This 4-CD set pays tribute to the French poet Jacques Prevert. He is generally considered as the 20th century’s greatest writer. For his words are simple. They are intended for those they describe. The tragic aspect is never absolute for Prevert – the last word is always with humour. Prevert was an author for commoners, an aristocrat of the streets. Each of the CDs is dedicated to a particular topic (childhood, love, music, freedom) and features a selection of Prevert’s texts read by the author himself or by great actors, his friends (radio archives) – including interviews of his contemporaries. In French..
The collection gathers the best relaxing tunes from the piano repertoire performed by most eminent musicians: Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand Chamayou, Aldo Ciccolini, Samson Francois, Helene Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicolai Lugansky, Maria-Joao Pires, Maurizio Pollini, Anne Queffelec, Alexandre Tharaud and Alexis Weissenberg.
Certainly, the 'quietest time of year' is also the time when music is to be most frequently heard - not only in public, in shops or markets, but also in the countryside, where Christmas is the time when perhaps the most singing is done. The music author Marius Schneider once underlined this fact by writing:"God hungers for songs." And thus the time which celebrates the symbolic birth of the Lord is a great time for music - even for people who may have no direct religious beliefs. With this 5CD-Set Capriccio presents in total 100 Classical Christmas titles, sung by most famous choruses and soloists. And draws a bow from the high classical Christmas Oratorio by Bach to more simple songs from the country side. And of course the most famous song can't be missed: "Silent Night, Holy Night."
Following the success of 100 Christmas Classics (Capriccio C7331) comes Christmas Meditation, featuring 100 choral and vocal works from across the centuries. The set encompasses sacred Renaissance treasures including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Bach/Gounod’s Ave Maria, Handel’s Baroque masterpiece Messiah (‘He shall feed his flock’) and classic Christmas carols such as It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Richard Storrs Willis and Franz Xaver Gruber’s Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’). Featuring some of the most renowned choral institutions, Christmas Meditation offers listeners a classical Christmas to remember.
REVIEWS:
A rather sumptuous collection of seasonal choral works, instrumental pieces and carols. --BBC Music Magazine
After the success of the 5 CD box “100 Christmas classics” (Capriccio C7331), the new 5 CD box “Christmas Meditation” contains 100 choral and instrumental works from past centuries. It contains works from 43(!) composers, including excerpts from Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Bach/Gounod's Ave Maria, Handel's Baroque masterpiece Messiah, and traditional and classical carols such as "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" by American composer Richard Storrs Willis, and Franz Xaver Gruber's "Silent Night”. With some of the most renowned choirs, “Christmas Meditation” offers you an unforgettable Christmas.
In addition to world-famous Christmas music, in this box you will also discover previously unknown but no less beautiful work by Bruch, Rheinberger, Carl Neuner, Wagenseil, Robert Fuchs, Johann Philipp Reichert or Johann von Herbeck. Cannot be missed!
Willie "The Lion" Smith was a jazz and stride pianist, rivalling James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Clarence Williams in the latter style, who was nicknamed "The Lion" because of his bravery serving in the US Army in France in WWI. By 1910 he was already playing in New York clubs and played on his first recording session in 1920.
Louis Armstrong enjoyed many distinct phases of recognition and success during an extraordinary career spanning some 70 years. An iconic figure, his influence on the world of jazz, popular music and showbusiness is inestimable. Many of his finest and best-loved performances are included on this comprehensive 4CD set drawn from his prolific output during the 1950s and early 60s. This was the era when Louis was playing and singing with a zest and good humour that made him a true ambassador for jazz.
100 YEARS or, "The Country at One Hundred" is a large suite, a collective work of the Prague Six, the composers concentrated around the Concept Art Orchestra big band. The composition originated as a tribute to the one hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 2018 and consists of six parts in which the authors allude to various periods in the history of the Czechoslovak and later Czech Republic, with originality and energy typical of the big band. Štepánka Balcarová, Jan Jirucha, Luboš Soukup, Martin Brunner, Tomáš Sýkora and Vít Krištan each have authored one of the six movements in which they make full use of all the orchestration possibilities offered by a big band, expanding these with non-traditional instruments such as Ondes Martenot, the chimes or Moog synthetizer. The individual compositions also include sensitive references to period music and samples and citations from political speeches. The fourth movement, dedicated to the period of the so-called normalization in the 1970s and 1980s and based on the motives of a song by The Plastic People of the Universe, features a special guest, the saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec. This, already third recording by Concept Art Orchestra on the Animal Music label confirms the indisputable place of the band (the holder of the 2015 Andel Award for the best jazz album of the year) on the current big-band scene and testifies to their capacity to create original works rooted in the current musical and historical context as well as perform them to the highest professional standards.
Bill Evans is widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Evans' use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines continue to resonate today. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey on 16 August 1929, Evans was classically trained and studied at Southeastern Louisiana University. In 1955 he moved to New York, where he worked with bandleader and theorist George Russell. In 1958, Evans joined Miles Davis' sextet, where he was to have a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz, recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time. In late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, ten days after recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion, Evans re-emerged with a new trio, featuring bassist Chuck Israels. Despite his success, Evans suffered personal loss and struggled with drug abuse. Both his girlfriend Elaine and his brother Harry committed suicide, and he was a long time user of heroin. Many of his compositions have become standards and have been played and recorded by many artists. Evans was honored with 31 Grammy nominations and seven awards, and was inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. This compilation contains Evans' first 12 albums as leader covering the years 1956 - when he recorded and released his debut record New Jazz Conceptions featuring the original version of his most covered track 'Waltz For Debby' - through to his seminal Empathy album in 1962. Generally considered in jazz circles as the period in which Evans' star shone brightest and the era of his finest work, this 6CD set is as close to the perfect Bill Evans collection as is currently available.
Poland had three contestants left in the Third Stage of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, and only one went through to the Grand Final concerto round. So the country's hopes were resting on Szymon Nehring, and although few would have tipped him as a winner he enjoyed understandable support in the hall and countrywide, winning the Audience Prize in the final analysis. The Krakow-born pianist, who had just turned 20 when the competition opened, certianly aroused interest with his playing. Reviewing his Second Stage appearance in the Chopin Courier, Kacper Miklaszewski said, ''The search for subtlety took away a bit of clarity from the interpretations of Szymon Nehring, who nevertheless built a convincing dramaturgy in the Polonaise in F sharp minor.'' Getting across all the hurdles in this most demanding of competitions, Nehring certainly proved his worth by the time he stepped out to play the Piano Concerto in E minor in a performance that mixed muscularity and gracefulness. Showing qualities that in retrospect can also be found here in performances recorded earlier in the competition, he found the sweep of the concerto's first movement and the dreaminess of the second, before dispatching the rhythms of the ifnale with a natural, native flexibility. It was a well-rounded performance that justified his place as a laureate.
