CD-Charts Position 111
Average Rating:

Discover Early Music

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Naxos

Release Date November 01, 2005
For anyone hoping to discover new types of music, compilation CDs offer an accessible overview from which they can pursue areas which interest them. The project is always a daunting task - how should one go about it and what should be included? Inevitably, the selection of chosen material is determined by the record company's existing catalogue; thus the resulting CD says more about them (here Naxos) than the repertoire itself (here early music). Nevertheless, 'Discover Early Music' is a laudable attempt, attractively packaged and supplemented with a readable booklet.

However, there are some real anomalies here...

1. Why is Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-77), the most important figure of the Ars Nova, unrepresented? Why ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 112
Average Rating:

100 Best Adagios

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: EMI Classics

Release Date July 22, 2008
For anyone hoping to discover new types of music, compilation CDs offer an accessible overview from which they can pursue areas which interest them. The project is always a daunting task - how should one go about it and what should be included? Inevitably, the selection of chosen material is determined by the record company's existing catalogue; thus the resulting CD says more about them (here Naxos) than the repertoire itself (here early music). Nevertheless, 'Discover Early Music' is a laudable attempt, attractively packaged and supplemented with a readable booklet.

However, there are some real anomalies here...

1. Why is Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-77), the most important figure of the Ars Nova, unrepresented? Why ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 113
Average Rating:

Musical Evenings With The Captain, Vol. 2

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Essay

Release Date November 18, 1997
A perfect complement for the books! Buy it and hear it while you read them!!!

CD-Charts Position 114
Average Rating:

Early American Choral Music, Vol. 1

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
by: His Majestie's Clerkes

Release Date May 08, 2001
After several years of singing in a church choir, I got exposed to many, many different styles of choral music. We sang modern versions of some of these songs, which were really nice. This, however, was a spectacular opportunity to hear the same music more closely to the original composition. If you enjoy choral music, this should be at least interesting to you. The performances are all a capella, lending more of a "not modern mass consumption" feel. Of course, I love a capella, so I might be a bit biased there.

Much of it is powerful. All of it is well done. The text is easily understandable - it isn't sung for some 'artistic complexity', like opera (where it sounds nice, but can't really understand what they're singing). If you ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 115
Average Rating:

Beethoven for Relaxation

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: RCA

Release Date March 09, 1999
The real Beethoven would probably be irritated with compilation CD's like this that "cherry picks" a variety of slow movements from various works he composed. But, the average listener today will see it as a great way to get to know his music and enjoy an hour of more serene music - less Beethoven's more intense movements. The variery here is broad: solo piano, violin + piano, string quartet and full orchestra symphonies and concertos. The dreamy solo-piano pieces are some of Beethoven's most beloved and alluring slow movements that vaulted him to fame. While these and the chamber music tend to be more "relaxing," the latter orchestral pieces especially contain shifts in tempo, dynamic range and emotion that some might not find so relaxing. After ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 116
Average Rating:

Bassoonatics!

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Musica Viva

Release Date February 17, 1998
This is an amazing collection of songs, all performed with such skill that even my 8-year-old son likes this CD. Brahms and Beatles, Mozart and Ellington, there is something here for everyone. And thank you, thank you, thank you for "Bassoonist's Holiday."

CD-Charts Position 117
Average Rating:

Ultimate Mozart

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Decca

Release Date September 24, 2007
This is an amazing collection of songs, all performed with such skill that even my 8-year-old son likes this CD. Brahms and Beatles, Mozart and Ellington, there is something here for everyone. And thank you, thank you, thank you for "Bassoonist's Holiday."

CD-Charts Position 118
Average Rating:

Ultimate Wagner: The Essential Masterpieces

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Decca

Release Date August 26, 2008
This is a fantastic bargain, an overlooked 5-CD tour of Bayreuth from the Sixties (Karl Bohm's mid-decade Ring cycle) through the Seventies (Silvio Varviso's 1974 Meistersinger) to the Eighties (James Levine's 1985 Parsifal). The only outsider is Solti's studio Tristan und Isolde from Vienna with the young Birgit Nilsson in gleaming voice.

There's a special theatrical frisson to every excerpt, and even for experienced listeners who might not want to buy the parent sets from which these sizable chunks have been extracted, it's pure pleasure to hear all these performances. The live sonics, engineered originally by Decca dn Philips, are often amazingly fine and never less than good. In sum, a wonderful way to get to a festival that few of ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 119
Average Rating:

More Mozart for Mothers-to-Be

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: Philips

Release Date June 27, 2000
I have been a fan of classical music for 15 years, but have had little success finding opera I enjoy. This CD is all opera, and I have enjoyed every song.

CD-Charts Position 120
Average Rating:

Schroeder's Greatest Hits

CD-Charts > Music > Compilations
from: RCA

Release Date September 08, 1992
I do not listen to very much classical music, but...I listen to this Disc quite often. My Wife grew up in front of a piano, and she has played many of these selections, and she is quite familiar with almost everything persented here. This is a CD that we both, {coming from two completly different musicial worlds} can both agree upon. This CD is wonderful and it belongs in any music collection.

With: "Fur Elise" leading the way through to: "Prelude-Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1, No. 1" this is piano as it was meant to be presented. This is the music that Schroeder loves to play. One listen to this, and it is easy to see why. When Schroeder plays these classic selections on his little toy piano {with Lucy right there bugging him} he seems to ... Read More: