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Title: There are much better options
Review: The centerpiece of this album -- the 1812 -- is shamelessly amateurish. Obviously recorded outdoors, it is played for effect rather than for musicality. The recording is third-rate, as is much of the playing: the trumpets are especially sloppy, with lots of intonation problems; the timpanist is a head-banger, trying to out-do the cannons; the conducting is a mystery. A lot of the tempi are to the extreme... for what effect... to be different? Different is clearly not always better. Don't be fooled by the marquee of players. The "goods" are gone missing.
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