Rainbow Body / Blue Cathedral / Symphony 1 / Appalachian Spring Suite
lanking two major works from an earlier generation of American composers are two shorter ones by contemporaries whose command of orchestral textures and hues make for a stimulating program. Christopher Theofanidis' Rainbow Body opens quietly, and builds to a shattering brass-and-percussion-led close, fully exploiting the rich colors of Atlanta's crack orchestra. Jennifer Higdon's Blue Cathedral, which closes the disc, is a finely textured exploration that, in her words, represents an imaginary journey 'through a glass cathedral in ... Regular Price : $17.98
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Sharon Isbin plays Baroque Favorites for Guitar
I've always enjoyed Parkening and others who do Bach on the guitar. Here, noted classic guitarist Isbin provides a beautifully crafted and performed set of baroque favs on guitar.
She plays with controlled passion and clarity, and to my ear her Bach is even more clean and phrased superior to Parkening's.
The selection is well chosen, with great addition to instrument's reportoire of Vivaldi's Concerto in A major.
I find her Albioni's Adagio very well done! The ... Regular Price : $17.98
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25 Wedding Favorites
I needed some classical music for my wedding so I pruchased this CD and it is very nice. I also purchased 'Classical Wedding Traditions' (also from amazon.com) I really like that CD too.
Sharon Isbin: DREAMS OF A WORLD
This disc is obviously aimed at the world-music audience, if one judges from its title and the subtitle, 'Folk-Inspired Music for Guitar.' But that shouldn't dissuade listeners interested in more serious music. Isbin has collected original pieces and arrangements from Spain, Latin America, Appalachia, Ireland, Israel, and Greece--all of them quite lovely. It's really amazing to hear, for example, the 'Londonderry Air,' better known as 'Danny Boy,' in such a sympathetic arrangement by the late Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. She ... Regular Price : $16.98
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Obrigado Brazil
This enchanting, flavorful CD finds the ever curious Yo-Yo Ma traveling to South America, and Brazil in particular. The music varies from classical to samba to bossa nova; the combinations range from guitar, flute, and cello to female voice (the remarkable Rosa Passos), cello, guitar, percussion, piano, and bass; to simple cello and piano; to cello and two guitars. The overriding element is rhythm; each selection has a beat which is both infectious and sensual, but the contexts are ... Regular Price : $18.98
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Eden (US Release - 16 tracks)
In this follow-up to the smashing success of her 1997 CD Time to Say Goodbye, Sarah Brightman continues down the primrose crossover path, blithely gliding from covers of Hooverphonic (the title track) and Kansas ('Dust in the Wind') to Puccini and film scores (Titanic and The English Patient). Sometimes, as in 'Anytime, Anywhere,' the crossover happens within the same song--in this case welding a rhythm track to the somber harmonies of Albinoni's 'Adagio.' But there's nary a stylistic ... Regular Price : $17.98
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Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn: First Piano Concertos
Barely out of his teens on this recording, Lang Lang demonstrates plenty of virtuoso finger dexterity, but also places his personal stamp on the music. In the Tchaikovsky, a barn-burner of a piece that some pianists use to show how fast and loud they can play, Lang stresses the layers of intimacy alongside its more extroverted passages, which he plays with plenty of pianistic pyrotechnics. If his first movement seems disjointed, more a ... Regular Price : $16.98
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Haydn, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Balakirev / Lang Lang
This CD, apparently a recording debut, presents a Chinese pianist in his teens in live performance (at Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood). It has many successful elements. The first one is the pianist's selection of Haydn to begin his program, since few pianists these days bother to investigate the riches of Haydn's prodigious piano output. Lang proves thoroughly sympathetic to Haydn's idiom, in a delightful, witty performance. It's a huge distance from Haydn to Rachmaninoff, but Lang has ... Regular Price : $17.98
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Paris: La Belle Époque
The cello has often been called the king of string instruments because its range encompasses all four vocal registers. Nevertheless, cellists are always complaining of the comparative paucity of their literature, and feel justified in raiding more fertile fields. Even Yo-Yo Ma, who has enriched the repertoire by commissioning a considerable number of new works and exploring the native music of different continents, cannot resist the temptation to engage in a little poaching. On this ... Regular Price : $17.98
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Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla
Yo-Yo Ma might seem like an unlikely protagonist for the tango, but this intrepid musical explorer has taken his task seriously, collaborating with experienced tango musicians. Ma even participates in a posthumous collaboration with one 1987 Piazzolla recording. Furthermore, while he's obviously the headliner here, he doesn't dominate the arrangements nearly as much as he does the billing and photography of the disc. While the result isn't your essential Piazzolla album (that would ... Regular Price : $17.98
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