South American Getaway
Who knew that the solid, staid  oldBerlin Philharmonichad such a groovy group of swingers in its cello section? One of them  plays the maracas during the rests in his part, others slap their  instruments with abandon, and some of them even shout at appropriate  moments: if this makes them sound like trainspotters letting their hair  down, it's not meant to. This recording of South American and South  American-inspired music is full of joy from beginning to end, and  played with the kind of accuracy other ensembles only dream of. The  mood ranges from sultry and sweaty (Kaiser-Lindemann's Brazilian  Variations) through coolly intellectual (the Fugue from Bachianas  Brasileiras No. 1) to pure sunshine (Burt Bacharach's "South American  Getaway"). The arrangements are models of their kind, and the cellists  respond to their challenges with bravura and passion--at times creating  sounds remarkably like a bandonéon, at others producing perfect  harmonics in octaves or just singing out with pure joy. Irresistibly  seductive.--Warwick Thompson