Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: I Salonisti.

Music and lyrics by Peter Allen.

Principal cast includes: Peter Allen (Jack Diamond), Julie Wilson (Flo), Randall Edwards (Kiki Roberts), Raymond Serra (Augie), Christian Kauffmann (Bones), Pat McNamara (Devane), Jim Fyfe (Moran), Brenda Braxton (Madge), and Joe Silver (Arnold Rothstein).

Tracks:
1. Prelude / When I Get My Name In Lights Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
2. Speakeasy Performer: Brenda Braxton (Singer)
3. Applause / Knockers Performer: Peter Allen (Singer), Julie Wilson (Singer)
4. I Was Made For Champagne Performer: Randall Edwards (Singer)
5. Sure Thing Baby Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
6. Speakeasy Christmas
7. Charge It To A. R. Performer: Raymond Serra (Singer), Christian Kauffmann (Singer), Jim Fyfe (Singer), Joe Silver (Singer)
8. Only An Older Woman Performer: Peter Allen (Singer), Julie Wilson (Singer)
9. Only Steal From Thieves Performer: Peter Allen (Singer), Randall Edwards (Singer)
10. When I Get My Name In Lights (Reprise) Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
11. Cut Of The Cards Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
12. Gangland Chase
13. Now You See Me, Now You Don't Performer: Peter Allen (Singer), Randall Edwards (Singer)
14. Man Nobody Could Love, The Performer: Julie Wilson (Singer), Brenda Braxton (Singer), Randall Edwards (Singer)
15. Music Went Out Of My Life, The Performer: Julie Wilson (Singer)
16. Say It Isn't So Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
17. Say It Isn't So (Reprise)
18. All I Wanted Was The Dream Performer: Peter Allen (Singer)
19. Finale

LEONTYNE PRICE SINGS MOZART

Time flies in the supposedly timeless world of classical music. It's easy to forget superb performances of even the greatest masterpieces when confronted with dozens, indeed hundreds, of recordings that differ from one another audibly, but often not all that significantly. So it is with this Mahler First, certainly one of the freshest and most vibrant performances, but one that also tends to get lost in the shuffle. The playing of the LSO is terrific: the scherzo bids fair to be the best on disc, but then Levine seems unusually energized and spontaneous throughout. Only the opening of the finale fails to erupt with the kind of violence that others (Bernstein especially) bring to it. Levine seems a mite hasty here, not giving the brass enough time to really bite as they should. But this also is the result of sonics that are dry in the bass and not all that wide-ranging compared with today's digital norm. Still, despite this minor caveat, this is an outstanding performance in all other respects, and moreover one that will sound well on iPods, in cars, and in all of those places where soft passages tend to vanish annoyingly in a welter of ambient noise. It certainly deserves to remain available, and thanks to Arkivmusic.com "on demand", it will be.

--David Hurwitz,ClassicsToday.com

About his collaborator, Slatkin said: "Gen. Schwarzkopf adds a dimension of leadership and humanism rarely encountered in performances of `Lincoln's Portrait.`

-- Chicago Tribune [8/5/92]

"A magnificent compilation of music of one of the truly great cinema composers, Max Steiner, opening with the sublime Now Voyager love theme and continuing with a suite from King Kong. For many the highlight will be the suites from two of Steiner's finest scores, The Big Sleep and The Fountainhead." - Robert Benson, Classical CD Review

"Once again, as for this album's acclaimed predecessor, The Sea Hawk, producer George Korngold and conductor Charles Gerhardt have collaborated and approached the project with love and enthusiasm alsong with a thorough knowledge of Max Steiner's scores. The repertoire was carefully researched and selected to provide the listener with a proper cross selection and some of the highlights - within space limitations - of the composer's film career prior to 1950

The National Philharmonic Orchestra, consisting of 92 of the best musicians from London's five symphony orchestras, was again used, as was the acoustically superb Kinsway Hall. The augmented orchestra - necessary for the optimum re-creation of the Steiner sound - included two vibraphones, marimba, xylophone, gongs, chimes, organ, celesta, tom-toms, orchestra bells, two pianos, two harps and a further assortment of percussion instruments." -- Rudy Behlmer (from the liner notes)

LEONTYNE PRICE SINGS STRAUSS A

This record of works written specially for Heifetz by Hollywood film composers will have one even more open-mouthed than usual at his pure wizardry.

This is a record to have one even more openmouthed than usual at the pure wizardry of Heifetz. All four works were written specially for him by Hollywood film composers, all of them émigrés from Europe. Where Korngold, the boywonder composer who never fulfilled the dazzling promise of his youth, used material for this Violin Concerto which he had already written for films—Another Dawn, Juarez, Anthony Adverse and The Prince and the Pauper—it was the other way about with Rózsa and Waxman. Rôzsa, in response to Heifetz's commission, wrote his concerto at high speed, then worked with l-leifetz on the details for 18 months, then finally used it in a subsequent film, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Waxman, after writing his Carmen Fantasy, also used it in the film, Humoresque. The Rózsa Tema con variazioni is the middle-movement of a Sinfonia concertante for violin, cello and orchestra, that he wrote for Piatigorsky—the other soloist here—as well as Heifetz.

None of this is great music, but in the hands of the magician who prompted it, it has many delights. If the Korngold brings the most striking ideas, the Rózsa pieces with their gentle Hungarian flavour (much closer to Kodály than to Bartok) are charming too, while the Waxman is a splendid firework display. That Waxman piece was recorded as early as 1946, long before the rest, with rather scrubby sound and an uneven surface even in the digital transfer. The Korngold followed in 1953, the Rózsa Concerto in 1956 and the Variations in 1963. Though the booklet keeps quiet about it, only the two Rózsa items appear to be in stereo. Few will worry about such points when the playing is so astonishing, and whatever the recording quality the solo instrument stands out vividly. The slight hum detectable in quiet passages is not so distracting as in some other Heifetz vintage transfers. There is a highly informative note by Richard Freed.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [4/1989]

Shangri-La, the utopia of James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon, had a powerful grip on the world's imagination in the dystopian 1930s. Frank Capra achieved his cinematic vision of this mystic land of peace and contentment (Columbia Pictures, 1937) in no small measure by engaging Ukrainian composer Dimitri Tiomkin (1894-1979) in the first of their many collaborations. Tiomkin was a master at using melody--whether his own sweet themes or familiar traditional tunes--to carry a film's emotions. A suite from his score is the main work on this 1989 CD remastering of a 1974 LP entry in the legendary RCA Classic Film Scores series, now restored to availability via Arkivmusic's "on-demand" re-publishing program.

Like everything in that series (conducted by Charles Gerhardt, produced by George Korngold, and recorded by Kenneth Wilkinson), this re-release is mandatory for film music devotees and cannot be too strongly recommended to the general fan of classical orchestral music. Tiomkin's score features entrancing bell-sounds and a lovely processional theme to evoke Shangri-La, and contrasts these with the hurly-burly of the real world and the various emotions of the Westerners who find themselves shanghai-ed to paradise. Also included on the disc are shorter selections from five films of widely varying genres: war, western (the type of film that dominates Tiomkin's output), romantic comedy, a family drama, and a Cinerama travelogue.

The performances are masterful, made at a time when the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the John Alldis Choir comprised some of London's best classical session musicians and singers. The sound of the original LP was stunning, and gorgeous as it still is on this CD, listeners who remember the original will notice just a bit less presence, less "shimmer" in the effect of the 22-member bell ensemble. Meanwhile, Sony/BMG should seriously consider making SACD versions of this and other "Classic Film Score" masters that were recorded in Quadraphonic sound.

--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

This recording was formerly available as RCA Red Seal RCD1 5306.

A two-disc cast album from Robbins's anthology show, which includes re-creations of production numbers excerpted from such shows as On the Town, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof. Onstage it was breathtaking; on record it makes for a sort of Broadway's-greatest-hits album, albeit with re-recorded versions.

-- William Ruhlmann, AllMusic.com

At age 68, Starker's sheer beauty of sound and dignified naturalness of phrasing are more refined than ever.

Brahms’s two cello sonatas provide the instrument with some of its most serious chamber music and thus a window on an artist’s maturity... Starker, though 68 at the time of his recording, is still articulate as only those with an exceptional technique can be and, if anything, the sheer beauty of his sound and the dignified naturalness of his phrasing are now even more refined... Starker certainly has the tools: a Goffriller cello, excellent recording quality and a magnificent pianist in Rudolf Buchbinder... [Schumann's] Adagio and Allegro in Starker’s hands has never seen so jubilant a storm – Eusebius and Florestan enacted.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine

Leontyne Price's voice is as rich and varied as ever here. This account of "Vissi d'arte" is even more refined in tone, even more exquisitely controlled than the one in the Karajan set.

It is just over ten years since Leontyne Price made her complete recordings of Butterfly and Tosca yet the voice is as rich and varied as ever. Indeed I am amazed that this new account of "Vissi d'arte" is even more refined in tone, even more exquisitely controlled than the one in the complete Karajan set (Decca 5BB123-4, 1/73), which revealed an unevenness in the voice under pressure. That is something which occasionally emerges here (as at the start of "In quelle trine mot-bide"), but I am glad to have it confirmed that it is not a latter-day development. The end of Tosca's aria here does indeed bring the most ravishing moments in an enthralling disc, with each pianissimo note sustained with amazing breath control, seemingly without effort. The contrast between old and new in Butterfly's aria is almost equally reassuring. In the complete set (RCA SER5504-6, 6/63) Price offers marginally fresher tone but the portamenti are more obtrusive, less elegantly touched in as they are today. Incidentally it is a feature of this recital disc that a few preparatory bars are included before the usual start of some of the arias. I am not sure that with "Un be] dl" it was a good idea to have the end of the preceding passage, particularly when after calling on on Suzuki to listen ("Senti"), Price does not pause quite long enough before the aria proper.

Such reservations are little more than quibbles in a display of Puccini singing that brings joy in each number. Though, as I say, the opening of "In quelle trine morbide" has its hint of flutter, and the other Marion aria starts rather sluggishly, the climax in each is formidably powerful, thrillingly controlled. It is good, too, to have several rarities. The aria from La Rondine is just as charming as the one usually included in recitals. The innocent sweetness of the aria from Le Villi finds Price in glowing, fresh voice, girlish and delicate in the pointing of decorations. In the aria from Edgar Price might have attempted to characterise Tigrana a little more pointedly, but with every note hit precisely in big, rich singing, one can forgive the generalised emotion—particularly when it is partly Puccini's fault. After beautifully poised singing in Mimi's two arias, Price attempts to provide the necessary contrast in Musetta's Waltz Song, but there the minxish manner does not always avoid mannerism. All told then a valuable addition to Price's recorded repertory, with sympathetic accompaniment, and recording of a similar vintage to that of RCA's London-made opera sets.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [12/1973]
reviewing the original LP release

Bream's Mendelssohn transcriptions are done with such skill that the Gondola song is more evocative of light, color, and shimmering water than on the keyboard.

Bream's praises have justly been sung many times, and there is not a great deal to add now, beyond saying that this beautifully recorded LP is certain to please the guitarist's very numerous admirers as much as his previous ones.

Paganini's praises have been far less consistently celebrated; in fact it was for a long time considered apt to dismiss his compositions — without a hearing — as mere 'virtuoso music'. One might have thought guitarists in particular, with a repertoire that too much consists of empty trifles like the Tarrega items included here, could scarcely afford to neglect substantial pieces like Paganini's sonatas, especially as he wrote so well for the instrument. Although the A major lasts for over twenty minutes, its three movements have no undue structural pretensions, and there is real lyricism in the central Romanze, genuine charm to its final variations. Interest is constant, in fact, providing the music be played superlatively well, as Paganini always must be. Here, needless to say, it is.

The Mendelssohn works are, of course, Bream's own transcriptions, done with enormous skill so that one has to admit to the string quartet piece coming off better than might have been considered possible. He does well, too, with the lush thirds and sixths of the Gondola song, which in fact is here more evocative of light, colour, and shimmering water than on the keyboard.

-- Gramophone [1/1971]
reviewing the original LP release that included the Paganini, Mendelssohn and Tarrega works

KAZUHITO YAMASHITA - MUSIC OF