CD-Charts Position 191
Average Rating:

Mozart: Piano Sonatas

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: Deutsche Grammophon

Release Date November 09, 1999
Mozart's piano sonatas are like listening to ice cream. They are just music. And I mean this in the most positive sense. Mozart's good artistic taste manifests itself in being profoundly unpretentious and self-effacing. As Raymond Chandler said, "There is no great and important art; there is only art... and precious little of that."
Mozart's music is inconsequential as music so rarely is. It asks very little of the listener and provides so much. It is for this reason that it is perfect background or atmospheric music. It GOES with things in the way that Schubert (e.g.) does not. I recommend eating vanilla ice cream while listening to Mozart piano sonatas. This will afford you an experience of synesthesia that blows the mind.

CD-Charts Position 192
Average Rating:

David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf"

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: RCA

Release Date February 11, 1992
Peter and the Wolf is a great way to get the kids to listen to classical music. It's fun and very entertaining.

CD-Charts Position 193
Average Rating:

Baroque Guitar

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: RCA

Release Date June 21, 1991
I have most of these pieces on a book of Essential Classical Guitar, as I'm picking up the instrument again. This is not only an enlightnening CD, it's just great music, very well played. I can compare some of the pieces to other recordings in compilations, also very well played. But Julian Bream breathes, does not put the accent on virtuosity but more on musical phrasing, takes a slightly slower tempo sometimes (the lovely Bach prelude in d). I love playing it on my iPod in the background, it soothes me while I'm doing mechanical work. All the CD is worth it, esp. at this price. I would've paid full price for it. Unlike other reviewers, I'm not at all bothered by the recording quality, it's perfectly adequate; although there is no attempt ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 194
Average Rating:

Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: Sony

Release Date April 05, 2005
This CD is anyone who longs to travel to far away, exotic places but cannot afford to get there in "real time". I was, and am so impressed with this CD from the moment I heard it on WQXR one beautiful spring morning, I knew "I had to own it" and I have not regretted listening to it over and over again. If you want to enter the heart of the mysterious, exotic world of Middle and Far East; if you want to envelope yourself in music so sacred, so beautiful that your soul will ache for more, than this is the CD for you...Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble are magical, they are Djinn....

CD-Charts Position 195
Average Rating:

Ludwig van Beethoven: 9 Symphonien

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
by: Gundula Janowitz, Waldemar Kmentt, Hilde Rossel-Majdan

Release Date June 05, 2007
I have enjoyed listening to Karajan's 1963 set ever since I bought it on sale at the Record Hunter in New York in the late 1980's. I don't find the renditions unemotional as some do. The performances are fast and dramatic. To some the sixth is too fast, but the slower tempos we have become accustomed to are only received tradition just as phlegmatic renditions of Bruckner's symphonies were once the norm. The performances often have the drive more typical of early music versions of classic works, except the pieces are being played by a larger orchestra than would have been common before the twentieth century. They are powerful renditions but not heavy-handed or turgid.
As in his recordings for DG of the Brahms and Schumann symphonies, Karajan also shows ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 196
Average Rating:

Gloryland

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
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 ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 197
Average Rating:

Messiah (George Frederick Handel) London Philharmonic Orchestra

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
by: Handel, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Alldis

Release Date March 12, 2002
Many envision Christmas when they hear Messiah spoken in reference to Handel's classical craftsmanship. I, personally, envision all year round listening rapture.

Handel's composition details various epics of Christ's life--His birth, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection and eventual Messianic millennial rule. You behold through Handel's orchestrated psalms, the Old Testament prophesies concerning Messiah encompassed with the New Testament fulfillments.

Handel's Messiah is remarkable as it is the inspired Scripture set to orchestration. Messiah is absent of Handel's words; only holding his masterful musical scores.

When you insert these CDs, Biblical truths arise in illustrious, serenading ecstasy. You immediately recognize, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 198
Average Rating:

Vincenzo Bellini - I Puritani

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: Deutsche Grammophon

Release Date December 18, 2007
I loved this film, and enjoyed it very much. Netrebko is a most excellent Elvira, and the rest of the cast completely lived up to her. Recommend this DVD highly for anyone who loves opera on film.

CD-Charts Position 199
Average Rating:

300 Years of Guitar Masterpieces

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: Vox (Classical)

Release Date November 04, 1992
This collection from the early years of Manuel Barrueco is one of the best values you'll find. It's 3 discs long and contains some of the best guitar playing I've ever heard. I've owned this set once before and had to buy it again because my original CDs were worn out from ware and tear. Highly recommended for anyone starting a serious classical guitar collection.

CD-Charts Position 200
Average Rating:

Copland: Appalachian Spring; Rodeo; Fanfare for the Common Man

CD-Charts > Music > Historical Periods
from: Telarc

Release Date October 25, 1990
I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of this recording. I used to think that only Angel Records could produce such quality. The people who did the mixing made me feel like I was standing next to the conductor. Every solo instrument seemed to sound its best.
I also liked the interpretation. I though it was traditional and being a tone poem I had no problem closing my eyes and "seeing" the action.