CD-Charts Position 1

Georgy Sviridov: Three Choruses; Pushkin's Garland; Songs of Troubled Times; Night Clouds

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from: Olympia

Release Date May 23, 1995

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Handel: Israel in Egypt

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from: Philips Classics

Release Date February 10, 2003
GREAT RECORDING, BUT NOT MY FAVORITE!
John Eliot Gardiner is a conductor who understands Handel to the very core, and has recorded herein the shorter version parts 2 & 3, which Handel, himself, created.

The choir does a good job of portraying the highly emotional content of this oratorio, and Gardiner guides them skillfully through the numerous vocal effects demanded by the score.

The weakest element is Ashley Stafford's (countertenor) account of the frogs which he sings VERY insecurely ending with a hideously rash decoration. Yet Gardiner manages to get across in this otherwise-vapid air the sense of leaping fleas of pestelence and pustule. The tremendous flies and lice chorus overwhelms, as the elements ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Alan Hovhaness: Janabar, Talin, Shambala / Slovak Philharmonic, Stur, Fong, Mazumdar, Hersey, Bowman

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from: OgreOgress productions

Release Date January 01, 2006
I was quite excited to learn of this release and purchased it from OgreOgress directly. I noted the DualDisc aspect of this recording, but it didn't register that I'd only be getting one movement each of Janabar and Talin on the CD side of the DualDisc. I figured that the DVD had video of the recording sessions. When I received it, I eagerly listened to the CD and discovered only four tracks: a movement of Janabar, a movement of Talin, Shambala in its entirety, and a track for the PDF file, which gives information on the various works. The DVD has no video.

The Music: The previous reviewer did a good job of describing the works on the CD, so I'll simply say that Janabar, a 35+ minute work, and Shambala, a 45 minute work, are ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Lily Afshar - Hemispheres

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from: Archer Records

Release Date July 25, 2006
Lily is a very good guitarist, She brings a nice variety of music to the table in this CD. If you love the guitar, you can't go wrong with this CD.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Sibelius: The Tempest

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from: Ondine

Release Date February 01, 1995
Lily is a very good guitarist, She brings a nice variety of music to the table in this CD. If you love the guitar, you can't go wrong with this CD.

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Fischer: Brahms Piano Sonata No. 3; Bartók: 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs

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from: BBC Legends

Release Date November 28, 2000
Your initial post: Mar 13, 2008 6:46 PM PDT

Preface: I wrote the following in response to Ryan Morris review. I'm adding some notes to that response.
T. R. Wilson says:
Dear Ryan Morris, RIGHT ON! That you should write so insightfully about Maestra Fischer is amazing, in that you never heard her live, and this was your "first expererience" with her playing. I did my undergraduate study with one of her very dear, close friends and colleagues, Edward Kilenyi, and the met Fischer in NYC, hearing her live many times. You are right, her Brahms sonata is simply the only recording of it that comes close to anything. This entire recording is just astounding, as was every one of the 9 or 10 times I heard her in person. I always ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Favourite Songs by Donizetti, Verdi, Gluck, Martini, Piccini, Tosti

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from: Chandos

Release Date October 28, 1992
I strongly disagree with the reviewer who gave this recording only two stars, apparently based on the fact that he/she did not like the songs chosen. Bruson is absolutely phenomenal here, singing with his customarily impeccable phrasing, nuanced dynamics, and warmth. "Tristezza" and "I te vurria vasa" are of particular beauty, but the entire concert is outstanding.

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Boulez Conducts Webern, Vol. 3

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from: Deutsche Grammophon

Release Date January 28, 1997
Yes, yes. Anton Webern (1883-1945) took the implications of the so-called Second Viennese School to their most radical conclusions, but like his teacher Arnold Schoenberg and his fellow Schoenberg-student Alban Berg, Webern remained in touch with the Mahlerian late-Romanticism of his youth. Even the gnomic Symphony, Opus 21 (1927) looks back to Mahler and makes (I believe) specific references to the Ninth Symphony. Consider the opening gestures of Webern's Symphony: We hear harp, strings, and horn - the very same combination in evidence in the first movement of Mahler's valedictory D-Minor Symphony. This is fin-de-siècle hyper-Romanticism glimpsed through the refractory lens of post-Hapsburg modernism. Webern originally planned four movements for ... Read More: