Route 66 (Drive Time)

Includes work(s) by various composers.

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Sony Music today announces the release of THE LAST KINGDOM (Original Television Soundtrack) with music by Emmy-winning composer JOHN LUNN and vocals by Faroese recording artist EIVØR.  The third season of The Last Kingdom premiered November 19 on Netflix. Produced by Carnival Films, the award winning producers of Downton Abbey, The Last Kingdom is based on The Saxon Stories by historical novelist Bernard Cornwell and adapted for television by award-winning screenwriter Stephen Butchard.Uhtred, born the son of a Saxon nobleman, is captured by the invading Danes and raised as one of their own. Forced to choose between the country of his birth and the people of his upbringing, his loyalties are ever tested. What is he – Saxon or Dane? On a quest to reclaim his birthright, Uhtred must tread a dangerous path between both sides if he is to play his part in the birth of a new nation and, ultimately, recapture his ancestral lands.JOHN LUNN is the award winning composer of countless celebrated British TV dramas, including Downton Abbey, The White Queen, Bleak House and Shetland. After the worldwide success of Downton Abbey, John was eager to tackle something entirely different, and The Last Kingdom provided the perfect opportunity. Set in 9th century England, the show explores the battles and power struggles that waged between the Danes and Saxons; resulting in a conflict that would eventually shape England into what it is now. From the outset, the show’s producers were keen to avoid an orchestral, Hollywood-esque score, and so they worked alongside John to develop a more experimental and dynamic approach to the music. Initially, the score involved an armory of analogue synths, sequences and heavily distorted double bass, and it worked well… but there was something missing, something unique that would become the very essence and signature of the series. John found it in the amazing vocal and songwriting talent of Eivør.EIVØR was born in the Faroe Islands. Her background and experience of performing across the Nordic and Scandinavian territories have shaped her unique and powerful musical talent. After John saw a video on YouTube of Eivør performing her signature recording “Trøllabundin,” which encompasses her incredible vocal range, throat singing and Nordic drum playing, he immediately realized how Eivør could be the integral part of The Last Kingdom’s sound. After an initial recording session in London, it became clear to the producers that what John and Eivør were creating was perfect for the series. Working as a team, John and Eivør have composed the score for all three seasons of the show so far, and their latest project harnesses the phenomenal sounds and mood of The Last Kingdom into one incredible album.As John and Eivør produced the music for each season of the show, they were both aware that the material being composed had much more to say, and could be taken to places beyond the TV screen. So, when Carnival Films proposed releasing the soundtrack, John and Eivør decided to create almost entirely new tracks. Fans of the show will no doubt recognize the main themes, but the album also contains material that has never before been heard in any of the three seasons.“Working together again with this approach has been a wonderful and creative experience, and we feel that our understanding of each other as writers and artists has grown further,” says John Lunn and Eivør. “It’s been a great honour and pleasure making this record, and we hope we’ve given you, the listener, something you can enjoy in its own right, while remaining true to the spirit of The Last Kingdom.”TRACKLIST: The Last KingdomLívstræðrirLighting the BeaconsHeligDestiny Is AllIcicleThe Hall of the FallenAeternumBlood MoonMy England

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

This is Leonard Bernstein's later version of Shostakovich's Fifth, captured live while the New York Philharmonic was on tour in Tokyo. It's an excellent performance, similar to Bernstein's first reading, but a bit broader on the whole, and better (or at least more closely) recorded. The finale still goes very quickly, a decision that Shostakovich himself supported, and Bernstein treats it more as an unabashed triumph than a hollow victory, which is also perfectly in keeping with the musical possibilities. Elsewhere he remains a powerful and passionate exponent of the work, turning in an exceptionally intense Largo and a take-no-prisoners first-movement development section. Of course, he's also on firm ground in the Mahlerian scherzo, and the response of the Philharmonic is all that we might reasonably ask.


The coupling is no mere make-weight. Rudolf Barshai prepared all four of Shostakovich's chamber symphonies from their various string quartets, and no one conducts them better. This one, the most popular and frequently played, comes from the tragic Eighth Quartet, and while DG also has an excellent Barshai recording of the piece, this one has nothing to fear from the competition. It's an extremely solid performance that doesn't stint on the music's dark drama. The scorching second movement, with its frantic Jewish dance music alternating with the composer's DSCH monogram, is heavier than you might be used to from the quartet original, but it's entirely logical given the larger forces used. Barshai, a string player himself, really knows how the music ought to go, and the sonics are excellent. This is a fine, very welcome reissue.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
As the primary creative force in Pink Floyd after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, Rogers Waters helped turn that band into one of the most successful rock acts of the '70s with his dramatic sense of sonic and conceptual scale. After leaving Pink Floyd for a solo career in the '80s, Waters continued the epic themes he'd pioneered on albums like THE WALL, a trend that continued to 2005, when he released CA IRA, an opera set during the French Revolution.
Unlike THE WALL, CA IRA is not rock music. Instead, it draws inspiration from traditional opera; it is set to a full orchestra, and features impassioned performances from soprano Ying Huang, tenor Paul Groves, and baritone Bryn Terfel. Based on a libretto by Etienne and Nadine Roda-Gil about the brewing revolution against a tyrannical nobility, the work is ambitious and grandiose in true Waters fashion, and comes complete with a 60-page booklet and a DVD about the making of the opera.
REVIEWS:
Rolling Stone (No. 985, p.81) - 3 out of 5 stars - "...[I]t's hard not to be impressed somehow by Roger Waters' CA IRA..."

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Includes work(s) by Jean Sibelius, Aaron Copland, Georges Bizet, Ottorino Respighi, various composers.

Benchmark recordings of Tchaikovsky -- many aspiring pianists may think of changing professions after hearing Graffman soar through these iconic works with such dazzling élan.

At last. Gary Graffman's recordings of Tchaikovsky's Second and Third Concertos were the ones which introduced me to these works. They have remained my benchmarks ever since, the admirable couplings by Haas, Douglas, Gilels, Pletnev and others notwithstanding and despite the second movement of the Second being in the truncated Siloti edition. As Graffman makes clear in his entertaining memoir I Really Should Be Practicing (Doubleday: 1981) — among the best of pianists' autobiographies — Ormandy was a prince of accompanists. The two artists had known each other for 20 years and it shows. There are many memorable passages, among them the conclusion of the Second Concerto's volcanic central first-movement cadenza when the orchestra re-enters with the opening subject (15'58"), initially failing to subdue Graffman's ecstatic quasi-trill at the top of the keyboard; and a similar moment in the Third Concerto when Ormandy introduces (11'05") some crunching off-beat cymbal crashes.

Szell also proves a convivial, alert partner in the First Concerto, providing deft touches that lift this account above the ordinary. Listen, for instance, to the syncopated brass figure beneath the apotheosis of the last movement's second subject. If Graffman eschews the demonic brilliance of Horowitz, his reading is all about Tchaikovsky. Horowitz's is more about Horowitz.

To complete this all-Russian programme, there is Graffman's compelling Mussorgsky where once again he creates, well, pictures that live in the memory: 'Bydlo' appears in the misty distance, lumbers by and vanishes again (superb), while the unhatched chicks are played with a rare sense of fun. Finally, there is Islamey. Many aspiring pianists may think of changing professions after hearing Graffman soar through this iconic barnstormer with such dazzling élan.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone [1/2006]

PETROUCHKA SEASONS

Well-known to musical theater fans in London's West End, Maria Friedman made her Broadway debut in Andrew Lloyd Webber's short-lived THE WOMAN IN WHITE. Deftly turning lemons into lemonade, Friedman then ensconced herself at New York's Cafe Carlyle with a well-received cabaret act devoted to the music of Stephen Sondheim, a composer whose work she has had some experience with both on stage (PASSION, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE) and in the recording studio (A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC).

Now, Sony Classical has decided the time is right for Maria Friedman to become better-known stateside. NOW AND THEN, the singer's American solo debut, is largely made up of tracks recorded in 1995 for her first solo album in the U.K. Though only two of the tracks are newly recorded (including one with piano accompaniment by Sondheim himself), the whole CD invites the listener to give this talented Brit a long-overdue welcome.

"Friedman . . . knows how to sing, she knows how to act, and she knows how to interpret songs. 'I Happen to Like New York' is jubilant. . . . Friedman's take on Arlen and Gershwin’s 'The Man that Got Away' packs an emotional wallop. . . . [With 'Finishing the Hat,'] Friedman gives us a riveting portrait of the inner artist." - PLAYBILL

There is little known about the composition of Zaide; Mozart rarely mentions it in correspondence of the period. We do know that he began work on it in 1779-80 but stopped composing after 15 numbers had been completed. Perhaps it was because there was no prospect of a production; perhaps he was left at a creative loss by the fact that the hero and heroine--Zaide and Gomatz--are romantically attracted to each other and at the opera's close turn out to be brother and sister. More likely, a commission from Munich for Idomeneo arrived, and it was a far grander proposition. When Joseph II asked Mozart for a new Singspiel after Idomeneo, the composer looked at Zaide again but decided instead on a work with a similar plot and Turkish atmosphere, Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Zaide is a far simpler work than Entführung. The orchestration is less complex, the arias less ornate; indeed, had it been completed it would have been a type of "popular" entertainment that Mozart later validated with Die Zauberflöte--essentially a spoken play with songs--but not as rich. But several of the 15 numbers that were composed are top-drawer Mozart--utterly charming, gentle, fervent--and you could argue that the aria "Ruhe sanft" is his most beautiful for soprano voice. Furthermore, it is the only work of Mozart's to include melodrama--text spoken over music that more-or-less underlines the words' feelings--an odd practice whose most famous examples are found in the dungeon scene of Beethoven's Fidelio and the Wolf's Glen Scene in Der Freischutz.

There have been several recordings of the opera: One (which I've not heard) dates from a 1956 broadcast and stars Fritz Wunderlich and Maria Stader; a 1982 recording under Leopold Hager (on Orfeo) is heavy-handed and lacks charm; one led by Bernhard Klee in the complete Mozart Edition on Philips is prosaic and lacks any real sense of drama; another features Paul Goodwin leading a terrific performance with fleet tempos, youthful energy, and warmth (on Harmonia Mundi), with the lovely Lynne Dawson as Zaide. This new DHM set, recorded at concert performances in Vienna in March, 2006, has a great deal to recommend it and is now the recording of choice--but there is a serious caveat.

The caveat, which I'll explain below, has little to do with the leadership of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Aside from a weirdly slow "Ruhe sanft" (he might have just been bathing in the beauty of Diana Damrau's voice and is to be forgiven for such an indulgence), tempos are un-eccentric, and his Concentus Musicus Wien plays with alternating grace and potency, able to pull out all the stops, say, in Soliman's entrance and Zaide's rage aria in the second act. Mozart supplied no overture, and Harnoncourt wisely uses the similarly scored K. 184.

In addition, the cast is terrific. As suggested above, Damrau is lovely and endlessly interesting as Zaide, the Sultan Soliman's favorite, and her sweetness and sadness are as effective as her fury. Michael Schade as Gomatz, enslaved by Soliman, gets to express his outrage well, and he's very fine indeed. Soliman is another tenor role, and Rudolf Schasching attacks it with vehemence, only occasionally overdoing the teeth-gnashing. Allazim, a Muslim convert from Christianity who lives at the Palace and decides to escape with the others, is sung nicely by baritone Florian Boesch, and he makes the most of this conflicted character. Anton Scharinger sings the bass role of Osmin with the right combination of menace and humor.

Now for the caveat. The unfinished work "ends" with a quartet in which the Muslim Soliman is about to kill Zaide and Gomatz, while Allazim, disappointed in Soliman, pleads for their lives. No happy ending is in sight. It is impossible not to draw comparisons with today's Christians vs Muslims political climate, but in case we missed it, for these performances a text has been written and performed by the Austrian actor Tobias Moretti. It starts and ends the action and is inserted occasionally between numbers, adding about 25 minutes to the opera. It begins with some genuinely nasty exchanges heard at the last Republican Party Convention and continues with a discussion about freedom, the Enlightenment, class distinctions. In between numbers it explains the action, often in very modern slang, which could pass for "hip" if it weren't so obtrusively self-conscious, and it closes the opera, after the vicious, pessimistic quartet (a great piece of music, by the way), by wondering what the conclusion will be: "A military intervention, perhaps, a bush fire for liberty and culture"? Very clever, and We Get It, We Get It; it's a point well-taken, even if it has no place vis-a-vis Mozart's unfinished opera. It then goes on to philosophize.

But here's something even more bothersome: Moretti's opening remarks include a discussion of freedom of worship, spirit, and thought, "the latter something Thomas Mann recommended to the Germans once more after 1945, as they had mislaid it..." As long as Moretti is pointing a well-placed finger, would he like to say a few words about his fellow Austrians' involvement in mislaying freedom while the Germans were doing the same thing? Or do politics of that sort have no place in the Musikverein? My advice: Listen to the wonderfully performed music and use your remote control to avoid the lecture.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by various composers. Soloist: Salvatore Licitra.