HOBART EARLE
"The performances are razor-sharp and warmly expressive. Kudos to conductor Hobart Earle and the Odessa Phil, who, like this music, ought to be more widely known. Strongly recommended."
PS Audio
"Hobart Earle has done a brilliant job getting this orchestra back on track and the city is rightfully super-proud of it. I have heard them live and this recording does them justice. You can hear their dedication to the music in every note. Excellent!"
CDBaby
"Recorded sound is exemplary, performances seem ideal (and with Boris Berezovsky at his magisterial best - what a coup!) and Moscow orchestra and conductor Hobart Earle appear to have this new music already under their skins, so as to produce a superlative, authoritative performance."
Amazon.co.uk
"One of the musical success stories of the post soviet countries has been Hobart Earle's association with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducting in it first in 1991, he forthwith set about making it widely known ... to give the orchestra what is now a world-wide reputation."
Gramophone Magazine
"The Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra playing superbly under its young American conductor, Hobart Earle ... repertoire played and recorded with great panache ... this release will not let you down."
Fanfare
“Das zweite der beiden Neujahrskonzerte zeigte, dass Earle und sein Orchester dem Wiener Walzer-Idiom hart auf den Fersen sind."
"The second of the two new year's concerts showed that Earle and his orchestra have almost perfected the idiom of the Viennese waltz."
Die Presse, Vienna
“The second of the two new year's concerts showed that Earle and his orchestra have almost perfected the idiom of the Viennese waltz.”
Die Presse, Vienna
"Played with vigour and richness by the Odessa Philharmonic under its Venezuelan-born principal conductor."
The Daily Telegraph, London – Classical CDs
"I had met the conductor Hobart Earle at Tanglewood in 1987 and had never been to a concert that he led, since even then he spent the major part of his career in Vienna, and for the last 17 years has been Music Director in Odessa. Soon after his time at Tanglewood, Earle had conducted in Vienna two works for string orchestra by George W. Chadwick and Henry F. Gilbert, Boston composers of the romantic era whom I had presented in a lecture to the conductors there (his performance was recorded and is still available on CD). Recently I had learned that his performance of the Chadwick Serenade in F ( composed in 1890 ! ) was almost certainly the world premiere of the piece, and I thought he might be amused to learn that."
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
"...This is certainly an offbeat disc. The music is unusual, the performances are excellent, and the ensemble's hyphenated name is weird: it is a single group, not two. A number of hearings have turned my first blah reaction into strong interest and appreciation. The recording is superb. Try it."
Fanfare
"Ein traditionsreiches Orchester aus der ehemaligen Sowjetunion spielte in Westeuropa amerikanische Musik, "angestiftet" und motiviert von einem ambitionierten amerikanischen Dirigenten der jüngsten Generation ... und sie spielten diese Musik so, als hätten sie nie im Leben etwas anderes gekannt. Zwei Kulturen, zwei geistige Welten hat die Musik hier mit einem Schlag überbrückt. Die vorliegende CD ist das Dokument eines denkwürdigen Konzertes von historischem Stellenwert. "
Austrian Radio
