Page 339 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Sony Classical 906443 (reviewed as 24/96 WAV). 2024. Danny Elfman,
prod.; Peter Cobbin, Kirsty Whalley, Dennis Sands, Patricia Sullivan, engs.

Performance ****½

Sonics ****

It's time to go out on a limb. Are Danny Elfman's Percussion Concerto and
the other works on his new album "great music"? Should this classical

music, from the former lead singer and songwriter of new wave band Oingo

Boingo—who composed film scores for Pee-Wee's Big
Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Spider-Man, and whose music

introduces Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons—be in the same
conversation with Albéniz, Scriabin, Ligeti, Glass, Gluck, Brahms, and

Beethoven, whose work appears on our other Recording of the Month

candidate, Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital?

All I know for certain is that Elfman's new Sony Classical recording, with the

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta, is a
helluva wild ride. Sometimes exuberant, sometimes eerie, frequently brash,

and overflowing with color and contrast, it's filled with more frenetic energy

than unleashed by all the espressos a Starbucks franchise can prepare in
the 62 minutes it takes to listen to the album all the way through. Great

music or not, it's an album you're going to want to play over and over on
your best sound system.

Elfman's new album is a wild ride, but it's not a one-trick pony.
Depending upon your criteria for system showoffs, this may not be an ideal

candidate to replace the best RCA Living Stereo and Telarc titles of veteran
audiophiles' dreams. The photos in the scanty liner notes reveal more

booms and microphone than many of us encounter in our lifetimes. Parts

of the stage in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall look like a land mine. I can't
begin to imagine the nightmares that mix engineer Dennis Sands must

have experienced before sending the result off to Patricia Sullivan for

mastering. Even if they—and recording engineers Peter Cobbin and Kirsty