[SACD-R][OF] Frederick Fennell conducting the Eastman Wind Ensemble - Fennell Conducts Sousa Marches 1960-1961 Compilation [SACD DSD64 2ch, 3ch](Germany 2004 Mercury Living Presence 475 6182) (Classical)

Art Direction – Ton Friesen
Composed By – John Philip Sousa
Conductor, Liner Notes – Frederick Fennell
Engineer [Associate] – Robert Eberenz
Engineer [Chief], Technician [Technical Supervisor] – C. Robert Fine*
Ensemble – Eastman Wind Ensemble
Liner Notes [Editor] – Sedgwick Clark
Mastered By – Andrew Nicholas
Photography By [Cover] – Henry Ries
Producer [For Cd] – Wilma Cozart Fine*
Recording Supervisor [Recording Director] – Wilma Cozart
Supervised By [Musical Supervisor] – Harold Lawrence

This SACD rip was created using the following process:
The ISO image was created using SACD Daemon.
Booklet and tray scans at 300 dpi. Cover was damaged and not scanned.

This disc makes an interesting comparison with Morton Gould’s recording of some of the same marches, released as “Brass and Percussion” on RCA Living Stereo SACD.
Comment from Classical CD Review:
The late Frederick Fennell’s 1960-1961 Sousa recordings with the Eastman Wind Ensemble have been sonic blockbusters ever since their initial LP issue. This transfer to SACD is superior to previous CD issues—tremendous impact and clarity, and lively performances with virtuoso playing from the 52-member wind/brass/percussion ensemble.
Review from Classics Today by Victor Carr, Jr. (10/10 for music and sound)
There’s absolutely nothing to dislike about this album, assuming of course that you like marches. Frederick Fennell conducts Sousa’s miniature masterpieces with all the brio and zest you could wish for, and the Eastman Wind Ensemble’s playing matches the power, polish, and pizazz of some of the finest military bands. More than 24 items are included in this generous collection featuring such relative rarities as Solid Men to the Front!, Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, and Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, as well as popular showpieces Sound Off!, The Liberty Bell, Sable and Spurs, and The Glory of the Yankee Navy, which brings the program to a rousing close. Oddly missing is Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, but surely the true march connoisseur already has at least one other recording of this perennial favorite.
Mercury’s house sound puts you face to face with the muscular Eastman brass and percussion, but the reverberant acoustic provides a satisfactory sense of depth. The SACD remastering makes it hardly believable that these recordings were made in 1960 and 1961 (even with the slight tape hiss), and they suffer only slightly by comparison with Fennell’s later Telarc recordings. For audiophiles, this one’s a winner; for march fans, it’s a must.
Review from Classical.net by Gerald Fenech
This has always been one of the most enjoyable and sought after Mercury discs and in its superb re-incarnation on SACD, the recordings have come up astonishingly clear and bright. Recorded in 1960-1, Sousa’s marches come alive in wonderful three channel sound that fairly destroys your living room, if you keep the volume high enough that is!
Frederick Fennell directs the famous marches with great swagger and pomp and the Eastman Wind Ensemble respond with expected virtuosity to their director’s promptings. ‘The Invincible Eagle’, ‘Bullets and Bayonets’, ‘The Kansas Wildcats’ and ‘The Glory of the Yankee Navy’ are amongst the better works here but one would indeed be hard pressed to choose as all marches are written with a feel for the medium and Fennell’s measured interpretations bring out the endearing musical qualities of all of them.
It goes without saying that the sound is pretty astonishing for 1960. The CD transfer is excellent but on three-channel SACD, the fantastic recordings really come to life and it is a wholly different ball game. I spent many hours of enjoyment playing and re-playing favourite marches and enjoying the fruits of Mercury’s talented recording team. Definitely a must for the audiophile.
Review from Classical Candor by John J. Puccio
Conductor Frederick Fennell’s recordings of John Philip Sousa marches, done in 1960 and 1961, have pretty much been in a class by themselves for over half a century. It was good to have them on Mercury Living
Presence LP’s, then a CD remastered back in the 1990’s, and it’s good to have them again on a newer Super Audio CD.
Fennell’s way with Sousa is enthusiastic, to say the least. His exuberance overflows in tempos that are not always conducive to marching but always right for getting the blood running and the spine tingling. British critics seem to think these are typically “American” interpretations, meaning, I suppose, more enthusiastic and carefree than the English might play them. Perhaps. There is surely an aura of high good spirits about these Fennell readings.
The album combines two of Fennell’s Sousa LP’s, Sound Off and Sousa on Review. However, while there are twenty-four items represented, not every listener will be happy with the selections. Namely, the disc does not contain many of Sousa’s best-known marches. You’ll find no “Stars and Stripes Forever” here, or a “Washington Post” or a “Thunderer” or a “Semper Fidelis.” What you do get are mostly lesser-known works from Sousa’s output of over 100 marches: “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine,” “Our Flirtation,” “The Kansas Wildcats,” “The National Game,” that kind of thing. Of course, there are still a few old reliables: “The Liberty Bell” (can we listen today without thinking of Monty Python?), “Manhattan Beach,” and “The Invincible Eagle.” Fennell’s Eastman Wind Ensemble closely approximates the size and disposition of Sousa’s Marine Band, and Fennell said he tried to emulate Sousa’s conducting style. I’m not sure. I rather suspect that Fennell is more ebullient in his performances than Sousa ever was.
In addition to Fennell’s sometimes impetuous forward impulse, there is also a noticeable difference between the sound of the 1960 and 1961 recordings. The first twelve items are less weighty in the mid bass than the last twelve. The lightness gives them a degree more transparency, although I confess I preferred the greater realism of the fatter bass. The disc itself provides the music in three formats, with playback depending upon one’s equipment. There is a three-channel layer for SACD, reproducing the recordings’ original three-mike arrangements; there is a two-channel layer for SACD, again for SACD layers only; and there is a regular two-channel layer for conventional CD players. It’s strong, vivid, well-projected sound in any case, especially in SACD.
Possibly the only drawback to the proceedings is that the SACD is more costly than, say, EMI’s digital two-disc recording of forty-three Sousa marches by Lt. Col G.A.C. Hoskins and the Band of HM Royal Marines, which EMI offer at a bargain price. Ah, heck, buy ‘em both.