Classical Music

VIVALDI: Flute Concertos (Famous)

Vital and individual readings.

There’s really not much to say about this one. Sir Andrew Davis in an all-Elgar programme ought to be a safe pair of hands, and so it turns out, and more besides.

The programme opens with the Enigma Variations, the phrasing of the theme as loving as one has ever heard it. The end of the first variation, C.A.E., depicting the composer’s wife, may be a little too drawn out for some tastes, but Elgar often expressed his affection for her in language at least as sweetly sentimental as this. The showy variations are splendid, but the more intimate ones are even more successful, and one comes away, perhaps more than in many performances, with the idea that some of Elgar’s friends were a melancholy lot. The cellist, Basil Nevinson, in a highly expressive reading, has rarely sounded as sad as he does here. The solo part is beautifully played, and this seems the moment to praise the outstanding orchestral playing throughout the disc, and the brilliantly characterful solo playing in particular. The Enigma Variations has been recorded many, many times, and each listener will have a favourite. I am very attached to Barbirolli in this work, though I sometimes wonder if this is not as much for sentimental reasons as for musical ones. The present performance is as fine as any I have heard, and I don’t think anyone who acquires it will be less than delighted. The recording is particularly detailed, bringing out a few points of orchestration I had never heard before, though you have to turn up the volume a fair bit to get enough punch in the louder passages, which means that the softer ones lose a little of their intimacy.

The performance of In the South is, if anything, even finer. The opening is surely the most exuberant music Elgar ever composed, and this comes over wonderfully well in this performance. Once again the orchestra is in inspired form, and this extends to the gentler, more atmospheric passages too. The work, always a winner in the concert hall, is nonetheless not one of the composer’s more coherent creations from a formal point of view, but Sir Andrew’s subtle control of tempo between the different sections disguises that very successfully. There are passages in the work where the composer runs the risk of overstepping the boundaries of taste, too, and it is a mark of the conductor’s skill that they are totally convincing. I’m thinking in particular of the passage based on hammered, repeated falling fifths (beginning at 7:12) where the listener is not sure whether Sir Andrew is moving the music on or not, only that the pulse never drags, successfully avoiding any suggestion of bombast. It’s a very fine performance and, like the Enigma, is greeted with enthusiastic applause.

This performance of the adorable Serenade will not appeal to those who want to indulge themselves, but is likely to please those who feel that Elgar knew what he wanted as regards tempo. Even so, the first and last movements here, amongst the briskest performances I know, still fall short of Elgar’s markings which do seem very fast indeed. The music is gracefully phrased, skipping rather than lilting, and is full of affection despite the conductor’s unwillingness to linger. The central slow movement, at a similarly flowing tempo, is very moving, wistful and passionate by turns, just as it should be.

The name “Philhamonia Orchestra” - albeit in trendy all lower case fashion - is given greater prominence on this disc than “Signum”, and the back cover of the booklet carries information about other Philharmonia performances on the same label. As a collaborative effort it can only be welcomed, especially at mid-price. There are very readable and informative notes by M. Ross. Newcomers to Elgar and seasoned listeners hoping for vital and individual readings of these particular works need not hesitate.

-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International

In this historic release, the great lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! shares with musical theater fans 53 of his "hidden treasures" - rarely heard songs from 17 musicals, with many songs performed by Harnick himself and his late composer-partner Jerry Bock.

Three cuts feature Harnick as recorded just last year for this special collection, and other archival recordings star three-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald, Brian d'Arcy James, Hugh Martin, Charlotte Rae, and more. This 2-CD set is a grand celebration of Harnick's 90th birthday on April 30th and the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof. That musical's iconic "Sunrise, Sunset" is being released for the first time in its original demo recording by Bock and Harnick.

The deluxe package includes a 60-page booklet with extensive notes by Harnick and a foreword by famed Broadway producer Harold Prince, who comments: “This magnificent set is testimony to Sheldon’s extraordinary gifts, and to his place in the pantheon of Broadway musical creators.”

Classical Music

Classical Music

A memento of what must have been a very moving occasion.

As far as I know, this is Sir Colin Davis’s second recording of Tippett’s oratorio; his first, made for Philips in 1975 and featuring such luminaries as Jessye Norman, Janet Baker and John Shirley-Quirk, has always been one of the top choices. There are also valuable performances from Pritchard (1957, the pioneering recording), Rozhdestvensky (a live BBC relay on Carlton Classics) and, not least, the composer himself (a technically fallible but nevertheless overwhelming performance with the CBSO on Naxos). Davis also performed A Child of our Time at the Barbican last December and this was recorded for LSO Live.

Sir Colin has performed a number of works by British composers during his appearances in Dresden. His acclaimed reading of Elgar’s First Symphony has already appeared in this edition and he also performed Britten’s War Requiem in 2000 in commemoration of the destruction of Dresden. Performances of A Child of our Time in Germany carry a particular charge, bringing as they do associations of atonement and reparation. This is further confirmed by the lavishly illustrated CD booklet, which provides a detailed background to the events in Europe that inspired Tippett’s oratorio. There is also some fascinating information on Dresden’s synagogue, designed, like its famous opera house, by Gottfried Semper and destroyed during the Kristallnacht of 1938. No texts are provided.

Davis, aided by the spacious acoustic of the Semper Opera House, sets a steady pace for the most part, emphasising the dramatic weight and power of his conception. The chorus is backwardly placed but such is the excellence of their diction that this is not a problem. The oratorio is paced unerringly, the chorus providing rich tone in “Steal Away” vivid characterisation of persecutors and persecuted in “Burn down their houses” followed by a sombre reading of “Go Down Moses”. The sequence of Handel-inspired recitatives and arias in the central part of the oratorio move from fear, terror, anger and, finally, acceptance. At the end Davis draws the threads together with complete mastery for the final “Deep River”.

The soloists all characterise their roles extremely vividly, and although occasionally some idiosyncratic pronunciation can make for disconcerting listening this is a relatively small blemish when we are faced with such obvious involvement. Ute Selbig possesses a bright, full soprano - she sang Sibelius’s Luonnotar in the first half of the concert at which this recording was made - and soars effortlessly over the other forces in the spirituals and elsewhere. The late Jerry Hadley sings with passionate although somewhat plaintive tone, and Robert Holl is a tower of strength in the important bass part.

Sir Colin’s reading is undoubtedly authoritative and moving, with a powerful and responsive chorus and a team of soloists who are extremely involved dramatically, although vocally more fallible than some of their counterparts on disc. I wouldn’t say this new disc superseded any of the versions listed above, but it does provide a memento of what must have been a very moving occasion in the Semperoper, and occasionally surpasses its predecessors in terms of sheer emotional commitment.

-- Ewan McCormick, MusicWeb International

Sir Colin Davis leads the Staatskapelle Dresden in recordings from the 1988-2003 featuring music of Berlioz, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, and more.

Classical Music

As Haydn scholar H.C. Landon explains, ‘it is clear that with this Missa Cellensis…he reached, and reached with panache and astonishing vigour, the popular style for which he had been so long and so diligently searching.’ For this reason, the Mariazellermesse ‘is both the precursor to Haydn’s late Masses as well as the culmination of his early efforts in the genre.’ Fourteen years elapsed before Haydn’s setting of the Mass in Time of War, also known as the Paukenmesse because of his evocative use of the timpani; the work demonstrates Haydn’s new approach to the Mass, including dramatic extremes and more frequent integration of solo and chorus.

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

This disc features Jamaican jazz giant and "father of Ska" Ranglin, and a host of guest celebrity musicians. The music was recorded in REAL HD-Audio at 96kHz, 24-bit PCM, and is presented in DOLBY TrueHD.

Joaquin Achucarro performs with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. Extras include documentary footage about Achucarro's 50th anniversary of his debut with the London Symphony featuring interviews.

Diana Damrau and Angelika Kirchschlager star in the acclaimed 2008 production of Humperdinck’s famous fairytale opera, in the company of two of Britain’s most revered musical figures: Thomas Allen, playing the role of the Father, and the legendary conductor Colin Davis. Directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser combine their characteristic wit and a dash of deliciously dark comedy with the opera’s fairytale charm. Humperdinck’s music mixes catchy folk-like songs with sumptuous instrumental colour, making the result as tunefully approachable, musically memorable and visually delightful as opera gets. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in full Surround Sound.

Hansel: Angelika Kirchschlager
Gretel: Diana Damrau
Gertrud: Elizabeth Connell
Peter: Thomas Allen
Witch: Anja Silja
Sand man: Pumeza Matshikiza
Dew Fairy: Anita Watson

Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Children’s Chorus
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Colin Davis
Stage Directors: Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, on 12th and 16th December 2008.

Plus
Illustrated synopsis & animated cast gallery.
Interview with Colin Davis.
Fairytales feature.
Cinema trailer.

Reviews
‘Angelika Kirchschlager’s tousled, boyish Hänsel and Diana Damrau’s Gretel are dramatically convincing and vocally superb, while their parents, excellently sung and played by Elizabeth Connell and Thomas Allen, earn our sympathy as well as our censure. Pumeza Matshikiza’s goblin-like Sandman is truly magical and Anita Watson’s feather-dusting Dew Fairy another amusing creation. Colin Davis, unafraid to relish the icing on the cake, draws a warm, effulgent sound from the orchestra.’ Evening Standard

REGIONS: All Regions
PICTURE FORMAT: 16:9
LENGTH: 138 Mins
SOUND: 5.1 DTS SURROUND / PCM STEREO
SUBTITLES: ENGLISH/FRENCH/GERMAN/SPANIS/ITALIAN
LANGUAGE: German
NO OF DISCS: 2

Diana Damrau and Angelika Kirchschlager star in the acclaimed 2008 production of Humperdinck’s famous fairytale opera, in the company of two of Britain’s most revered musical figures: Thomas Allen, playing the role of the Father, and the legendary conductor Colin Davis. Directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser combine their characteristic wit and a dash of deliciously dark comedy with the opera’s fairytale charm. Humperdinck’s music mixes catchy folk-like songs with sumptuous instrumental colour, making the result as tunefully approachable, musically memorable and visually delightful as opera gets. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in full Surround Sound.

Hansel: Angelika Kirchschlager
Gretel: Diana Damrau
Gertrud: Elizabeth Connell
Peter: Thomas Allen
Witch: Anja Silja
Sand man: Pumeza Matshikiza
Dew Fairy: Anita Watson

Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Children’s Chorus
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Colin Davis
Stage Directors: Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, on 12th and 16th December 2008.

Plus
Illustrated synopsis & animated cast gallery.
Interview with Colin Davis.
Fairytales feature.
Cinema trailer.

Reviews
‘Angelika Kirchschlager’s tousled, boyish Hänsel and Diana Damrau’s Gretel are dramatically convincing and vocally superb, while their parents, excellently sung and played by Elizabeth Connell and Thomas Allen, earn our sympathy as well as our censure. Pumeza Matshikiza’s goblin-like Sandman is truly magical and Anita Watson’s feather-dusting Dew Fairy another amusing creation. Colin Davis, unafraid to relish the icing on the cake, draws a warm, effulgent sound from the orchestra.’ Evening Standard

REGIONS: All Regions
LENGTH: 138 Minutes
FORMAT: PCM 2.0 PCM 5.1
LANGUAGE: German
SUBTITLES: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

When the King of Navarre and his three courtiers forswear all pleasure – particularly of the female variety – in favour of a life of study, the arrival of the Princess of France and her ladies plays havoc with their intentions. Using every kind of verbal gymnastics to poke fun, Shakespeare’s most intellectual comedy is brought to hilarious life in Dominic Dromgoole’s highly entertaining production, rich in visual humour and sexual innuendo. Jonathan Fensom’s knot garden and original music by Claire van Kampen create the framework for an engaging performance by an excellent cast. Filmed live in High Definition and true surround sound.

King of Navarre: Philip Cumbus
Berowne: Trystan Gravelle
Longaville: William Mannering
Dumaine: Jack Farthing
Princess of France: Michelle Terry
Rosaline: Thomasin Rand
Maria: Jade Anouka
Katharine: Siân Robins-Grace
Boyet: Tom Stuart
Don Armado: Paul Ready
Moth: Seroca Davis
Holofernes: Christopher Godwin
Sir Nathanial: Patrick Godfrey
Dull: Andrew Vincent
Costard: Fergal McElherron
Jaquenetta: Rhiannon Oliver
Mercadé: James Lailey

Directed by Dominic Dromgoole
Designed by Jonathan Fensom
Composed by Claire van Kampen

Recorded live at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, in October 2009.

Extra features:
Cast gallery
Famous Speeches

Format: blu-ray
Duration: 167 mins
Catalog Number: OA BD7071 D
Regions: All regions
Picture Format: 1080i High Definition / 16:9
Sound Type: 2.0 LPCM & 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: EN (in Shakespearean English)

"Dominic Dromgoole’s zestful production succeeds in captivating the audience to a degree that I would not have thought possible… It’s a treat." -- The Independent

"With a delightful design and jaunty music it has abundant charm… Entirely enchanting." -- The Times

Classical Music

The Miles Davis Story is a two-hour film directed by acclaimed filmmaker Mike Dibb. The film features classic performances from all eras of Miles' career, and insightful interviews with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Clark Terry, Joe Zawinul and many others. Eleven years after his death in 1991, legendary trumpeter Miles Davis remains the best known and most influential jazz musician of the last 50 years. This program showcases many of Davis' most influential and timeless recordings.

Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess Is a Landmark of Arrangement, Performance, and Emotion: 1959 Adaptation of George Gershwin Opera Advances Jazz Idioms and Modal Playing Mastered from the Original Master Tapes, Mobile Fidelity Reissues Play with Reference-Level Tonality, Depth, and Openness: Strictly Limited to 3,000 Numbered Copies on Hybrid SACD Davis' First Great Quintet Delivers Soul, Sweetness, Spirituality, and Intensity: Unsurpassed Jazz Dance Includes the Eternal 'Summertime' and Harmonic 'Prayer' If a more significant, influential, and lasting result of a creative musical partnership exists than that of Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess, society hasn't seen it. It's impossible to overstate the importance of the pair's collaboration on the landmark 1959 update of George Gershwin's opera. Transcending genre, time, and place, the profound statement finds Evans and Davis implementing modal approaches in a mainstream context and advancing jazz idioms that would become the foundation of the form's still-classic era. Davis and Evans' adaptation of Porgy and Bess remains of a piece, an American touchstone that immediately separated itself from the multiple other versions released during the same period. And that's saying nothing of the soulful playing-legendary performances by Davis' first great quintet that can now be heard in pristine detail courtesy of these definitive editions. Mastered from the original tapes and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies on hybrid SACD, Porgy and Bess attains previously unheard degrees of clarity, openness, immediacy, and depth on Mobile Fidelity's meticulous reissues. Here, the arrangements unfold amidst practically limitless soundstages and burst with multi-dimensional images. Davis' iconic solo passages take on borderline-surreal qualities of realism and shape. The magisterial scope of the Evansconducted orchestra emerges with room-filling bloom, color, and dynamics. At once sweet and spiritual, sure and steady, graceful and exuberant, happy and sad, Porgy and Bess is a phenomenal jazz dance that has never been equaled. You can't afford not to hear it in the finest-possible fidelity.

2016 release. Everything's Beautiful brings Miles Davis' sound into the 21st century, blending a diverse group of master takes and outtakes from across Miles' incredible tenure with Columbia Records (1955-1985) with original reinterpretations. Robert Glasper produced the collaboration. "I didn't want to do just a remix record," Glasper noted when discussing the 11-song set. "My idea was to show how Miles inspired people to make new art." Knowing that "Miles didn't have one audience," Glasper recruited a legion of diverse guest artists to add to the magic of the project including familiar collaborators like R&B musicians Erykah Badu, Ledisi, Bilal and KING. They are joined by British soul singer-songwriter Laura Mvula; hip-hop producer Rashad Smith; Grammy-nominated Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, rapper/producer Illa J; jazz guitarist John Scofield, who collaborated with Davis; and the legendary Stevie Wonder.

From Hampton to Burton, in passing by Jackson and Hutcherson, the vibraphone, a most complete and unlikely percussion instrument has established itself as a jazz chromatic keyboard, as rich as any piano. Under the inspired mallets of Jean-Michel Davis, with elegance and fluidity, the vibraphone is affirmed in this triptych-like album as a wonderful instrument of caressing bars: long notes lingering in the ear, cascades of crystal beads, gentle tumbling of percussions, refinement of dosages, subtlety of nuances, friction and high frequency tremors, in short, everything that gives meaning to the etymology of the vibraphone: nearer and nearer to real voice vibrations. The great French percussionist Jean-Michel Davis (Les Movies Swingers, Les Primitifs du futur, Novelty Fox,…) author of two historic vibraphone-jazz method books, presents, for the first time on record, compositions and arrangements from these works. These ethereal tracks, like swirls of smoke, are reminiscent of the masterful contribution of this unique instrument to jazz history.

The album originally entitled 'Liverpool Pops at Home' grew out of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's desire to put on a concert called Sounds of the City, a concert to show the richness of the musical legacy from the great musicians and composers of Liverpool.

Carl Conducts … Classical Festival Favourites

Bette Davis was making a triumphant return to Broadway in the 1952 revue Two’s Company … until the show began its previews, when she promptly collapsed onstage on opening night. Davis was perhaps in over her head (song, dance and comedy were not her strong points) in this otherwise charming revue, with a score largely by Vernon Duke (music) and Sammy Cahn and Ogden Nash (lyrics). Two’s Company was one of the last of the sophisticated, satirical revues, a kind of show that television killed off, and its reputation has been held hostage to Davis’s troubled involvement. But Sheldon Harnick, Horton Foote and Peter DeVries were among those contributing material to the show, and the choreographer was no less than Jerome Robbins. Hiram Sherman won a Tony for his expert comedy work in this fascinating relic of Broadway’s past.

Music by VERNON DUKE
Lyrics by OGDEN NASH
Additional Lyrics by SAMMY CAHN
Musical Supervisor and Conductor: MILTON ROSENSTOCK
Production under the supervision of JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON

1. Overture 4:31
2. Theatre Is a Lady - Peter Kelley, Chorus 2:50
3. Turn Me Loose on Broadway - Bette Davis 2:24
4. It Just Occurred to Me - Peter Kelley, Deborah Remsen, Chorus 3:40
5. A Man’s Home Hiram Sherman 3:00 6. Roundabout - Ellen Hanley 3:18
7. Roll Along, Sadie - Bette Davis, Hiram Sherman, Chorus 4:49
8. Out of the Clear Blue Sky - Peter Kelley, Sue Hight 3:10
9. Esther - David Burns 2:28
10. Haunted Hot Spot - Ellen Hanley 2:51
11. Purple Rose - Bette Davis, Hiram Sherman, Chorus 6:00
12. Just Like a Man - Bette Davis 4:37
13. Finale - Bette Davis, Company 1:20

For more than two decades, Polansky, who the Village Voice called “the heir apparent to the Cowell/Nancarrow/Tenney genius experimentalist mantle,” has been composing a series of fascinating mensuration canons (a formal concept dating back to the Renaissance) that run the sonic gamut from wildly boisterous to serenely introverted. This disc collects thirteen of these canons with widely varying instrumentations that include marimbas, gamelan, electric guitars, children's voices, computer, choir, and chamber ensemble. Performances by and collaborations with William Winant, Jody Diamond, Daniel Goode, Nathan Davis, Nick Didkovsky, and others. The Wire magazine wrote about this CD, “An unashamedly tactile approach to musical material, forging an oblique angle to tradition… cool and elegant…. [I]t’s a mark of his resourceful mind that he can adapt the basic rules into a series of such complex and varied works.... Polansky’s canons show the extreme liberties that can be born from such exacting discipline.” International Record Review commented, “The music of Larry Polansky is as much fun to listen to as it is to think or get serious about…the results are dazzling as each canon defines its individual properties and unique sound world.... The transformations are ubiquitous and compelling…. With so much on offer, this is one of the best discs Cold Blue music has issued.” And ClassicalNet wrote, “Larry Polansky is the modern dean of the mensuration canon…. These canons are clever, mysterious, and comical—part theory of relativity, part Rube Goldberg.”