Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

Classical Music

This disc brings us three of Vaughan Williams?s finest song cycles, and the single song Linden Lea , and the combination is very satisfying. Vaughan Williams wrote some of the 20th century?s most beautiful and evocative songs, songs that sound like no other composer and that stay long in the memory after one gets to know them. Vaughan Williams had a keen ear for text-setting, and is one of the rare 20th-century composers whose music amplifies the poems he set without overwhelming them.


This is a lovely compilation, featuring some of the composer?s most effective works in this form. The performances are very good, without erasing the best competition from one?s mind. Roderick Williams is an intelligent and musical singer, with a pleasant light baritone voice. The tone is a bit throaty, but not offensively so, and he sings with a reasonably strong feel for dramatic inflection. There is no question that those who find this repertoire appealing will enjoy this disc, although Naxos could have helped improve that enjoyment by providing texts.


It is when we start comparing with the best competition that the limitations of these performances become clear. Benjamin Luxon?s richly colored and imaginatively inflected performances of the Songs of Travel and Poems by Fredegond Shove (Chandos CHAN 8475), Anthony Rolfe Johnson?s similarly effective recording of the Songs of Travel and The House of Life (EMI 75785) are both more satisfying recordings, not to mention Bryn Terfel?s remarkable reading of the Songs of Travel (DG 445 946), which is coupled with other English songs.


Still, if you own none of this repertoire and find this particular compilation an effective program, Williams and Burnside give good, solid performances that make clear the composer?s genius in this idiom.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

Includes work(s) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The percussion ensemble Kroumata has been astounding audiences around the world for over 25 years. The concert halls that they have visited during their tours of over 35 countries include the Lincoln Center in New York, Berliner Philharmonie and Wiener Konzerthaus as well as less conventional venues such as a quarry in Northern Sweden and their own headquarters, a former cinema in central Stockholm. Many audiences - and buyers of their several BIS recordings - have met Kroumata as soloists with symphony orchestra, others perhaps as an integral part in a performance of modern dance, performing works as diverse as Sofia Gubaidulina, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich, Toru Takemitsu and Sven David Sandström. On this disc we meet a different Kroumata, as the ensemble performs some of their favourite encores, ranging from a Bulgarian dance to foxtrot, from the lyricism of Alfvén's 'Skogen sover' to the sultriness of a tango. Most of the pieces have been composed or arranged by members of Kroumata, and fully exploit all colours, nuances and spectacular effects of this colourful and spectacular ensemble, supported by guest artists such as baritone Håkon Hagegård and the folk musician Ziya Aytekin, who adds his Turkish flutes to the palette.

Arranged: Jeremy Barlow
Includes coranto(s) by Anonymous. Ensemble: Broadside Band. Conductor: Jeremy Barlow. Soloists: Jeremy Barlow, Alastair McLachlan, Rosemary Thorndycroft, George Weigand.

Classical Music

New French Song has created a whole new repertoire of songs by British composers. The artists commissioned twenty exceptional British composers, some of whom were well established, others of whom were yet to receive the recognition they deserve. The composers were asked to set French literature of their choice from the past two hundred years. The result is a fascinating rainbow work covering all the major literary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, overlapping into the twenty-first century - Romanticism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism, Modernism and post-Modernism.

Benjamin Britten was throughout his life drawn to folk-song, possessing a special gift for wordsetting and vocal writing. This second disc of the complete folk song arrangements focuses on the orchestral versions and the volumes for guitar and harp.

Issued in cooperation with the Bayreuth Radio and part of Hänssler’s ongoing Profil series devoted to Wand, these performances—recorded at the 1982 Nuremberg Mozart Festival—are at once tasteful and stylish. The heaviness that sometimes infected the approach of such one-time admired Mozartians as Beecham and Walter is absent: tempos are well judged, mannerism avoided, the music simply set forth without affectation. I have always found this huge eight-movement serenade somewhat uneven, but it certainly has more than a few magnificent Mozart moments. And the great (extraordinarily demanding) concert aria, K 528, is projected by Wiens with virtuosity and temperament. Aside from a slight edginess in the strings, the sound is fine. In short, for those interested in the artists or the repertoire, this release is worth having.

Mortimer H. Frank , FANFARE

24 Bit Digitally Remastered, rare photos, vintage memorabilia, detailed liner notes.

Esperanza: A Gift of Spanish Song Gloriae Dei Cantores celebrates the rich contribution of Spanish music and culture to the world. This recording spans 500 years, from the golden age of the Spanish Renaissance, with works by Guerrero, Victoria, and Morales to the 20th century, with music by Rodrigo. Also included are works of Mexican composers de Zumaya (a striking setting of the Miserere) and Carlos Chavez, and Latin-American composers such as Villa-Lobos, Casals, and Joaquin Nin. Esperanza will be a revelation to those unfamiliar with the riches of Spanish literature and a great discovery for all devotees of choral music.

Jezusa Judasz przedal

Classical Music

Telemann, G.P.: Concerto in D Major, Twv 53:D5 / Vivaldi, A.

Includes work(s) by Franz Joseph Haydn. Ensemble: Munich Piano Trio. Soloist: James Taylor (tenor).

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Sir John Tavener (Composer), Gerald Finzi. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.
Includes work(s) for choir by Herbert Howells, Sir Edward Elgar. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.
Includes work(s) for chorus by various composers. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.

Classical Music