Posted by admin on September 5th, 2010 -->
From Amazon.com
For the parent looking to ease their child into a familiarity with classical music, this is a very well chosen set of Beethoven works. It begins with a generous selection of airs composed late in the composer’s life. The presence of the flute as the lead instrument on these selections has a soothing quality that moves the ear in an ideally subtle way, especially as it gives way to the more excited piano sonata pieces. Zoltán Kocsis’s reading of “Pathétique” is followed by Claudio Arrau’s take on the 7th, 15th, and 18th sonatas and Sviatoslav Richter’s lyrical take on the 20th (“Pastoral”). Programmed amidst the piano pieces, which are great studies in dynamics and musical spacing, are some fine orchestral snippet… More >>
Beethoven for Babies: Brain Training for Little Ones
Posted by admin on September 4th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
Completed in 1878, Smetana’s stirringly patriotic Má vlast (“My Country”) comprises 6 tone-poems in all, including the much-loved and justly famous “Vltava” (which unforgettably charts the course of that eponymous Czech river). Most performances of Smetana’s masterpiece (and there are plenty to choose from) last around 70 minutes, but Antoni Wit’s unusually thoughtful interpretation approaches 80. Fortunately, this underrated Polish conductor directs with such likeable character and intelligence (and the orchestral playing in Katowice is so polished and responsive) that one’s attention never wavers. True, Wit’s imposingly broad “Vltava” may not be to all tastes (the peasant wedding some four-and-a-half minutes… More >>
Smetana – Má Vlast
Posted by admin on August 31st, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
Classic FM’s latest collaboration with record company BMG is this hot, Hispanic disc of two of Manuel de Falla’s best-loved scores, El Amor Brujo (“Love the Magician”) and El Sombrero de Tres Picos (“The Three-Cornered Hat”). The artists are Spanish. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducts the Orquesta Nacional de Espaüa, with the inspirational Flamenco singer Esperanza Fernandez as soloist in El Amor Brujo. Her voice is proud, throaty and sensuous; her ornaments have a spicy, Islamic flavour in the Song of Sorrowful Love. (Does she spit as she sings or is it just my imagination?) She makes the music feel as if it has been composed around her. Even the Ritual Fire Dance, in which she takes no part, burns more brig… More >>
Falla : Three-Cornered Hat & Love the Magician
Posted by admin on August 30th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
It’s just the two separate albums in a cardboard sleeve. No more. No less. But at least this way it does offer a better opportunity for appraising the entire score. Packaged together the discs seem to insist on being played one after the other. As you do so, you realise two things. Firstly, the sequel album is nowhere near as considerately sequenced as the original–stylistically you’re adrift at sea, subject to the peaks and troughs of dramatic orchestral music one minute and an “Oirish” jig the next. Secondly, that we were cheated by the absence of much of the material the first time around. The bottom line is that the two could easily be pared down into one. You can only assess this for yourself b… More >>
Titanic 10th Anniversary 2CD Edition
Posted by admin on August 29th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
Tous les Matins du Monde was the 1991 art-house hit which brought the music of Marin Marais and Saint Colombe and the extraordinary artistry of viola de gamba player Jordi Savall to wide attention. The original bestselling album is now supplanted by this reissue on Savall’s own label. Offering a portrait of 17th-century France, the disc gives equal time to Marais, representing the world of the court at Versailles and to Colombe’s stark musical austerity. Several pieces are for solo basse de viole, allowing Savall to fully explore the often sombre colours within the music, while other works are accompanied by violin, theorbo (a double necked lute) and clavichord. Savall also includes three of his own arrangement… More >>
Tous Les Matins du Monde
Posted by admin on August 28th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
Discover why Mozart is the world’s most popular composer in this glorious selection of highlights on two discs, performed by some of the foremost interpreters of his music. Almost every genre is represented, so if you are only familiar with one area of the great Wolfgang’s output, this is an ideal way to explore others. Highlights from the operas include sopranos Renée Fleming and Anne Sofie von Otter poignantly sighing through the farewell trio from Cosí fan tutte, Bryn Terfel singing Don Giovanni’s charming, chilling serenade, and Sumi Jo shattering glass in the Queen of the Night’s aria from The Magic Flute. Other great moments include legendary horn-player Barry Tuckwell in the finale from the fourth horn… More >>
The World’s Greatest Mozart Album
Posted by admin on August 26th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
David Lynch is the most aurally attuned director working today. He is always involved in the sound design of his pictures, and often takes a hand in co-writing segments of the score. After the failure of Dune he took time to plan a more personal project. Of all his pictures, Blue Velvet (1986) most accurately epitomises his homely ideals and darker fetishistic notions. Composer Andy Badale liked what he saw of this picture so much he adapted his name in line with the other Italian-sounding credits. To the backdrop of a shimmering blue velvet curtain, he wrote a swirling, sumptuous “Main Title” by which his own credit was swiftly to accelerate his career. It also cemented one of the most exciting director/compos… More >>
Badalamenti: Blue Velvet Original Soundtrack
Posted by admin on August 26th, 2010 -->
Amazon.co.uk Review
Time it was that to make Tchaikovsky a whipping boy for the worst excesses of romanticism, an emblem of “hysteria” and bathetic self-indulgence, became critically fashionable. But with this composer, the court of popular opinion has proved more far-sighted than the critics. The power of his finest scores–in the hands of a truly sympathetic interpreter–remains unforgettably gripping, and nowhere more so than in the symphony he premièred just days before his controversial death. Valery Gergiev taps into the theatrical sensibility evidenced by his dynamic Kirov Opera recordings of Mazeppa, Iolanta and Pique Dame to shape a psychological drama of devastating intensity in his account of the nihilistic Pathitique…. More >>
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6; Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
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