This collection brings together Globe Theatre productions dating from 2009 to 2014 – during the artistic directorship of Dominic Dromgoole – of five of Shakespeare’s most admired Tragedies along with Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Born the same year as Shakespeare, Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day and before his untimely death was a great influence on the Bard. Featuring the finest actors and leading directors, this set is part of a project committed to creating ever wider access to this rich cultural heritage. The films in this set capture the unique atmosphere and theatrical space of the Globe Theatre. The exhilarating sense of interaction between the actors on stage and the audience in live performances is exquisitely maintained on screen.

REVIEWS:

Of individual plays contained herein:

"Shakespeare rarely feels so speedily urgent...Exceptional" (The Independent on Titus Andronicus)

""Is this well done?" a character asks at the end of Shakespeare's tragedy. I'd say that Jonathan Munby's production is, on the whole, extremely well done. It captures the play's cinematic rhythm as one scene dissolves into the next, and also its dreamlike quality..." (The Guardian on Antony and Cleopatra)

"A triumph of spine-tingling spectacle. Director Matthew Dunster conjures in a way that would delight the Prince of Darkness himself." (The Spectator on Doctor Faustus)

"Eve Best's directorial debut is a cracking – at times, terrifying – production of Macbeth." (The Daily Telegraph on Macbeth)

Of the box set:

Here we have five Shakespeare plays labeled "Tragedies" (those that we would classify as "tragedies" in terms of content, such as "The Merchant of Venice" and actually also "The Tempest", are technically found in the "Comedies")—this offers a full range of possibilities...There is an almost endless reservoir of performers to draw on who can handle Shakespeare with ease—mostly (of course not all) extremely precise speakers, especially the older generation who have Shakespeare in their little fingers. They almost breathe with the language, and where pathos is supposed to sound, it also sounds and is part of it. It's part of the easy-going nature of it all.

One must never forget, however, that, despite all apparent directness, it is of course highly stylized theatre. The actors featured here have rarely achieved more than regional fame (there are only a few), but they know how to do their Shakespeare: they step into the roles, and in the "Globe" performances (but only in these) no "interpretation" takes them away from their characters: they play what Shakespeare wrote and do it admirably. They can also fence and fight, dance and sing, move with choreographic precision. This ranges from youthful exuberance that tips into tragedy ("Romeo and Juliet") to the shocking excesses that Shakespeare, in his most extreme play "Titus Andronicus," brought to the stage—truly, he and no one else invented the "theater of cruelty", along with the brutally crude humor that the performance also ruthlessly uses.

The performance is generally in Shakespearean-era costume, a Renaissance style associated with Elizabethan-era paintings, with some differentiation—a handkerchief may appear draped loosely over the shoulder of a Renaissance doublet, and one is in Rome with Julius Caesar. It gets even more colorful with "Antony and Cleopatra", because "Egyptomania" plays a big part in the equipment, radiating exoticism and decadence. Eve Best (known as Wallis Simpson in The King's Speech) is a lascivious, defiant Cleopatra—and she was an excellent director of the suspenseful "Macbeth," with its accompaniment of Scottish bagpipes. Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" is included in this "Tragedies" box as an opulent bonus.

-- Merker Online

This collection brings together Globe Theatre productions dating from 2009 to 2015 – during the artistic directorship of Dominic Dromgoole – of twelve of Shakespeare’s most celebrated Comedies. Featuring the finest actors and leading directors, it is part of a project committed to creating ever wider access to this rich cultural heritage. The films in this set capture the unique atmosphere and theatrical space of the Globe Theatre. The exhilarating sense of interaction between the actors on stage and the audience in live performances is exquisitely maintained on screen.

REVIEWS:

"Dominic Dromgoole's zesty production succeeds in captivating the audience to a degree that I would not have thought possible...It's a treat." (The Independent on Love's Labour's Lost)

"This is a crowd-pleasing production...and the laughs come thick and fast" (Evening Standard on The Taming of the Shrew)

"Eve Best and Charles Edwards are gorgeously well-matched and sublimely ridiculous." (Time Out on Much Ado About Nothing)

"Naomi Frederick's superb Rosalind is a woman of wit and intelligence...Laskey's Orlando is equally bewitched, bothered and bewildered, and the playfulness between the two is a pleasure." (The Guardian on As You Like It)

Vladimír Mišík, whose recent album “Jednou te potkám“(I’ll Meet You Once) won six Czech Music Academy Awards and received excellent reviews, releases a new studio album entitled "Nocní obraz" (Night Image) in September 2021. Like in the case of the previous project, this album originated in collaboration with producer Petr Ostrouchov and his band Blue Shadows. The music on the album is by Ostrouchov and Mišík and the repertoire includes music composed to Mišík’s own lyrics and musicalisations of poems by Czech poets Jan Skácel, Václav Hrabe, Jirí Orten, and František Hrubín. As the final track of the album, the authors included the song “Dekuji” (Thank you), based on a poem by the recently deceased David Stypka. The new album features a number of distinguished international guests, including Blind Boys of Alabama, Jerry Douglas, Irish-music stars Davy Spillane and Dónal Lunny, percussionist from Paul Simon’s band Jamey Haddad, or mandolinist Mike Marshall, and prominent local musicians, such as organist Ondrej Pivec, pianist Jan Steinsdörfer, saxophonist František Kop, and world-famous horn player Radek Baborák and his ensemble. Alongside Mišík’s own voice, the recording also features guest vocalists Lenka Dusilová, Robert Krestan, Lenka Nová, Markéta Foukalová, and a trio of New York gospel vocalists.

The Meeting 180g Audiophile Vinyl

Song for Biko 180g Audiophile Vinyl

Rossini drew a line under his hugely successful operatic career at the age of 37 and wrote little until his final years in Paris, where he became renowned for his musical salons. For these he wrote numerous short piano pieces which he jokingly called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age): sometimes experimental miniatures that can raise a smile or touch the heart, blurring boundaries between the irreverent and the serious. Rossini’s publisher Antonio Pacini considered the composer’s late works as his most illustrious period: ‘what he composes daily is a series of masterpieces that seems as though it will never end.’ Including songs and fascinating novelties, this acclaimed complete edition contains a myriad of rarities and numerous world premiere recordings.

The present release showcases five outstanding ballets from the legendary Teatro alla Scala. First is Romeo and Juliet. The stars of this masterly performance are Roberto Bolle and Misty Copeland, together for the first time in this ballet. Next is The Sleeping Beauty which received fantastic reviews: “Timofej Andrijashenko had a great debut with the Désiré of Nureyev. Polina Semionova was an amazing Aurora” (Strata Gemmi) “A great production, a success thanks to a superlative and thrilling ballet company.” (LUUK) Don Quixote follows, and classical ballet stars Natalia Osipova (Bolshoi Ballet) and Leonid Sarafanov (Mariinsky Ballet) make this a breathtaking distinctive performance. Next is Le Corsaire, of which critics wrote: “The star is the ballet company, in dazzling form” (Il Giorno), “Impeccable” (Informadanza). And finally, The Lover’s Garden: “The creative genius of the choreographer Volpini leaves a strong mark on this new production, confirming the talent.“ (giornaledelladanza.com)

According to Raphael Stevens and Pablo Servigne, collapsology is not a messianic prediction but: "the transdisciplinary exercise of studying the collapse of our thermo-industrial civilization, and what might succeed it, based on the two cognitive modes of reason and intuition, and on known scientific work". Comment tout peut s'�ffondrer ("How Everything Can Fall Apart") demonstrates the vulnerability of our societies and the systemic risk of their possible collapse. Because today, utopia has changed sides. A utopian is someone who believes that everything can continue as before. The �ditions philosophiques Fr�meaux & Associ�s welcome this seminal work from 2015, completed by an update in 2021, which formalizes the new paradigms of the challenges facing humanity. Audiobook, in French.

Avant-garde British composer and multi-disciplinary artist Klein presents her first PENTATONE album Harmattan, described by Fred Moten as "a soundtrack of epic revolt against beginnings and ends", which expands our notions of what classical music means today. Harmattan is a personal journey from childhood to now, titled after the West African season. Starting with jazz-inspired piano improvisations, the album gradually gains in ambient breadth, transforming classical musical inspirations into Klein's unique sound universe. Based in South London, Klein's work has been described as "grainy pop collages" (FACT) utilizing elements like manipulated audio samples, R&B inspired vocals, metallic drones, and pitch shifting effects.

Leave your thoughts here is Mr Mibbler's third album following The Long Journey released in January 2021. Mr Mibbler is musicians and producers Thom Hell, J�rn Raknes and Vidar Ersfjord, and this time they have invited an incredible number of first-class Norwegian musicians to play around in their musical world. The guest musicians have been the starting point for the tracks and Mr Mibbler has built the songs around their contributions. Among the guest artists we find very exciting names such as Knut Reiersrud, Lindstr�m, Andreas Ulvo, Mathias Eick, Jan Bang, Bj�rn Klakegg, J�rgen Munkeby, Sigmund Groven and Nils Petter Molv�r, all experienced and acclaimed within their genres in Norway and internationally. This makes Leave your thoughts here a musical journey of different moods, exciting instrumentation and a wonderful mix of genres. You will hear folk, jazz, ambient and electronica performed by the very best musicians in Norway.

Leroy Anderson occupies a unique place in American music. Rigorously trained in the classical tradition, Anderson wrote tunes that topped the pop charts, making compositions such as Sleigh Ride and The Typewriter world famous. Anderson was a meticulous craftsman who could seemingly compose marvelous tunes at will, and he has been praised by composer John Williams as 'one of the great American masters of light orchestral music.' This first set of Anderson's orchestral music includes several previously unpublished pieces made available by the Anderson family, with world premiere recordings included among many familiar and not so familiar titles.

Coming Yesterday is the recording of what turned out to be Martial Solal’s final concert. "When I walked onto the stage on January 23, 2019, I did not yet know that I would decide not to play piano anymore after this concert, more than seventy years after my debut. To maintain a certain level, this instrument requires your daily attention; it requires delicacy, brutality, and especially energy. I have lived with these demands all my life, with the joy of seeing the progress, the technical and musical advances, the rhythmic and harmonic enrichments that we acquire over time. Of course, everything goes very fast at first. As long as you are gifted, if you spend a little time on it, if you listen to what was done before you, if you choose a path, everything may seem easy. Progress is rapid, illusions are immense, and then walls arise, walls that you want to reach and overcome. Seventy years to achieve this is a minimum... When energy is no longer available, it is better to stop.” The program is an improvised solo show, with works by Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, and more.

Joseph Haydn is regarded as the "father of the symphony" and the "father of the string quartet" for his more than 100 symphonies and almost 70 string quartets. Haydn also produced numerous operas, masses, concertos, piano sonatas and other compositions. His oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, both composed in the last decade of Haydn’s active compositional life, are his most widely known and admired choral compositions today, just as they were in his lifetime. Recordings from some of Haydn’s most formidable interpreters are showcased on this extensive release, including the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Helmuth Rilling, and more.

REVIEW:

For this set Hänssler have grouped together three major choral works of Haydn from their back catalogue of the many recordings made by the noted German choral conductor Helmuth Rilling. Rilling was the founder of The Oregon Bach Festival, and such musical ensembles as the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, both of whom appear on these recordings. As filler, some works recorded by the lesser-known Frieder Bernius have also been included.

The first two discs contain Rilling’s 1993 Die Schöpfung. With Rilling this great work proceeds naturally with no hint of forcing the music to wring more drama out of it. He provides tempi that are very solicitous towards his singers. His approach presents the work with a more smiling aspect than one usually encounters. In this aspect Rilling comes closer than anyone else to Leonard Bernstein’s earlier recording of the work with the New York Philharmonic. Rilling’s soloists are a fine team topped by Christiane Schäfer’s exquisitely shapely tones. She makes a lively Gabriel, molding the lines of her recitatives with grace. She provides a heavenly account of “Nun beut die flur” and manages to avoid sounding tweety in the process. Michael Schade is a sunny-sounding Uriel, as he was in the John Eliot Gardiner recording two years later. He is especially good at enunciating his text and producing his sound to evolve from the words, a rare achievement these days. His coloratura is perfectly executed, which makes me place him among the most successful portrayals of Uriel in the catalogue. Andreas Schmidt is a fine Rapaehel. His voice sounds warm and pleasing, yet he suffuses his music with sufficient gravitas for an ideal balance. He manages the awkward intervals of “Rollend in schäumenden” with ease. The choir and orchestra play splendidly and there is a decent sense of ambience to the recording.

The fifth disc brings the oratorio version of The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Maestro Rilling is definitely back on best form here and he leads a really good team of soloists. The disc is rounded off by two shorter items as filler, which proved to be among the real highlights of the set. Both the Responsoria de Venerabili and the Ave Regina Coelorum are bright and fresh-sounding, led by the sure hand of the accomplished Frieder Bernius. The Württemberg ensemble is wonderfully responsive to his lead with a standout solo by Inga Nielsen in the Ave Regina. Nielsen was still in the coloratura phase of her career when this was recorded and her voice exhibits a glow that would lessen as she started heading into more dramatic roles a few years later. This is a superb example of her voice at its zenith. Hearing it makes me want to search out a copy of the Nelson Mass which accompanied these two works on its original release.

--MusicWeb International

Recorded in the presence of the composer, Andrew Penny’s survey of the Complete Symphonies and Dances by Sir Malcolm Arnold has long been considered to contain benchmark recordings. Born in 1921, Sir Malcolm Arnold quickly established himself as a fluent and versatile composer, a gifted tunesmith and a brilliant orchestrator. His music is typically lucid in texture, rich in melody and clear in draughtsmanship yet there are frequent signs of a complex musical personality and dramatic tensions not far beneath the surface. The Dances are light-hearted, vivid and jaunty, yet the nine symphonies explore the composer’s darker side, painting a picture of his private ‘journey through hell’ as he struggled with physical and mental health issues. They are masterworks which exert continued appeal and stimulate repeated listening.

REVIEW:

These are performances of uniformly high quality made in the presence of the composer and recorded with more realistic balances and cleaner textures than any of their rivals. While all of these readings are first class, highlights include a superb Symphony No. 5 and interpretations of Nos. 7 and 8 in which conductor Andrew Penny sets tempos that allow Arnold’s fanciful orchestrations to register with maximum color and impact.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Until the end of the Ancien Régime, one of the main activities of composers – and one of their chief means of subsistence – was that of maître de chapelle or Kapellmeister, directing the music performed at religious services attended by the princely families who employed them. Although this mostly concerned ordinary occasions, sometimes even on a daily basis, such composers also had to provide music tailored for specific and sometimes unexpected events, such as a military victory that had to be celebrated by a Te Deum or, more sadly, the death of a sovereign. For this five-album set, Alpha Classics has assembled eight requiems, from Antoine de Févin’s Mass of the Dead for Anne of Brittany to Luigi Cherubini’s Mass for the return to France of the remains of Louis XVI.