Includes arroro. Ensemble: Orchestra. Soloists: Marilyn Horne, Martin Katz.
Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Orchestra. Soloists: Marilyn Horne, Martin Katz.

MUSICAL WORLD OF JAN STEEN

Anna Maria Kaufmann the Canadian and German Musical and opera singer releases the first album on the Label Solo Musica. It's a Good Day for Singing a Song - the first line of the title song puts it in a nutshell. Anna Maria Kaufmann has fulfilled a musical dream and presents a brilliant selection of their favorite songs on her new album It's a Good Day! Anna Maria Kaufmann leading US on a musical journey into the 1950 's and 1960 's at a time when Bossa Nova Mambo and Cha Cha Cha bring the people to the dance floors. With her unique voice she performs great songs from that time period like Amado Mio and Mambo Italiano. Whether passionate melodies with Latin American rhythms such as Mambo Bacan and Libertango moving ballads such as Moon River or immortal evergreens such as Bel Ami all the songs go immediately direct into the heart.

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, SONY Opera and Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought after recordings by the world's preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

DEBUSSY:POEMES-LIEDER

[I]t is good to be reminded how fine this RCA set is of La bohème... I had forgotten just how persuasive Solti's conducting is here, not just how forceful. He may start with all the speed and brilliance of Toscanini—though allowing Domingo and Milnes plenty of time to breathe and to enunciate words—but the warm Italianate expressiveness is then what strikes home, in Act I reaching a culmination in superb accounts of the two arias plus the duet from Domingo and Caballé, both in expansive, radiant voice. Domingo's heroic forthright view of "Che gelida manina" contrasts perfectly with the delicate, finely detailed, tenderly expressive singing of Caballé in "Si, mi chiamano Mimi", leading to enchanting exchanges in the final duetting of "0 soave fanciulla"... It will take a very special version to oust this from first place on the CD list.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [9/1986]

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Montserrat Caballé sings Mimì exquisitely, and Domingo’s gloriously sung Rodolfo is most appealing. Milnes is a likeable Marcello – he makes more of the role than many baritones do – and Judith Blegen a colourful Musetta.

-- Charles Osborne, BBC Music Magazine

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly designed and graphically pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world's preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24 bit High Resolution Audio.

The remarkable Monks of the Desert, who spend their daily hours praying for peace, working and studying in silence, make their major label debut on Sony Masterworks with an album of Gregorian chant, Blessings, Peace and Harmony. Named after Pope Gregory I, Gregorian chant involves the early Christian liturgical music that originated in medieval times and forms the roots of Western classical music.

“The kind of singing that we do calms the spirit and helps us live in peace with our world and with one another,” says Abbot Philip Lawrence, a scholar of chant who also leads the monastery of Christ in the Desert. “According to various studies, chanting has some strange effect on brain waves,” notes Abbot Philip. In modern times, many people have been attracted to Gregorian chant – believer or non-believer. There is something ethereal and transcendent about the sound, not only as entertainment, but as a deepening of a life of prayer, inner peace and sharing with others. The Monks believe that Gregorian chant is a way of touching hearts and minds. With Blessings, Peace and Harmony they hope to bring others into a world in which peace, inner tranquility and an appreciation of beauty prevail.

COSA NATURAL

Birgit Nilsson. Richard Wagner. It was an operatic marriage made in heaven that lasted for over twenty years and, thanks to recordings, continues to thrill music lovers around the world. She sang her first Wagnerian part in Stockholm. It was Senta in Der fliegende Holl nder. It was greeted rapturously and throughout her long career it was for her Wagner and Strauss roles that she was most noted. Many of the greatest recordings of music dramas and operas by these composers have featured her, and many appear on Decca. However, she also made two Wagner records for Philips - one with Leif Segerstam in 1974 of extended scenes from Walk re and Parsifal, another, in 1972, with Colin Davis of the Wesendonck-Lieder and extracts from Der fliegende Holl nder, Rienzi and the little-known early Wagner opera, Die Feen (The Fairies). Also included are scenes from Tristan und Isolde, one of her great calling cards and of which she made one studio recording with Georg Solti, and another of scenes (with Grace Hoffman as Brang ne) with Hans Knappertsbusch.

FETE FRANCAISE

Perhaps no pair of singers on record has interpreted this cycle of 46 songs with such natural accomplishment as Irmgard Seefried and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. They made this recording near the end of the 1950s - at the height of Seefried's career and near the start of Fischer-Dieskau's, and it's qualities of both freshness and delight in response to the text and vocal beauty have stood the test of time. The singers performed the cycle together live at the 1958 Salzburg Festival to an ordering devised by the pianist for the occasion and Seefried's regular accompanist, Erik Werba. In the DG studios a few months later, however, Fischer-Dieskau was joined by his own regular instrumental partner at the time, J�rg Demus. Meanwhile the subtly different responses of both pianists - Werba fuller-toned than Demus, whose pointed articulation owes something to his work on 'period' instruments - offer food for both thought and pleasure. Without attempting to concoct a storyline, Werba's ordering allows the poetry's depictions of woman and man to contrast with and complement each other. A spirited opening group is followed by one which is predominantly lyrical, illustrating the need for love, the woman's surrender and then wavering, a manly longing for death, a farewell, and appeal to sworn fidelity. The closing section juxtaposes a declaration of love, humor, mockery, caricature, resignation and finally boasting, with the soprano's jubilant 'confession' that she has 21 lovers. All four musicians fully bring to life the emotions of elation, joy, anger and irony in Wolf's songs. Fischer-Dieskau's second recording (with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Gerald Moore for EMI) is justly famous in it's own right, but the magic of this DG recording lies in the unaffected ease of his partnership with Seefried.

VIA CRUCIS

Some of the world’s greatest sacred masterpieces are heard on this disc, performed by some of the world’s leading vocal ensembles. The journey ranges from Thomas Tallis’s extraordinary Spem in alium to César Franck’s immortal Panis angelicus. Pergolesi’s Stabat mater is a masterpiece of the early eighteenth century. Mozart, who as a 14-year-old had copied out Allegri’s Miserere from memory, is represented by his beautiful Ave verum corpus. It is impossible to omit the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria from a journey that crosses geographical borders and spans the centuries.

Classical Music

CANTATAS

Parnassus Records is pleased to release a follow-up to their acclaimed "Black Swans" anthology, which returned to international availability extraordinarily rare early recordings of African-American opera singers. The new release, "Black Swans at Mid-Century", contains over two hours of music and focuses on Black artists of the mid-twentieth century.

Following on the success of their 2011 release Nordic Sounds, Peter Dijkstra and the Swedish Radio Choir return with a second volume of music in the series, this time focusing on the use of traditional Swedish folk songs in contemporary choral music. The disc's repertoire ranges from Jan Sandstrom's arrangements of improvised folk songs of the Sami people - whose singing is among the earliest continuing vocal traditions of Europe - to recent works such as the sixteen-part Kosijat by Jaakko Montyjorvi, one of the best-known contemporary composers in Finland. The disc concludes with Anders Hillborg's twelve-minute Muoayiayaoum which explores a phonetic sequence of vowels that open and close. The level of vocal virtuosity that Dijkstra elicits from his singers is breathtaking and the choir's performances are a lesson in vocal precision.

Classical Music

"Grigolo made a triumphant Covent Garden debut...He balances Italianate ardour with style and intelligence...and his good looks and energetic acting make him an appealing stage figure." - The Daily Telegraph

"He's got everything the role demands - a voice that flows, terrific looks, an instinctive sense of theatre. He's entirely credible as a 20 year old uncontrollably in love and everything he does seems natural, from his impetuous first appearance in the Aimens courtyard, to his chilling shriek of despair at Manon's death." - The Guardian

"In his Covent Garden debut, rising star Vittorio Grigolo wins the audience's hearts with his good looks, ardent singing and an eager demeanour that takes on the full tragic dimension of Chevalier des Grieux's predicament." - The Stage

"More than matching Netrebko for passion and control was the Des Grieux of the young Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, making his debut at Covent Garden. The thunderous ovation he received at curtain call suggested that the audience sensed the birth of a star." - The Evening Standard

"Vittorio Grigolo's dashing and thrillingly sung Chevalier des Grieux, his seductive middle voice covered to beautiful effect in the many subito shadings in mezza voce." - The Independent

"The voice was ablaze, mobile in dynamics like Des Grieux's heart, able to soar and sob alike without the slightest strain. The house loved him." - The Times

COLLECTION OF AMERICAN SONGS / VARIOUS

After 25 years of an astonishing international career, highly praised Soprano Patricia Petibon, in collaboration with Andrea Marcon and his fantastic La Cetra Barockorchester, unveils on March 18th her new album 'La Travers�e', an oniric musical journey through Time, feelings and musical trends, from Mozart to Verdi, Gluck to Offenbach. A sublime Classical program, both energizing and deeply moving.

Poet E.T.A. Hoffmann (200th anniversary of death in 2022) as the protagonist of his own fantastic tales: In his encounter with three women - Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta - he searches in vain for love and for himself. Will he draw strength for art from his failure in life? Or will he fail in himself, drown in alcohol? Like in a kaleidoscope appear ever-new constellations and shimmering colours of German romanticism and French esprit. Stage director Daniele Finzi Pasca brings an enchanting, fairy-tale-like spectacle to the stage with all the colourful means of theatrical magic. French star tenor Benjamin Bernheim shines in his role debut of Hoffmann: "Benjamin Bernheim's art of orchestrating timbre will continue to cause emotional turmoil for days to come for those who were able to experience this operatic bliss" (S�ddeutsche Zeitung).

SVIRIDOV: RUSSIA FLYING AWAY - BORIS TCHAIKOVSKY

Rossini's ceaseless wit and invention are best exemplified in his series of operas. His colorful orchestration and command of both comic and tragic elements can be savored in this second of four volumes of the complete symphonic overtures. Guillaume Tell, with it's overture in four movements, includes a scene for five solo cellos. La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), one of his most popular pieces, opens with an overture of charm and elan. Volume 1 (8.570933) was described by MusicWeb Internationals "an admirable start to what looks like being a very desirable series".