or maybe I had
my ears plugged up from a summer allergy. Who knows. Or maybe it was that the
music appeared to me more lightweight than usual from Kunzel, and it influenced
how I heard it. The album has no doubt sold a ton of copies in its time, and
for its kind, the disc more than adequately fulfills its goals.
To listen to several brief excerpts from this album, click
here:
JJP
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