Classical Candor: June 2025

Jun 12, 2025

Remembering Brian Wilson (1942-2025)

by Karl Nehring

The musical world lost a great one with the passing of Brian Wilson (b. 1942). One of the sad things about growing old is seeing people you have known and admired for most of your life come to the end of theirs. Music has forever been an important part of my life, and as I grow older (approaching 76), I have seen many of my musical heroes pass on. Some of the deaths that hit me especially hard were those of Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Leonard Cohen, Phil Lesh – I could go on, but those are the names of some musicians who brought great joy into my life; their deaths brought great sorrow. But as I have said before, thank goodness we have recordings so that their music can live on.

Just when I was starting to get over the passing of Sylvester “Sly” Stone, whose music was able to stimulate my body to dance in the ‘60s and calm my military mind in the ‘70s, I saw the news of Brian’s demise, which I immediately passed along to some of my close friends who I knew were also admirers of the man and his music. I soon received replies expressing shock, grief, and heartbreak. Several friends mentioned Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys album that was Wilson’s brainchild – by nearly universal acclamation one of the greatest rock albums ever released. Others mentioned “God Only Knows,” a song that many consider one of the finest rock – if not popular, period – songs ever recorded.

We once reviewed an album by Wilson on which he did not sing, but rather just played the piano. You can read that review here. Wilson’s playing is far from virtuoso, as he was the first admit, but it is heartfelt. As a composer, arranger, and producer, he sometimes went in for grandiose ideas that frustrated his fellow Beach Boys and led to bitter divisions in the band – and ultimately to his own prolonged battles with depression, advisors, and mental health issues that for many years kept him away from the business of making music. But he eventually made his way back and enjoyed a successful musical and personal renaissance, remaking some of his earlier projects and embarking on successful touring shows. He played his last concert in 2022. Sadly, in 2024, his family announced that he was suffering from dementia.

Although his drive to explore new sounds and complex harmonies are what made him famous, it is the simple, vulnerable, extremely personal music that makes Brian Wilson so memorable. Two of his songs in particular will forever live in my heart: “Love and Mercy” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.” Try to imagine these words being sung in his plaintive, vulnerable voice:

I was lying in my room
And the news came on TV
A lotta people out there hurtin'
And it really scares me

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight
So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

Or these:

I think I got somethin' good goin' for myselfBut what goes wrong

Sometimes I feel very sadSometimes I feel very sad
Sometimes I feel very sad

I guess I just wasn't made for these times

It may well indeed be true that Brian Wilson just wasn’t made for these times; however, his music, at least for many of us of a certain age and disposition, makes these times better. Thank you, Brian, and may you rest in peace.

Jun 7, 2025

Rendezvous: Jazz Meet Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, & More (Streaming Review)

by Karl Nehring

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 / Piano Sonata “Moonlight”;Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Dance of the Reed Flutes; Beethoven: Sonata No. 8 “Pathétique” 2nd Movement; Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake; Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet - Dance of the Knights; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - The Old Castle; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #2; Ravel: Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte. Jo-Yu Chen, piano; Chris Tordini, bass; Tommy Crane, drums. Sony Music Taiwan: Digital, G010005486913X; Vinyl, 19802883371 (available on Spotify and Bandcamp). The album is available to stream on Apple Music as lossless 16-bit/44.1 kHz. Also available on Qobuz for streaming and download purchase at the same resolution. (Not available on CD.)

As a young child in Taiwan, Jo-Yu Chen began piano lessons at the age of five and added oboe lessons at the age of nine. At the age of 16, she moved from her native Taiwan to the United States to train at Juilliard on both piano and oboe. Her background was in classical music, but she soon but was developed a passion for jazz and began studying jazz piano under the tutelage of jazz keyboard master Sam Yahel. She also completed a Ph.D. in Music Education from Columbia University. Her musical talents were recognized and she was signed by Sony, for whom with her bandmates listed above plus some guest jazz luminaries featured on some tracks she released her first four albums: Obsession (with drummer Tyshawn Sorey, 2011), Incomplete Soul (2012), Stranger (with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, 2014) and Savage Beauty (with saxophonist Mark Turner, 2019), all of which featured her own compositions. In 2024 she returned to her love for the classical canon with an EP titled Schubert & Mozart: 'Round Midnight, which featured her trio playing her jazz takes on themes from selections by those Viennese masters. It’s quite a different approach than you might expect; not just a “jazzy gloss” on classical melodies, but an exuberant 21 minutes of jazz based on a serious reimagining of those melodies. Think Schubert meets Brubeck – but that’s just a starting point. And really, truly, what she and her bandmates create on that EP sounds totally original; again, not just a jazzy gloss on classical melodies, but music that sounds delightfully fresh and original.

About her new album, Chen observes, “this recording project started somewhat by accident. I've always been hesitant about making a cross-genre album unless it felt truly special. Coming from a classical background, I approach reinterpreting classical works more cautiously than composing my own. The classical world guards its history and masterpieces fiercely, and that pressure feels heavier than creating something new. So I thought, if I'm going to do this, it has to have depth, beauty, and lasting power. When I first started on this album, I was constantly drawn to Beethoven-his music, creativity, and rebellious spirit. He wasn't just a composer; he was a trailblazer, a rock star of his time who transcended his era, bridging the Classical and Romantic periods with boldness and vision. Beethoven's pioneering spirit of innovation and his strong sense of aesthetics are precisely what I want to channel into the next chapter of my musical journey. Looking back, this album is my response to my previous EP, Schubert and Mozart.

I’ll have to admit that what I expected to hear when I auditioned this album for the first time was simply a jazz gloss on familiar themes. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find out how wrong I was when I discovered from the very first measures of the opening track, Symphony No. 5 / Piano Sonata “Moonlight,” that Chen, Tordini, and Crane were not glossing; rather, they were taking musical ideas from Beethoven (and Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and others) and reshaping them into entertaining, bracing jazz cuts. Furthermore, the trio plays as a trio, with all three members making solid contributions – it’s not just Chen’s piano in the lead with bass and drums keeping time.

This truly is a release that should prove rewarding to jazz and classical fans alike. My only reservation is its relatively short duration, just under 39 minutes, which I suppose makes sense when you think of it as a vinyl LP release, which is apparently how Sony Music Taiwan views it. What I would love to see happen would be for Sony to combine Rendezvous with Chen’s previous Schubert & Mozart EP into one hour-long release that they could then market not only as a digital release (download and streaming) but also as a CD. In any event, I highly recommend that both jazz and classical music lovers would do well to arrange a Rendezvous.

Jun 1, 2025

Weinberg: Complete Music for Cello and Orchestra (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Nikolay Shugaev, cellist; Yuri Medianik, conductor; Tyumen Philharmonic Orchestra. Naxos 8.574679

Now this is what I’m talking about! When Mieczysław Weinberg was at his best, as with each of the three works on this recording, his music is a pleasure to listen to. It’s not that he was the most original composer who ever lived, and certainly not one of the greatest. Yes, yes: Shostakovich haunts these proceedings to varying degrees. But never mind all of that; Weinberg had enough moxie of his own to provide a thoroughly satisfying, even memorable listening experience when he wanted to. Usually this happened more toward the beginning of his career, before he adopted an austere style poorly suited to his gifts. As I suggested in my last Weinberg CD review, when he was direct, the results could be wonderful. And here we have three slices of wonderful directness.

At first glance this disc would seem to be something of a rip-off. The Concertino for Cello and String Orchestra is actually an early version of the bigger Concerto for Cello and Orchestra. But these two works, while clearly sharing much material, are yet different enough from one another that they can be considered separate compositions. In fact, I find listening to and comparing them to be an enjoyable venture. To be honest I very much like both and am not sure I actually prefer the more developed concerto. It’s almost twice as long, due to more “worked out” passages that share ideas with its predecessor mostly across roughly the first three movements of each. But the concertino (note its ensemble scoring for strings rather than full orchestra), while a slighter score, is also somehow cozier and more intimate. I think it’s that the concerto adds almost an entire whole movement’s worth of material toward the end that wasn’t there before. This finale, while ending on a calmer profile (as in the concertino), begins with what is essentially another quick section after the scherzo-like material in each version. While I find the added section’s themes compelling, it might be a little too much of a good thing after the preceding bars – gilding the lily, as it were. But then again maybe not. I’ve heard enough tedious Weinberg not to be too ungrateful when he’s consistently good across a single work, not to mention two iterations of the same one. They are enjoyable all the way through, and full of wit and affecting beauty.

The remaining piece is the Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, completed in 1953. Cast in one movement, it clocks in at just under the length of the concertino. And it is very nearly as eventful. Things start off with one of Weinberg’s signature slow, moody themes that’s just a bit quirky. Before it wears out it's welcome we come to a jaunty, rondo-like section that is great fun and also oddly touching. There’s a cadenza toward the end, near where the first theme returns. The latter then appears in tandem with a new theme in a coda-like passage. Like the other works here, the Fantasia ends quietly. I had not heard it before listening to this recording, and was unexpectedly captivated all the way through.

Yuri Medianik, Nikolay Shugaev, and the Tyumen Philharmonic make a great case for this repertoire. Their playing is sharp and energetic, even in the calmer stretches. This is music of emotional intensity, and everyone rises to the occasion admirably. The recording’s sound also deserves mention: everything is especially crisp and clear. I doubt whether Weinberg’s cello-and-orchestra music needed this level of excellence merely in order to make a positive impression, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’re new to the composer and want somewhere to start, here is a very good place.

John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.

Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio