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Reviews

Critical response to "World Wide Webster":

World Wide Webster (Crystal 357) is a fine new offering by flutist Leone Buyse, clarinetist Michael Webster, and pianist Robert Moeling. Dedicated to Buyse's father, who passed away only two weeks before the recording sessions, the sixty four minute collection of piano, four hands transcriptions includes Slavonic Dances from Op. 46 and 72 by Antonin Dvorak, En bateau, Cortege, Menuet, and Ballet from Claude Debussy's Petite Suite, Hungarian Dances No. 6, 16, 14, 13, 5, 7, and 2 by Johannes Brahms, and La Jota Aragonesa, Souvenir de la Havane, Souvenir de Cuba, and Grand Tarantelle by Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

The liner notes written by Michael Webster begin, "It was from my father, Beveridge Webster, that I learned to love four-handed piano music, which has become the grist for most of my transcriptions. He also had a contagious predilection for punning and loved this riddle... What is a spider who lives in a beer can? The answer: A Beveridge Webster."

Webster used as a noun became the background for the title of this recording. The Webster Trio plans a series of releases that will explore the world of music, country by country.

The transcriptions, all by Webster, are excellent, and a great gift to the music community. Other small chamber trios with this instrumentation now have a recital's worth of literature available. The musical selections for this recording are interesting as well and flow from one to the next.

These three musicians play as one, and their sense of ensemble and creative interpretations define the essence of chamber music. Every flute student should listen carefully to this recording to learn about vibrato in chamber music settings. Buyse's vibrato use is extremely tasteful and ever-mindful of whether he part is a solo or an accompanying part. When coloring the clarinet line, she creates a perfect blend of no vibrato at all. Recorded in Stude Concert Hall at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the recording was edited by Moeling and produced by Webster. It should be on every flutist's CD shelf.

Flute Talk Magazine, January 2005

Critical response to "Tour de France":

This is a great CD.
   --The Instrumentalist
...The readings capture the color, nuance, harmony, and rhythm of the music to near perfection.
   --American Record Guide
All the members of the ensemble give virtuoso performances...I was particularly impressed with the sense of sultry sensuousness Michael Webster evoked throughout his transcription of Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune.
   --Fanfare
Another outstanding disc...Michael Webster gives us a finely etched and technically impressive Première Rhapsodie...Leone Buyse's tone is rich and expressive....Katherine Collier's playing is sensitive and tonally warm.
   --The Clarinet

Critical response to "Sonata Cho-Cho San":

"Each transcription not only offers a medley of beautiful operatic melodies, but also gives us a world of sound. It is hard to believe that only three instruments are playing..."
    --Record Geijutsu
 
   
   
@ 2006 The Webster Trio