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Tabula Rasa
(more) »rank: 7582by: Dennis Russell Davies, Keith Jarrett, Gidon Kremer, Stuttgart State Orchestra, Tatiana Grindenko, Alfred Schnittke, Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic
: essential recording:This seminal disc now almost seems like the manifesto for a whole new strain of minimalism that has found an enormously receptive audience. It represented a breakthrough for Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whose music--like that of his European colleagues John Tavener and Henryk Górecki--pursues an austerely beautiful simplicity that suggests spiritual illumination. Fratres, given here in two versions, one for piano and violin and the other for 12 cellos, repeatedly intones a sequence resembling chant to convey a sensibility that seems at once archaic and beyond time. Violinist Gidon Kremer, for whom Pärt wrote the exquisitely contemplative and hypnotic ...
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Philip Glass: Waiting for the Barbarians
(more) »rank: 8885from: Orange Mountain Music
: :Philip Glass' 2005 opera, Waiting for the Barbarians is based on the 1980 novel by Nobel Prize winning South African writer J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K) with a libretto by Academy-Award winning playwright Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement). Waiting for the Barbarians is a harrowing allegory of the war between oppressors and the oppressed. The protagonist is a loyal civil servant who conscientiously runs the affairs of a tiny frontier garrison town, ignoring the threat of impending war with the so-called barbarians, a neighboring tribe of nomads. But with the arrival of a special unit of ...
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Glass: Akhnaten
(more) »rank: 90104from: Sony
: :Philip Glass' 2005 opera, Waiting for the Barbarians is based on the 1980 novel by Nobel Prize winning South African writer J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K) with a libretto by Academy-Award winning playwright Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement). Waiting for the Barbarians is a harrowing allegory of the war between oppressors and the oppressed. The protagonist is a loyal civil servant who conscientiously runs the affairs of a tiny frontier garrison town, ignoring the threat of impending war with the so-called barbarians, a neighboring tribe of nomads. But with the arrival of a special unit of ...
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Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 22 ('City of Light'); Cello Concerto
(more) »rank: 80802from: Naxos American
: :Hovhaness wrote stunning music, and many of his symphonies are coming into their own both on recordings and in concert halls. Almost unknown, however, is his Cello Concerto, composed early in his career (1936). It's a nice, if not glorious, work, and it foreshadows much of his later output. In particular, in it one gets the sense of his mysticism and spirituality which permeates his symphonies. Janos Starker plays it handsomely, the orchestra is good, and the sonics are excellent. The Symphony No. 22, titled 'City of Light,' is grand Hovhaness, with massive brass statements and elegant contrapuntal doodlings. Again, playing ...
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Philip Glass : The Voyage: An Opera in Three Acts
(more) »rank: 8999from: Orange Mountain Music
: :Hovhaness wrote stunning music, and many of his symphonies are coming into their own both on recordings and in concert halls. Almost unknown, however, is his Cello Concerto, composed early in his career (1936). It's a nice, if not glorious, work, and it foreshadows much of his later output. In particular, in it one gets the sense of his mysticism and spirituality which permeates his symphonies. Janos Starker plays it handsomely, the orchestra is good, and the sonics are excellent. The Symphony No. 22, titled 'City of Light,' is grand Hovhaness, with massive brass statements and elegant contrapuntal doodlings. Again, playing ...
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Philip Glass : Symphony No. 8
(more) »rank: 98319from: Orange Mountain Music
: :Hovhaness wrote stunning music, and many of his symphonies are coming into their own both on recordings and in concert halls. Almost unknown, however, is his Cello Concerto, composed early in his career (1936). It's a nice, if not glorious, work, and it foreshadows much of his later output. In particular, in it one gets the sense of his mysticism and spirituality which permeates his symphonies. Janos Starker plays it handsomely, the orchestra is good, and the sonics are excellent. The Symphony No. 22, titled 'City of Light,' is grand Hovhaness, with massive brass statements and elegant contrapuntal doodlings. Again, playing ...
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Glass: Symphony no 5 (Choral): Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya
(more) »rank: 65778by: Dennis Russell Davies, Denyce Graves, Michael Schade, Ana Maria Martinez, Eric Owens, Albert Dohmen, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Morgan State University Choir, Hungarian Radio Children's Choir
: :Along with being perhaps the best-known contemporary classical composer, Philip Glass is also one of the most intensely prolific--almost frighteningly so. Scarcely a season seems to pass without a major premiere--and, as Glass himself probably would be the first to admit, this factory level of productivity can lead to disappointingly uneven results. His music in particular requires an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Symphony No. 5 began life as a commission from the Salzburg Festival to celebrate the new millennium. Glass took the occasion to reflect on the 'process of global evolution,' and culled texts from the ...
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Kancheli: Abii ne viderem
(more) »rank: 119480by: Giya Kancheli, Dennis Russell Davies, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Natalia Pschenitschnikova, Kim Kashkashian, Vasiko Tevdorashvili, Hilliard Ensemble
: :Along with being perhaps the best-known contemporary classical composer, Philip Glass is also one of the most intensely prolific--almost frighteningly so. Scarcely a season seems to pass without a major premiere--and, as Glass himself probably would be the first to admit, this factory level of productivity can lead to disappointingly uneven results. His music in particular requires an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Symphony No. 5 began life as a commission from the Salzburg Festival to celebrate the new millennium. Glass took the occasion to reflect on the 'process of global evolution,' and culled texts from the ...
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Miserere
(more) »rank: 105333from: Ecm Records
: essential recording:Spiritually moving, sublimely austere, and eloquently expressive, Arvo Pärt's 'Miserere' is among the Estonian composer's most profound statements within his growing liturgical canon. In the years since this recording's release, Part has become well-known for his unique compositional style, in which, with the simplest of tools, he creates an impression of music suspended in time, where sound, melody, and harmony mingle in such a way that we sense both movement and stasis. With its opening chant-like melody, minor triad harmony, solo voice, and clarinet, 'Miserere' quietly unfolds as if from an eternal existence--until suddenly, the mood is shattered as ...
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Weber - Der Freischutz / Ligendza, Kramer, Schone, Probst, Davies, Stuttgart Opera
(more) »rank: 69003starring: Toni Kramer, Caterina Ligendza, Raili Viljakainen, Wolfram Raub, Württemberg State Opera Orchestra
directed by: Hartmut Schottler
:Description:Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz met with instant success on its premiere in Berlin in 1821, rapidly spreading throughout Europe. Audiences identified readily with the folk melodies and hunting character of its Bohemian setting. The story tells of Max's struggle to win Agathe in marriage. The desperation which leads him to trade with the devil in order to regain his lost marksman's skills, finds resolution when fate intervenes to prevent the fatal 'free bullet' from striking Agathe, saved by the sacred roses in her bridal coronet. In this Achim Freyer production from the Württemberg State Opera, the Huntsman's role ...
