Reference Recordings

Frankenstein [Double Album] (World Premiere Recording)

Martin West, San Francisco Ballet Orchestra

Price

€22,99 – €32,99

Rated 4 out of 5 based on 2 press rating

(2 press reviews)

Original Recording Format: PCM 176.4 kHz
Quality and Channels Help

World Premiere Recording of Lowell Liebermann’s Complete Score

Frankenstein featuring the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra with conductor Martin West is a Double Album, World Premiere Recording that was recorded during live ballet performances at War Memorial Opera House. Featuring 32 tracks and almost 2 hours of musical enjoyment in DSD.

The producers say “The live audience, the special effects, beautiful sets and incredible dancers allowed us to document an ‘event’ rather than simply recording a musical score. The composer, Lowell Liebermann was with us at all

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Tracklist

Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.

1.

Prologue: Geneva, 1775

05:46

2.

Scene 1: Geneva, 1788, The Frankenstein Manor

05:27

3.

Elizabeth and Victor

06:02

4.

Elizabeth and Victor Announce Their Engagement

05:34

5.

Scene 2: The Frankenstein Cemetery

02:33

6.

Interlude

00:44

7.

Scene 3: The Anatomy Theatre at Ingolstadt University

00:49

8.

The Students Enter

01:48

9.

The Anatomy Lesson

07:33

10.

Scene 4: The Tavern at Ingolstadt

04:39

11.

Scene 5: The Anatomy Theatre

06:47

12.

The Creature Lives!

02:13

13.

Prologue: Victor's Bedchamber in the Frankenstein Manor

03:22

14.

Scene 1: Geneva, 1795, Outside the Frankenstein Manor

04:36

15.

Elizabeth and Victor

06:53

16.

The Creature Solo

06:07

17.

William's Birthday

04:49

18.

Blind Man's Bluff

02:07

19.

The Creature Kills William

05:58

20.

Justine Solo

03:03

21.

Victor and the Creature

02:07

22.

Scene 2: A Back Alley in Geneva, Justine is Executed

01:06

23.

Prologue: The Ballroom at the Frankenstein Manor

00:35

24.

Waltz

06:55

25.

Interlude

00:49

26.

Elizabeth and Victor

04:33

27.

Henry Solo

01:39

28.

Waltz Reprise

01:54

29.

General Panic

02:00

30.

The Creature Kills Henry and Dances with Elizabeth

00:29

31.

Elizabeth and the Creature

04:37

32.

Victor and the Creature

05:20

Total time: 01:58:54

Press reviews

Audiophile Audition 4 out of 5

There is much to admire here. The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra plays wonderfully with great tone, exemplary dynamic range and a genuine sensitivity to the changes in color and emotion found in this work, which are considerable.

The recording is superb – everything is captured on the broadest of sound stages with great depth and presence. Musically, the piece is extraordinary, tuneful, full of expression, dramatic, and ever-changing.

I was afraid, as I am about most contemporary ballet recordings, that the two-hour time period would prove monotonous or dull, but this was not the case. Liebermann makes good use of all the combinations of orchestral color at his disposal, and you are hard-pressed to find even one moment of waning inspiration, and the music is extremely accessible.

This album is a marvel, and if you don’t know any of Liebermann’s work, I can’t think of a better place to start.

Steven Ritter

AllMusic 4 out of 5

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.

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 the modern resonances of the Frankenstein story.

Conductor West is alert to both the Hollywood evocations, giving the strings a heated, melodramatic tone and the shift in style as the music proceeds.

James Manheim - Source

Double Album Higher Rates Program Not Available on SACD World Premiere Recording

Reference Recordings 71 albums

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