CD-Charts Position 151
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The Mozart Effect Music for Children, Volume 2: Relax, Daydream, & Draw

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
from: Children's Group

Release Date September 16, 1997
This cd has helped my ADD daughter to concentrate fully on her studies, we are home schoolers

CD-Charts Position 152
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Beethoven: Piano Trios, Vol. 2; Itzhak Perlman; Vladimir Ashkenazy; Lynn Harrell

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lynn Harrell, Ludwig van Beethoven

Release Date June 01, 2004
Unfortunately there are only a handful of the Beethoven Complete Piano Trios on disc. Of those, these are by far the finest. I've purchased the set by Baremboim-Zukerman-DuPre several years ago, but found their performances to be a bit dry,conservative and uninvolved in the music.
The Beaux Art Trio's renditions are classics, but inconsistent. The Askenazy-Perlman-Harrell set are not only virtuostic performances by three of the greatest classical artists of their generation, but there is an incredible chemistry between each of them which the key to ensemble playing. Recorded in the 80s, the recording sound is warm and genuine, but dynamic as well. Highly recommeded!!

CD-Charts Position 153
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Amore: Romantic Italian Love Songs

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
from: Decca

Release Date September 15, 1992
This is an amzing CD, probably one of Pavarotti's best. For anyone who loves opera and in particular this star, this is a MUST. Even more precious since Pavarotti's death.

CD-Charts Position 154
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Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works

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from: Decca

Release Date May 11, 1999
As an overview or introduction to some of Ralph Vaughan Williams most well-known and beloved works--the Tallis Fantasia, the Greensleeves Fantasia, The Lark Ascending--this set from Decca will service most needs. It features an attractive program that, alongside the more popular works, includes some that aren't so universally well-known yet probably deserve to be--namely the Oboe Concerto and the Concerto Grosso.
The problem I have, as someone who has known most of these works for many years, is with the performances. The wonderful, spritely Oboe Concerto is given a dull and quite slow performance that seems to want to bring out pastoral qualities that aren't entirely there (it has its pastoral moments, but it's actually a very vivacious, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 155
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Twilight of the Gods: The Essential Wagner Collection

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
from: Deutsche Grammophon

Release Date August 11, 1998
I am so tired of hearing people complain about how this isn't true opera and how it is so out of context. This is a greatest hits and hardly what I would consider in the same context as taking pages from great novels and putting them together. Music does not fall to the same boundries of context as do novels. I think of this like i think of a pink floyd greatest hits. in modern terms i would have to say that they do offer complete thoughts in their albums, and any song from the wall would lose something in context to the rest of the piece, but how often does one have time to listen to music for hours on end. i own many of the operas that this album takes from, and the best use that i can get of them is background and mood music, which i of course enjoy ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 156
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Mozart: Requiem / McNair, Watkinson, Araiza, Lloyd; Marriner

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, Sylvia McNair, Carolyn Watkinson, Francisco Araiza, Robert Lloyd

Release Date April 05, 1991
So much emotion! Mozart's Requiem deals with death, the most human of all experience. The most heavy, the most painfull, and in this case, the most beautiful. It's about dying, it's about hell, and it is about redemption. You can feel the sorrow and the finallity of it all when you listen to this. A masterpiece among masterpieces.

CD-Charts Position 157
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Mahler: Symphony No. 2 / Mehta, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Gustav Mahler, Zubin Mehta, Ileana Cotrubas, Christa Ludwig, Wiener Philharmoniker

Release Date June 13, 2000
This is going to be short and sweet.

First, I am going to completely pass on discussing Mehta's interpretation or the Vienna Philharmonic's performance, as well as the individual merits of Miss Ludwig and Miss Cotrubus. I think all that has been thoroughly discussed here already. In other words, everything that can be said, has been said, although perhaps not everyone has had a chance to say it. This is, simply, one of the great performances.

Therefore, in brief, I would like to give a mention to those amazing men and women who twirl the dials: the engineers. This is an analog recording made near the end of the analog era. The art of analog recording had progressed steadily and significantly for over a half century so that, by the ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 158
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Sibelius: Finlandia/Tone Poems.

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
from: EMI Classics

Release Date June 27, 2000
Sibelius: Finlandia/Tone Poems - No Finn in America should be without this. Thanks to Amazon and the seller, it brought me back 50 years ago when I was a child with Mom. The old record she played until it wore out.

CD-Charts Position 159
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Great Recordings Of The Century - Brahms: Violin Sonatas nos 1 - 3 / Perlman, Ashkenazy

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Release Date March 09, 1999
These are good performances, but are far from the greatest. Perlman is a fantastic violinist without question; he can play anything he wants to, and do it flawlessly. Just listen to him whip through Paganini's caprices like it's a walk in the park. Ashkenazy is a fine pianist and able collaborator, even if he isn't my favorite. However, this recording is a bit over-the-top in terms of the schmaltz-factor. The music is already sufficiently heartfelt, and does not require any additional help from the performers to drive this point home. The playing style, likewise, is a bit affected and self-conscious.
Anyways, enough negative stuff. The 3 sonatas are played remarkably well, with a great deal of virtuosity, perfect intonation and excellent collaboration throughout. I may not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 160
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Hymns Triumphant 1 & 2

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Lee Holdridge, London Philharmonic Choir, London's National Philharmonic Orchestra

Release Date April 09, 2002
It was not exactly what I would have liked. I would have preferred more of a real choir with organ accompaniment, rather than an orchestra. It is makes for nice background/inspirational collection however.