CD-Charts Position 61
Average Rating:

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor; Bruch: Violin Concerto #1; Itzhak Perlman

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Itzhak Perlman, Felix Mendelssohn, Max Bruch, Bernard Haitink, Concertgebouw Orchestra

Release Date October 25, 1990
This is some of the best violin music I have ever heard. Itzhak Perlman is the best violinist of our time. Heavenly!

CD-Charts Position 62
Average Rating:

Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla

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

Release Date October 02, 1997
I was looking for a bit more cello in this cd. That aside, this was a great choice.

CD-Charts Position 63
Average Rating:

Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants

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

Release Date October 25, 1990
This is a beautiful CD. Vaughn Williams is my favorite classical composer and Neville Marriner's interpretation of his music is perfect. All of the tracks on this CD are fabulous!

CD-Charts Position 64
Average Rating:

Puccini: Madama Butterfly (complete opera) with Maria Callas, Lucia Danieli, Nicolai Gedda, Herbert von Karajan, Chorus & Orchestra of La Scala, Milan

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

Release Date August 19, 1997
While working on the PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES Archives page, I started thinking about Maria Callas & her rather bizarre, non-singing role in the equally bizarre 1970's Pier Passolini film MEDEA--and noticed this CD of Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY. I must admit that I was kind of turned-off to see that the CD was remastered from the original non-sterophonic LP (there's just so much even digital technology can do in salvaging pre-stereo operatic recordings) and I really only purchased it because I was curious hear Callas in one of her less notable roles (unbelievably there were only 3 performances).

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself really enjoying the entire production.

Of course director Herbert Von Karajan is a famous talent in ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 65
Average Rating:

Appassionato

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
from: SONY CLASSICS

Release Date January 09, 2007
I like the wide selection of music types included on this CD, from classical works to songs from musicals.

CD-Charts Position 66
Average Rating:

Baroque at Bathtime: A Relaxing Serenade to Wash Your Cares Away

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

Release Date August 15, 1995
Met expectations for relaxing music to add to my collection of stress busting CDs. No virtuoso classical performances here, but worth the very reasonable price for an occasional listen to help you unwind.

CD-Charts Position 67
Average Rating:

Osvaldo Golijov: Oceana

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

Release Date July 10, 2007
Golijov is all the rage nowadays. Hailed by the New Yorker and the New York Times as the next big thing in classical music, he has all the right credentials to appeal to our politically-correct aesthetic. He's Argentinian, Jewish and American all at the same time. We love the idea of mixed cultural influences, I suppose because it satisfies our liberal longing for a world where everyone gets along just fine.
I have enjoyed other Golijov productions, although I doubt his ultimate talent. He's not up there with the greats. In this collection, I realized that he is a superb collector of other peoples' themes and inspirations -- rather than a bone fide creator of his own. There is one movement, superbly sung by Dawn Upshaw, where the setting is just lovely. That's ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 68
Average Rating:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 / Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

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

Release Date January 23, 1996
Previously, a reviewer wrote:

"Karajan in 1962 wanted to perform Beethoven in a modern way compared to the overtly spiritual, often very slow, heavy, and rubato-laden style of the past in Germany. ... in the last movement Karajan takes the vocal line faster...

"By comparison, Karajan wasn't as hectically fast or intense as Toscanini,..."

I don't wish to take anything away from Karajan's technical mastery, his orchestra's wonderful sound, or his "smoothness." It's all good.

But folks should understand the real reason Karajan's original recorded version of this work, at least in terms of its tempos, comes out as the previous reviewer accurately observed. He kept to his version in subsequent recordings, of which this 1962 recording ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 69
Average Rating:

Tabula Rasa

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Dennis Russell Davies, Keith Jarrett, Gidon Kremer, Stuttgart State Orchestra, Tatiana Grindenko, Alfred Schnittke, Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic

Release Date November 16, 1999
I found it impossible not to react on a variety of emotional levels to Part's music, especially Tabula Rasa. It almost demands feeling. It is also music whose complexities draw one continually to explore it. The more you listen, the more there is to find.

CD-Charts Position 70
Average Rating:

Gloryland

CD-Charts > Music > Featured Performers- A-Z
by: Anonymous 4, Darol Anger, Mike Marshall

Release Date September 12, 2006
I'm completely in love with this album, both the performances and the music itself. I know there is a diversity of opinion about a group like Anonymous 4 performing music like this, and I can understand why. They don't do a typical "period" performance of the works, which usually comes out as dry as a stick and about as interesting (and yet still inaccurate somehow). But they also aren't ignoring what scholars have learned about performance practice either. They have managed to strike a balance between the two, and the performances come off as fresh, tasteful and engaging in a genre that has all but fallen off the map.

The music itself presents an interesting sound that will be largely unfamiliar to contemporary listeners. Many reviewers have remarked about the "raw" sound ... Read More: