Best Ballets & Dances
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm a sucker for sentiment, so I particularly love Appalachian Spring: Doppio movimento (sometimes called Variations on a Shaker Tune or Simple Gifts), but it's all wonderful."
"Considering that this is played in the car with the road noise, and player electronics, this recording was a nice relief to commute traffic."
"This CD must be in every American music collection!"
"A classic set of recordings."
"What more could you ask for -- Copland and Bernstein."
"On the last part of Appalachian Spring track 8 Moderato - Coda, the phrasing of the string section is absolutely gorgeous, and every note is played with such feeling and clarity."
"This recording of Hoe Down is sharper and clearer than is the Boston Pops rendition, but I do prefer the slightly slower pace of that recording."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Most were new to me because the classical stations available to me over the decades tend to pick "The Best of" (i.e., the monumental works and the rightly popular Vocalise) more often and for some reason recording companies do the same."
"This is an extremely clean recording of Rachmaninov playing Rachmaninov."
"Of course, I was never able to hear Rachmaninoff play, but as I listen to these recreations I find myself able to suspend reality for a few minutes and immerse myself in the sounds of the early part of the last century. Thanks to technology and an immense amount of work, we are able to hear performances by Rachmaninoff that are as close to being there as anything recorded today, in fact, it sounds as if Rachmaninoff walked into a modern recording studio and laid these tracks down yesterday."
"Wonderfull historical recordings."
"To get to hear Rachmaninoff play some of his solo piano works is wonderful."
"This is my #1 loved piano recording ever."
"Amazing sound and performance."
"Amazing to hear the clarity of this recording of pieces played so long ago."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great soundtrack and my favorite tempo for this score."
"It is MUST have for preparation & during XMas ... We listen it from 1st Dec. to end Dec. and visit SFO Ballet on 24th every year !!!"
"Having seen The San Francisco Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker" two years in a row now, I can tell you wholeheartedly that this recording is a MUST."
Best Russian
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This rendition of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture with the late Erich Kunzel conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is on the TELARC label released in 1979."
"not very good sounding."
"However, I have a record with the Mormon Tabernacle Choi, with Russian Church Bells and real cannons that sounded even better."
"Got cannons?"
"I owned the vinyl recording of this work and with the right stylus, turntable and speakers, the cannons were exceedingly real."
"Not one of Telarc's best - sonics are average."
"Great sound a classic recording."
"Every bit as good as it should be."
Best Inventions
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Low on energy?"
"This interpretation is wonderful, it sounds just as amazing and full of life as it did the first time I heard it when it came out during the heyday of car audio. The MP3 version sounds great here played via Amazon MP3 player, from a tablet through two high sensitivity 1-1/8" soft domes, 7" mids and a single 8" sub woofer."
"This was always one of my favorites for showing off my car audio system when I was in high school."
"Very good music, very relaxing, to me."
"Heck I do not like Rap or Hip Hop but I am not condemning the genres."
"Brings bach (pun intended) echos of my youth."
"A classic album with that Disney Like Synth sound....but classical!"
"Dorsey knocks this one out of the park."
Best Preludes
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Most were new to me because the classical stations available to me over the decades tend to pick "The Best of" (i.e., the monumental works and the rightly popular Vocalise) more often and for some reason recording companies do the same."
"This is an extremely clean recording of Rachmaninov playing Rachmaninov."
"Of course, I was never able to hear Rachmaninoff play, but as I listen to these recreations I find myself able to suspend reality for a few minutes and immerse myself in the sounds of the early part of the last century. Thanks to technology and an immense amount of work, we are able to hear performances by Rachmaninoff that are as close to being there as anything recorded today, in fact, it sounds as if Rachmaninoff walked into a modern recording studio and laid these tracks down yesterday."
"Wonderfull historical recordings."
"To get to hear Rachmaninoff play some of his solo piano works is wonderful."
"This is my #1 loved piano recording ever."
"Amazing sound and performance."
"Amazing to hear the clarity of this recording of pieces played so long ago."
Best Requiems, Elegies & Tombeau
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It would be difficult to imagine an early music lover that would not be seduced by the first offering on this disc which is an incredibly lovely sustained work that presents a beautious melody by Heinrich Isaac "Fortuna desperata: Nasci, pati mori" (Reckless fortune). Some of the notable outstanding singers are: CARLOS MENA, PASCAL BERTIN, LAMBERT CLEMENT, FRANCESE GARRIGOSA AND DANIELE CARNOVICH. I purchased it because of the obvious enthusiasm of the performers carefully directed, not just energetic when it is inappropriate, but show deep respect, mystery and nostaligia in their performance."
"Thus it is not all 'Spanish' music per se but a collection including some old chestnuts from other lands."
"One of my favorite besides this collection from Charles V is his set of Armenian pieces (Armenian Spirit)."
"Sit back and imagine you are in the court of Carlos V of Spain!"
"Music (court, chapel, popular), history and politics (Carlos V - the 'first and last great Emperor of Europe', as Savall writes), culture and religion --- all intersect in this disc and its documentation which make it essential for all serious music lovers as well as cultural historians of all stripes."
"fast delivery."
"This is yet another cracking disc from Jordi Savall. The overall sound is lovely, the individual singers and players are excellent and the arrangements are impeccable; the judgement of the use of percussion is excellent, for example."
Best Instruments
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"These songs were first introduced to my ears on my father's old collection of 45 rpm records."
"The song selection and choral and orchestral renderings are beautiful and so fitting for the Christmas season."
"I think the Robert Shaw singers are the quintessential coral singer for Christmas songs, none better."
"I ordered this album to approximate an old 33 LP record by the same-named choir (probably different singers many years later) that my parents had when I was a child in the '50s and '60s."
"Great compilation of Christmas carols, all beautifully done in acapella."
"My feeling after listening to this several times is that most of the songs are simply too short, clocking in at well under two minutes."
Best Trios
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A great pipe organ, brass, & percussion CD! This CD is a must have for pipe organ CD collectors and./or Michael Murray fans!"
"The problem lies in the arrangements and the lack of stereo separation. that I'd learned to expect hearing these classics."
"The quality of this CD work is only matched by a handful of other brass & organ projects."
"This was a gift for my husband and he loves it."
"It is okey for me, the music is nice and well played, it has a traditional focus."
"I have been in church of the advent,"
Best Romantic (c.1820-1910)
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Songs as bleak as the Russian landscape are strangely addictive if a duo as good as Hvorostovsky and Ivari Ilya are interpreting them."
"This series is extremely well recorded with beautiful heartfelt singing and interpretations."
"", the haunting "She is as beautiful as the moon", opening with strummed arpeggios reminiscent of Schubert's "Dioskuren" and continuing with melismatas in a distinctly Polovstian minor mode, and "In the silence of the mysterious night" climaxing with a magnificent G-flat and a long-breathed piano D to conclude. This is Hvorostovsky's first recording on the Finnish Ondine label, with whom he has signed a long-term contract, and although he has recorded some of these songs before, his voice is now perfectly weighted and his artistry honed by long experience sufficient to give them his finest interpretation."
"Hvorostovsky's voice is powerful and beautiful, his musicianship is top-notch, and his interpretations are probing."
"His Rachmaninov Romances reflect his passion for dragging the listener into his music, with pure empathy."
"Fine Russian pronunciation; articulation and accent (without which singing have no power and not able to be identified as 'Russian')."