Classical Music

Takako Nishizaki is one of Japan's finest violinists. After studying with her father, Shinji Nishizaki, she became the first student of Shinichi Suzuki, the creator of the famous Suzuki Method of teaching children to play the violin. Subsequently she went to Japan's famous Toho School of Music and to Juilliard in the United States, where she studied with Joseph Fuchs. The first concerto, Spring, opens with the cheerful song of the birds that welcomes the season, followed by the gentle murmur of streams fanned by the breeze: there is thunder and lightning, and then the birds resume their song, represented by the solo violin assisted by two other solo violins. The second movement shows the goat-herd asleep, while the viola serves as a watch-dog, barking regularly in each bar against the murmur of the foliage. A pastoral dance brings more activity, to the sound of the bag-pipe, interrupted by a section for the solo violin that seems to breathe the sultry heat of coming summer. Autumn opens with the dance and song of the country-people, in work that has much of the artifice of the traditional pastoral convention. The last of the seasons, Winter, brings cold winds, the stamping of feet and chattering teeth. The slow movement shelters by the warmth of the fireside, while the rain falls outside, and the last movement of this eventful history shows people walking carefully on ice, slipping and falling and running in case the ice breaks. The winds are at war, but there is sport to be had.

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

Classical Music

Petite Messe Solennelle

Live Recording of the Virtuoso Trumpet by Rimsky-Korsakov and Vivaldi. Such works as Tsar Saltan: Flight Of The Bumble Bee and Arbucklenia Polka are explored in this 14 track CD.

Puccini: Tosca, S. 69 (Highlights)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Highlights)

Vivaldi: Cello Concerti, Vol. 2

Vivaldi: Cello Concerti, Vol. 3

. . . [A]t this price how could anyone with the slightest weakness for Respighi hesitate? Scherbakov and Griffiths do a good deal more than dutifully go through the motions, the soloist in particular playing with delicacy and affection . . . . [T]he Concerto and the Fantasia, both very early Respighi, are not patronized in the slightest. The central slow section of the Concerto, indeed, achieves something like nobility . . . . The Toccata is not so much an exercise in the neo-baroque, often though its dotted and florid figures promise it, more of an essay on how far one can be neo-baroque without giving up a post-Lisztian keyboard style and comfortable orchestral upholstery. But in a slow and florid central section, a rather melancholy aria that passes from the soloist to the oboe, to the strings and back again, there is a real quality of Bachian utterance translated not unrecognizably into a late romantic language . . . . Scherbakov sounds touched by it, and obviously wants us to like it. Indeed these are likeable performances of music that needs that sort of help, but repays it. . . . -- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

MONTEVERDI: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Respighi: Pini di Roma & Feste romane

VIVALDI: Flute Concertos, Vol. 1

Verdi's, Falstaff performed by the Chorus and Orchestra of Hungarian State Opera, Chorus Master Aniko Katona, leads under the direction of Will Humbrug.

VIVALDI: Violin Concertos Op. 4, Nos. 1-6