Buy Now
Jacqueline du Pré - a lasting inspiration
(more) »rank: 19278by: Antonin Dvorak, Franz Joseph Haydn, Edward Elgar, Maria Theresia von Paradis, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Gabriel Faure, Johann Sebastian Bach, Camille Saint-Saens, Manuel de Falla, Max Bruch, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Cesar Franck, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, Sir John Barbirolli, Jacqueline du Pré, Pinchas Zukerman, Roy Jesson, Gerald Moore, John [guitar] Williams, Osian Ellis
Buy Now
Sanctuary
(more) »rank: 26902from: EMI Classics
Buy Now
Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
(more) »rank: 20909from: Deutsche Grammophon
: :Chopin's two piano concertos have long been admired more as pianistic vehicles than as integrated works for piano and orchestra. But in his revelatory new recording, Krystian Zimerman suggests otherwise: The opening orchestral tuttis have so much more light, shade, orchestral color, and detail, you wonder if they've been rewritten. Every gesture, every instrumental solo is so specifically characterized that by the time the piano makes a dramatic entrance, the pieces have become operas without words. One may wonder if Chopin intended that. In fact, he knew bel canto opera in his native Poland, but the more positive proof is that the music ...
Buy Now
Chanticleer: Magnificat (A Capella Works by Josquin, Palestrina, Titov, Victoria, and Others)
(more) »rank: 23025by: Chanticleer, William Cornysh, John Taverner, Claudio Monteverdi, Vasily Polikarpovich Titov, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Vassili Polikarpovich Titov, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Josquin Desprez, Marianne Kach
: :In the wake of its previous, Grammy-winning disc of contemporary madrigals (Colors of Love), the all-male a cappella ensemble that calls itself Chanticleer--in homage to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales --comes home to roost in this theme album of early music. After all, this is the territory that Chanticleer first staked out when the group banded together in 1978, and the return is most welcome. Magnificat offers manifold rewards, from the sensitive, imaginative culling of its program to the warmth and lithe interweaving of vocal layers in its execution (vividly recorded in splendid 20/24-bit process at the Skywalker Ranch)--not to mention the capsule music history ...
Buy Now
Wynton Marsalis: In Gabriel's Garden
(more) »rank: 51210from: Sony
: :In the wake of its previous, Grammy-winning disc of contemporary madrigals (Colors of Love), the all-male a cappella ensemble that calls itself Chanticleer--in homage to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales --comes home to roost in this theme album of early music. After all, this is the territory that Chanticleer first staked out when the group banded together in 1978, and the return is most welcome. Magnificat offers manifold rewards, from the sensitive, imaginative culling of its program to the warmth and lithe interweaving of vocal layers in its execution (vividly recorded in splendid 20/24-bit process at the Skywalker Ranch)--not to mention the capsule music history ...
Buy Now
John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives
(more) »rank: 32908from: Nonesuch
:Album Description:Featuring two highly-acclaimed commissioned orchestral works, The Dharma At Big Sur and My Father Knew Charles Ives, performed by the BBC Sumphony with Adams himself conducting. While panoramic in scope, these multi-part pieces are also deeply personal in nature. Described as 'autobiographical sound memories' by the BBC, they evoke the well-traveled American composer's east coast/west coast life and wide-ranging musical education. :This is a splendid addition to the Adams discography, one that follows him from New England to California. Dharma at Big Sur is a concerto for electric violin. It begins by evoking the West's sun and easy living, but this is ...
Buy Now
Joshua Bell. Kreisler, Brahms, Paganini, Sarasate, Wieniawski.
(more) »rank: 9252from: Decca
:Album Description:Featuring two highly-acclaimed commissioned orchestral works, The Dharma At Big Sur and My Father Knew Charles Ives, performed by the BBC Sumphony with Adams himself conducting. While panoramic in scope, these multi-part pieces are also deeply personal in nature. Described as 'autobiographical sound memories' by the BBC, they evoke the well-traveled American composer's east coast/west coast life and wide-ranging musical education. :This is a splendid addition to the Adams discography, one that follows him from New England to California. Dharma at Big Sur is a concerto for electric violin. It begins by evoking the West's sun and easy living, but this is ...
Buy Now
Copland: Symphony No. 3; Quiet City
(more) »rank: 51380from: Deutsche Grammophon
: essential recording:Late in his career, Leonard Bernstein returned to the greatest orchestral work by his lifelong friend, Aaron Copland, with a performance that eclipsed all others, including Bernstein's own previous recording of the Symphony no. 3 on Sony. Though Copland's stock still hadn't climbed back to its present height, Bernstein gave the music a grandeur that made you forget how much of a cliché the Fanfare for the Common Man--which was worked into the finale of the Third--can be. In fact, many of the world-stopping qualities Bernstein brought to his second Mahler cycle for Deutsche Grammophon seem much in evidence here, with the ...
Buy Now
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
(more) »rank: 7799by: Sarah Chang
: :Vivaldi has been accused--rather unjustly--of writing the same violin concerto over and over, but no one can deny that the Four Seasons are quite different from the others. Described as the first examples of program music, they evoke the sounds of nature so realistically that one can hear the thunder, the wind, the rain, the singing of the birds, the murmuring of the brook, the barking of a dog. One also hears the sounds of humanity: bagpipes, hunting horns, harvest dances, even shepherds snoring. To 'better explain the music,' Vivaldi wrote a descriptive sonnet for each Concerto, heading every section with the salient ...
Buy Now
The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach
(more) »rank: 29394from: Vanguard Records
: :Vivaldi has been accused--rather unjustly--of writing the same violin concerto over and over, but no one can deny that the Four Seasons are quite different from the others. Described as the first examples of program music, they evoke the sounds of nature so realistically that one can hear the thunder, the wind, the rain, the singing of the birds, the murmuring of the brook, the barking of a dog. One also hears the sounds of humanity: bagpipes, hunting horns, harvest dances, even shepherds snoring. To 'better explain the music,' Vivaldi wrote a descriptive sonnet for each Concerto, heading every section with the salient ...
