George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess : A Symphonic Picture ( Hobart Earle/OPO )

Hobart Earle conducts the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance on May 30, 2016 in the National Philharmonic Hall of Ukraine ( city of Kyiv ) .

[musicalsman]

I missed the 6-7 minutes that got cut (all the atmospheric music up front, and then the hurricane music we should hear around 5:38. Sorta turns the "Symphonic PIcture" into sort of a pops medley, you might say.

[AngelalLloyd]

Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Hobart Stanley Earle, son of my auntie, my mother's sister, Ruth Earle and Eldon Earle, born in Caracas, Venezuela, when times were good. Our mutual inheritance, was a maternal grandmother who sold eggs to save her pennies and purchase an upright piano in the early 1920's so she could teach her daughters to play.

[mrkipw]

Robert Russell Bennett was an outstanding orchestrator who received Broadway scores as somewhat raw piano-vocal settings and turned them into skillful professional settings that added value to his shows. Unfortunately, when he was tasked (by Fritz Reiner, who should have known better) to produce a potpourri from Porgy and Bess, his smoothness removed the edge of genius and hobbled the music.

Where Gershwin's suite, Catfish Row, kept his original orchestral sound intact and assigned vocal lines to an appropriate solo instrument, Bennett's suite consists of Mantovani-like Muzak that sandpapers out the thrilling highs and scary lows of the score, making it a perfect, non-distracting background for a conversation in an elevator.

This performance is excellent for what the players were given, but the time would have been better spent springing for a piano player and going with Gershwin's own suite. I've stayed away from this piece for years, and now that I've given it another complete listen, I expect to finish out my days with the same policy. Gershwin's music deserves much better than this white-bread version, and so does this orchestra.

[henryseidel]

Too fast !! As if the orchestra wants to finish as soon as possible. Don't like it !