CD-Charts Position 1
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Norton Recorded Anthology of Western Music, Fifth Edition, Volume 1: Ancient to Baroque (6 CDs)

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: W. W. Norton

Release Date January 01, 2006
The CDs in this set are not packaged in standard jewelboxes nor even in cheap sleeves, but are mounted directly atop a printed surface. As a result, when I purchased the set from my school bookstore, I found that several of the CDs had dried flecks of ink on the data side that made it impossible to play or rip certain tracks. Beware.

CD-Charts Position 2
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Vaughan Williams: The Collector's Edition

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: EMI Classics

Release Date July 08, 2008
This splendid set, an amazing bargain, provides most of Vaughan Williams's music in various, sometimes relatively recent, vintages of recordings. VW is a vastly underrated composer. Some of the symphonies are bonafide masterpieces, especially numbers 4 and 6, but the London Symphony (#2) and the 8th and 9th are pretty top drawer as well, if not as stunning as 4 and 6. But then, 3 and 5 are excellent in a more "pastoral" way, though hardly the "cow music" written about in a recent New York Times article. If VW has written any "cow music" my ears have never detected it. The First Symphony, however, a choral work based on text by Walt Whitman, is as uncowlike as you can get but too hysterically pitched for my taste (like Mahler's Eighth).
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CD-Charts Position 3
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Mozart Edition: Complete Works (170 CD Box Set)

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Brilliant Classics

Release Date October 25, 2005
I thoroughly enjoy these CDs. I tried collecting Mozart in portions over time, but his repertoire is just way too large to manage for amateurs like me. It is well worth buying the whole collection in one purchase.

CD-Charts Position 4
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Bernstein: Symphony No. 3 ("Kaddish"); Chichester Psalms

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Sony

Release Date July 14, 1998
Anyone of a certain age can remember the flap caused by the premiere of Bernstein's Sym. #3 "Kaddish," which contains the composer's personal argument with God, as narrated by his wife, Felicia Montelegre. The text is full of ego and blather, and it created the first huge embarrassment for a beloved icon of American music. He would go on the decline as a composer and a public figure soon thereafter, with even more embarrassment over Mass, his ecumenical-hippie memorial to John F. Kennedy.

HOw does Kaddish sound in retrospect? It's still full of ego and blather, but that's part of LB's legacy. His estate has tried to soften the Lenny-give-it-to-God aspect by approving several revisions of the text, one of which LB himself conducts on ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
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Mozart's Magnificent Voyage

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Children's Group

Release Date October 13, 1998
A friend of mine got this for her son about 3 years ago and he's still listening to the stories. Its calming and interesting. Its great in the car. The story goes along with the movements of the piece and really brings classical music and a great story to children. I now get this for all my friends with babies and small children.

CD-Charts Position 6
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The Most Relaxing Classical Album In the World Ever, Volume II

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
by: Gabriel Faure, Frederic Chopin, Antonio Vivaldi, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Sir Neville Marriner, Maris Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Sir Adrian Boult, Miklos Rozsa, Riccardo Muti, Stephen Cleobury, Sir John Barbirolli, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Berlin Philharmonic

Release Date March 11, 2003
Beautifully done, arranged, and selected. All are very good performances, and there are many lesser known but wonderful pieces such as the movement from Shostakovich's second piano concerto.

CD-Charts Position 7
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Elgar: The Collector's Edition (30 CDs)

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Emi Classics

Release Date November 06, 2007
It's hard not to like Elgar -- his music is tuneful, bombastic in all the right ways, and has an air of ceremony that somehow perfectly fits what British music should sound like. I guess it's just that Elgar defines "British" music.

There are certainly highlights in this set -- Falstaff and the Cello Concerto are so good that I think any other performance I'll ever hear of either of them will be ruined because they won't compare. The oratorios The Dream of Gerontius and The Apostles as presented are widely considered the best out there. And I haven't heard better. There's plenty more here to enjoy even if they're not absolutely authoritative.

I don't like Barbirolli's interpretation of the symphonies -- he takes the "noble" ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
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Agnus Dei: Music of Inner Harmony: The Choir of New College Oxford

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Erato

Release Date February 18, 1997
It's funny how over the years you find something special. This is one of those special music moments.

I do think that every person will have one track they like better than others but for me there is one track that just chills you to the bone.

It's worth the money for the whole CD just for the one track.

I just wish this was a 7.1 surround sound recording. I guess one day it will be :o)

CD-Charts Position 9
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Thomas Tallis: Complete Works

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Brilliant Classics

Release Date April 01, 2008
I can't praise highly enough the service to the music world that Brilliant Classics is doing by issuing the complete works of both well-known and lesser-known masters. Brilliant is perhaps best known for its complete sets of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, each priced at a little over $100 for close to 100 CDs in each set.

I was previously familiar with the English Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), but not with the complete spectrum of his works, which is available in this set. Most of the works are Catholic Latin choral works, highly suggestive of the sublime master of sacred polyphony, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1514-1594), Tallis's Italian contemporary.

Palestrina remained completely Catholic, and wrote only for the Church. Tallis, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
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The Tallis Scholars Sing Thomas Tallis

CD-Charts > Music > Psalms
from: Gimell UK

Release Date September 14, 2004
If you favor blend, balance, pitch, and all the other parameters of the English traditional choral style, you'll be very impressed with the Tallis Scholars' refined presentation. the music speaks for itself.