CD-Charts Position 1

Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri [Hybrid SACD]

from: RCA

Release Date May 06, 2008

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Simply the Best Movie Themes

from: Rhino / Wea

Release Date February 24, 2004
Good peaceful listening music that brings back to your memory the fantastic stories that you saw years ago. Music brings back the good memories. Good product.
David Kunkler, Rushville, Ohio

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 [SACD]

from: RCA

Release Date November 27, 2007
Harnoncourt recorded Bach's Christmas Oratorio with his Concentus musicus Wien once before in about 1973. It's a good recording but there are certainly many better ones recorded using period instruments that have come out since then. This new one is fantastic, though. His instrumentalists are masters now of their period instruments and his somewhat relaxed view of the score has a nice degree of intimacy. I've listened to it four times now and love it. My only complaint is that he's used a female alto where most would use a male counter tenor. I love the recording with Rene Jacobs on Harmonia Mundi because it uses the very fine counter tenor Andreas Scholl but still wouldn't trade this new Harnoncourt for even that as a whole. Highly recommended!

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances

from: Teldec

Release Date May 21, 2002
Harnoncourt's excitingly uninhibited new set of the Slavonic Dances, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, combines great exuberance and virtuosity with vivid colouring. Harnoncourt's direction has tremendous zest and vitality. The Dumka character of Op. 46/2 is spectacularly caught, moving from a relaxed lyrical charm and warmly flexible phrasing to spontaneously hot-blooded bursts of energy, with the trombones electrifying unleased. The delicacy of the string and woodwind playing in No. 6 of the first set is particularly beguiling, as is the seductive rubato at the opening of Op. 72/2. But even here the relaxation of the shapely phrasing is underpinned by an inherent vitality, with the last two chords given a firm finality.
Beautiful music............

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Tune Your Brain: Pregnancy and Childbirth

from: Deutsche Grammophon

Release Date September 19, 2000
This is a beautiful and relaxing cd to listen to. I bought it while i was pregnant and still love it now that my daughter is 3 months old. It is so calming and what mother doesn't need that? :-)

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 [Hybrid SACD with CD-ROM track of Mozart's Original Manuscript]

by: W. A. Mozart, Kurt Streit, Gerald Finley, Concentus Musicus Wien, Arnold Schoenberg Choir

Release Date August 10, 2004
gran obra,excelente la dirección y los trabajos vocales, pero todo esto se disfruta, aún más, por un sonido de primera cálidad. altamente recomendable.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto/Violin Concerto

from: Teldec

Release Date November 01, 1994
Without question the most riveting recording I have heard of the Schumann piano concerto is this critically acclaimed version with Martha Argerich as soloist which is from a live performance recorded successfully by Teldec as if it was a studio recording. Argerich, Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe have taken a rather vivid, fresh take on this venerable warhourse, truly clearing some of the cobwebs in performance practice, by taking a more historically-informed approach. And yet it is an approach which doesn't forsake Argerich's intense, often quite dramatic, playing for which she has become well known. I disagree with a different customer reviewer who observed that this performance doesn't quite yield a "conversation between piano and orchestra", since she seems ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 / The Water Goblin

from: Teldec

Release Date April 25, 2000
Nikolaus Harnoncourt has specialized in rethinking classical music, sometimes to my horror (as in his aggressive, punchy Mozart and Beethoven) but other times to my delight. His Dvorak is full of surprises: lots of tempo changes, unusual balances, sudden accents and mesmerizing hush. But innately Harnoncourt takes a warm, relaxed view of the "New World," rushing nothing, letting the lyrical side speak patiently--you will think you've never heard the Largo before, so original is Harnoncourt's way with it. The only possible drawback is Harnoncourt's lack of excitement and drive in the finale.

I had already rated his Dvorak Seventh and Eighth as among the best I've ever heard; so is this Ninth, aided by lovely sonics and the gorgeous Concertgebouw, here caught live. The audience ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

J.S. Bach: Mass in B minor

from: Warner Music France

Release Date August 16, 2005
The performance captured in this landmark recording is its own best argument for the "period instrument" approach, because Harnoncourt's scholarly accuracy is placed entirely at the service of rendering Bach's voice as clearly and as compellingly as possible.

Other reviewers here have noted the meticulous research on performance history that went into constructing the various choral groupings Harnoncourt used. As the CD notes DO tell us, Bach also had very definite thoughts on the size and balance of instrumental ensembles. He didn't write for our massive, glossy-sounding modern string sections... nor did he write for metal flutes and plastic oboes. Over and above the issue of ensemble size, the period instruments simply SOUND better for this music: their rich, quirky sonorities ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Beethoven-Harnoncourt: 9 Symphonies

from: Teldec

Release Date October 11, 1991
As many have mentioned, Harnoncourt's set of Beethoven symphonies are "refreshing", combining the vibrato-less clarity of period instrument practices, the weight and power of a modern orchestra, brilliant playing that is a joy in itself, and excellent recorded sound. But while I want to emphasize that this is all highly admirable, there are a couple reasons why this set is not necessarily the definitive "best" that some have claimed it to be, or at least not the set for which to foresake all others. First, the orchestra's self-conscious striving for finesse can predominate at times. The willfully suave, uninflected treatment of the first movement of the "Pastorale" is characteristic of Harnoncourt's absolute aversion to staccatos! In the Fourth and Eighth Symphonies, there is some accenting in the first ... Read More: