Lowell Liebermann's Frankenstein, a collaboration with the late choreographer Liam Scarlett, was composed in the mid-2010s and had several performances in Britain. This recording was made live in 2018 and marked the U.S. premiere in San Francisco, featuring the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra under conductor Martin West, and it is to be recommended for the live atmosphere alone. A good deal of enthusiastic applause is retained, and the audiophile engineering staff at Reference Recordings proves itself as able in live ...
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Lowell Liebermann's Frankenstein, a collaboration with the late choreographer Liam Scarlett, was composed in the mid-2010s and had several performances in Britain. This recording was made live in 2018 and marked the U.S. premiere in San Francisco, featuring the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra under conductor Martin West, and it is to be recommended for the live atmosphere alone. A good deal of enthusiastic applause is retained, and the audiophile engineering staff at Reference Recordings proves itself as able in live recording as it is in the studio; the sound has a wonderful immediacy rare in theatrical recordings. Liebermann's score is immediately appealing. Ballet music and film scores have much in common, with both forms comprising short pieces that each illustrate a single scene. Liebermann's music is cinematic, indeed evoking the great tradition of 1930s Hollywood horror film scores, but as the music approaches its considerable climaxes in Act III, his harmonic palette darkens, as if to emphasize...
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