Russian Favorites: Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition / Night on the Bear Mountain / Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio espagnol / Borodin - Glinka / Orchestra/Ensemble: Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra / Conductor: Alain Lombard

Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's Dream, Die Erste Walpurgisnacht / Harnoncourt / Composer: Felix Mendelssohn / Performer: Elisabeth von Magnus [Mezzo-soprano Vocal], Pamela Coburn, Birgit Remmert, Christoph Bantzer, Ren� Pape, Thomas Hampson, Uwe Heilmann, Rene Pape, Conductor: Nikolaus Harnoncourt Mendelssohn's highly potent brand of magic here in rhythmically robust live recordings of eight numbers from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a formidable team of soloists for the spooky Walpurgisnacht.

CLARINET CONCERTOS 1 & 2 GRAN

Wagner: Siegfried Highlights / Jerusalem, Tomlinson, Clark, Evans, Barenboim Composer: Richard Wagner Performer: Graham Clark, Siegfried Jerusalem, John Tomlinson, Anne Evans Conductor: Daniel Barenboim Orchestra/Ensemble: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Siegfried, WWV 86C, is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner. It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring. This part of the opera is primarily inspired by the story of the legendary hero Sigurd in Norse mythology. The Barenboim Ring cycle is acclaimed as one of the best of recent times, with John Tomlinson as Wotan, Anne Evans as Brunnhilde, and Siegfried Jerusalem, appropriately enough, as Siegfried. While listeners, critics and philosophers have argued passionately about various interpretations of Wagner's libretto, and opera fans and critics debate the relative merits of singers and performances and sets, there are few who are not moved by the magnificent music. And Barenboim and the Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele are superb!

Beethoven: Symphonies 2 & 6 / Menuhin, Sinfonia Varsovia Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven Orchestra/Ensemble: Sinfonia Varsovia Conductor: Yehudi Menuhin The legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin was the eldest child of Russian-born Hebrew scholars who met in Palestine, emigrated to New York City, and moved to San Francisco soon after their son's birth. After just three years of violin study, Yehudi made a legendary debut at age seven with the local symphony. His Carnegie Hall debut three years later, in the Beethoven Violin Concerto, garnered praise that likened him to Mozart as a prodigy, whereupon the family (which now included sisters Hephzibah and Yaltah) lived gypsy-like in hotels wherever Yehudi was engaged at enormous fees. But the child's talent was instinctive. During World War II he gave more than 500 concerts for Allied and American troops, but stirred a hornet's nest of controversy as the first major Jewish artist to perform in postwar Germany. Likewise, after the Six Day War in the Middle East, he was vilified for performing charity concerts in Arab countries. Increasingly he devoted himself to the training of young artists, both near London (which became his home in 1952) and at Gstaad, Switzerland. Also in 1952 he went to India, became a disciple of yoga, and a colleague of sitarist Ravi Shankar. He recorded with Shankar, as he did subsequently with Jazz violinist St�phane Grappelli. In the middle 1950s Menuhin took up conducting, but was no better schooled than he had been as a child violinist - and he was conspicuously less successful despite having made a steady stream of recordings beginning in 1958. At age 82 he was guest conducting the Warsaw Symphony on tour when he suffered a fatal heart attack in Berlin.

Lamentations: Holy Week in Provence / Joel Cohen Conductor, Boston Camerata Performing Ensemble, Anne Azema Soprano (Vocal), Readings, Frederick Jodry Counter Tenor (Vocal), William Hite Tenor (Vocal), Paul Guttry Bass (Vocal), Christopher Kale Tenor (Vocal), Schola Cantorum of Boston Choir, Chorus, Daniel McCabe Brass Baritone

OBOE CONCERTOS

MESSIAH [HIGHLIGHTS]

Brahms : Symphony No.1 & Tragic Overture. Kurt Masur & New York Philharmonic. Kurt Masur took over the New York Philharmonic and this is one of the slower interpretations of this symphony.

SYMPHONY NO. 3, OP. 36 SYMPHON

Bizet / Carmen / Jennifer Larmore /Thomas Moser / Angela Gheorghiu / Samuel Ramey / Giuseppe Sinopoli / Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875) Date Written 1873-1874 Venue Stadthalle Germering France. Performers on Bizet: Carmen CD : Nathalie Boissy, Fintaras Vysniauskas, Angela Gheorghiu, Jennifer Larmore, Dieter Miserre, Maurizio Muraro, Natascha Petrinsky, Samuel Ramey [Bass-Baritone Vocal], Ulrich Ress, Thomas Moser [Tenor Vocals], Jan Zinkler

CANTATAS BWV 4&131

Bach: Cantatas No 8, 26, 61 & 130 / Werner, Pforzheim / Heinrich Schuetz Cho (2006) Soloists: Friederike Sailer; Claudia Hellmann; Helmut Krebs; Jakob Stampfli. Conductor: Fritz Werner Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Orchestra/Ensemble: Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra, Heilbronn Heinrich Sch�tz Chorus, Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Written: 1714 - 1724; Germany

LES NUITS DETE, MELODIES

DON JUAN