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SONGS
DUX Jul 2010
CD
$21.99

SING SING SING

RCA

$14.99 Oct 25, 1990

Benny Goodman's jazz clarinet was as finely-tuned and and expertly used as any instrument in the history of popular music, "The King Of Swing" brought the raucous stomp of big band jazz to the masses. "Sing Me A Song (And Let Me Dance)" is a perfect encapsulation of the Goodman ethos. Why sit when you could swing?

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SING SING SING
RCA Oct 1990
CD
$14.99

A Thurber Carnival - Original Broadway Cast

Sony Masterworks

$17.99 Jan 23, 2012

REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION:

“Both the freshest and funniest show on Broadway, and it establishes some sort of standard in skill, taste and comic dexterity ... In style and taste A Thurber Carnival is wonderful – a glorious world of meaningful nonsense.” ATKINSON, The Times

“Completely captivating ... between the meaningful silences and the great guffaws there are dandy chuckles ... A Thurber Carnival is sheer delight ... The whole thing is dandy. And very advanced.” KERR, Herald Tribune

“About as agreeably comic as it can be ... very often we find ourselves laugh- ing at what was said a couple of lines ago ... From the opening dance ... we feel perfectly adjusted to the dry cli- mate of (Mr. Thurber’s) unostentatious humor ... (and) comfortably participating in the chaos of our times.” HEWES, Saturday Review

“A tonic anthology of the great man’s work compiled by himself, and easily the funniest show on Broadway ... music which is unfailingly spruce and witty.” TYNAN, The New Yorker

“If there is one proposition upon which every intelligent English-speaking man, woman and child is in hearty agree- ment, it is that James Thurber is incom- parable as wit, humorist and sage ... (A Thurber Carnival) is a civilized joy ... there is cause for nothing but delight.” WATTS, Post

“A joyous, magnificently lunatic festival ... anybody who shuns this house of laughter is crazy...” CHAPMAN, News

COMPLETE TRACK LIST:

1 . OPENING 2:30 Don Elliott Quartet
2 . WORD DANCE (PART I) 4:56 Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell
3 . THE NIGHT THE BED FELL 10:00 Tom Ewell
4 . THE UNICORN IN THE GARDEN 2:58 Narrator: Peter Turgeon Man: Paul Ford She: Alice Ghostley Psychiatrist: John McGiver Policeman: Charles Braswell
5 . THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE WOLF 1:37 Narrator: Peggy Cass Wolf: Paul Ford Little Girl: Wynne Miller
6 . MEMORIAL TO A DOG 5:02 Tom Ewell
7 . CASUALS OF THE KEYS 8:10 Visitor: John McGiver Darrel Darke: Paul Ford
8 . THE LAST FLOWER 3:16 Tom Ewell
9 . FILE AND FORGET 13:29 James Thurber: Tom Ewell Miss Bagley: Margo Lungreen Miss Alma Wineage: Peggy Cass Miss Wynne: Wynne Miller Jeannette Gaines: Alice Ghostley Clint Jordan: Paul Ford H.F. Cluffman: John McGiver
10 . WORD DANCE (PART II) 3:06 Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell, Don Elliott Quartet

A Thurber Carnival opened at the ANTA Theatre in New York City on February 26, 1960 and ran for 223 performances, with a break from June 25 to September 5. It closed on November 26, 1960.

Produced for records by GODDARD LIEBERSON.

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A Thurber Carnival - Original Broadway Cast
Sony Masterworks Jan 2012
CD
$17.99

Kell néha egy kis csavargás
Hungaroton Oct 2002
CD
$21.99

Songs of Connie Converse

Sono Luminus

$16.99 Oct 16, 2026

Evelyn Converse (Connie's mother): Is it sweet little ditties or is it modernistic? Connie Converse: It's got everything in it. I'm the one in the smoky gray button-down, gently disentombing a viola from it's case in the gauzy, late morning light illuminating this inviting Northcenter studio. In the freelance Classical (and Classical-adjacent) world, projects and their attendant rehearsals encompass the vibes and caliber spectrum, but managing the contents of one's tear ducts is not generally a required qualification. Maybe you can try to get word to the violist, currently encamping himself and his stand beneath a towering harp. That unwitting sap-the one who at this moment only knows that the pieces he's playing were originally penned by someone with an enticingly alliterative moniker-has no idea that this music is about to occupy a good deal of the rent-free space available in his head and heart long after the live broadcast, the 'gig,' wraps. It is, I'm afraid, a decidedly common reaction to an oeuvre of unquestionably uncommon music for those that encounter it some seventy-plus years since it was meticulously penned. Whether this is your first orbit or you already count yourself amongst the members of the How Sad, How Lovely devout-Connie's modest and also astonishing kitchen table recordings, most recently reissued by her fellow Michiganders Third Man Records-the sounds currently spinning through your synapses here offer an entirely unique perspective of an artist who not only scooped Dylan on coaxing folk music from the universal to the personal by a literal decade, but indeed ventured into a territory of art song he will never quite access. Her Only Light is a more dimensional, more expansive view of Connie Converse, a composer-performer-pacifist-scholar-activist who, like the story of her enigmatic departure, deserves a telling beyond an easy headline. Some orientation is necessary, though. Elizabeth Eaton Converse was valedictorian of her high school, a scholarship recipient at Mount Holyoke College, a songwriting hopeful in Harlem, and the Co-Editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Center for Research on Conflict Resolution) at the University of Michigan. Was she, as is editorialized about so many of my favorite creators, maybe a little too smart to be happy? A more accurate assessment arrives by way of her nephew Tim Converse, who generously shared with me, 'I think that she saw so clearly the way things should be that she was constantly disappointed by how things actually were.' This was certainly the case regarding her years in New York, having absconded early from Mount Holyoke to pursue her songwriting and singing aspirations. Consider that the 1950's Greenwich Village folk revival-in full swing as she composed-for all it's posturing about political revolution and working-class authenticity, was structurally about as progressive as a debutante ball. Add to that the fact the (then) recording industry's almost unshakable insistence on genre conformity and, in the case of female performers, sexual magnetism, and it doesn't take much to understand how a path-carving artist more engrossed in her compositional brilliance than her appearance failed to break through to the monoculture. Though history is of course littered with unrecognized genius, this was actually not precisely the case for Converse. She was featured on CBS's The Morning Show hosted by no less than Walter Cronkite, and was championed by animator Gene Dietch who, in addition to her own efforts, we have to thank for the recordings found on How Sad, How Lovely. At this inflection point, when she seemed poised to, well, make it, Connie Converse pivoted her writing toward a far less marketable but perhaps more adventurous corner of musicmaking: 'art song.' If Connie's 'Guitar Songs' (singer-songwriter, folk-oriented) were slow to gain traction, what hopes could her 'Piano Songs' (art song, harmonically enterprising) possibly have in such an inhospitable industry? Jesus. We're halfway through these liner notes and I haven't even introduced you to the two remarkable interpreters of said songs-the thoughtful Converse evangelists behind Her Only Light: arranger Ronnie Kuller and vocalist Emmy Bean. Almost immediately in that aforementioned rehearsal, which I should clarify was in service of a live performance on WFMT after this album was mixed and mastered, I was scheming how I might stay in proximity to Ronnie's dextrous, insightful writing and Emmy's lustrous, utterly persuasive phrasing in the years to come. Like so many generative collaborations, theirs originated in an abiding desire for connection and a fascination with the sublime. It was also a creative lifeboat in the not-so-distant era of prolonged home confinement. Sparked by Bean's sharing the 2015 Anna and Elizabeth cover of 'Father Neptune'-the harmonizing of which would provide inspiration for the arrangement here-with Kuller (who had already taken Converse's music up on stage while in residence at beloved Chicago venue The Hideout) the latter describes her decision-making process with unguarded enthusiasm: 'I want a harp. I want two clarinets at the same time. I want a string section! I want Emmy Bean to sing to me!' Ronnie goes on to share what I consider an essential reason why Her Only Light is so riveting and unmissable: 'When Emmy is singing, I believe every word.' Given that Connie is often credited with originating the singer-songwriter genre, one in which vulnerability evaporates any dramatic or emotional partition between singer and lyric, Converse's songs can only truly thrive when delivered with such tender veracity. As the duo explored Converse's art songs, transcribed by Kuller from the hand-written original scores, the desire for immersion in and dispersion of these songs only deepened. Emmy describes her 'forever memory' like this: 'Once we got started on the art songs we began with 'Song for Old Wars,' and I remember singing it for the first time in a big cavernous room on an old piano. This was a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Hearing the final cadence of that song echo in the room-the "horns"-was incredible. It gave me something to honor in all the chaos of new/old wars; I felt like Connie was with us, grieving the losses.' The other partition in need of a wrecking ball-one of primary importance to both singer and arranger-was that of folk song vs. Art song. Not only is this boundary a fanciful one perpetrated by hierarchically-minded (i.e. misled or confused) listeners and record industry execs originating from preconceptions about formal education, 'rigor,' and, to get right down to it, vibratoin the context of Connie Converse it results from the reality that her art songs, the 'Piano Songs,' never made it on tape during her own and Dietch's kitchen recording sessions. They were written later, and composed for voices other than her own, sometimes soprano, sometimes baritone. Emmy found herself slipping into Connie's world without friction, but decisions on how to stylistically inhabit the 'Guitar' and 'Piano' songs only revealed itself once the project was at full tilt: 'I was surprised to find how Connie's songs invite another singer into them. Some songs belong so intimately to their writer's voice (especially folk singers or singer-songwriters) that it feels wrong to sing them or hear them sung by others. When I took on this project, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find the access point, that I wouldn't be able to inhabit them, that I would find myself mimicking her or struggling to find myself in them. But the craft that Connie put into her art songs-the 'Cassandra Cycle,' 'anyone lived in a pretty how town,' etc-is also there in the songs she wrote on guitar. They are no less solid, no less fully realized than the ones she wrote on piano. They completely stand on their own, and they welcome any singer with the imagination and humility to hear them and be with them. The reward of singing them is to be inside of Connie's mind for a moment, to feel such great joy and such deep empathy, and to be able to smile at things that are so, so sad. I was also struggling to figure out how Connie's guitar songs and piano songs would exist together on the same record, in the same voice (mine). It wasn't until we got into the studio that Ronnie and I figured out that I could be the same singer throughout; there was no need to over-stylize the art songs or under-sing the folk songs. Together we were able to find an approach that honored the depth of her writing in both contexts, and that kind of broke the spell of genre over the whole thing.' As you traverse these Guitar Songs- 'Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains)' 'I Have Considered the Lillies' 'Father Neptune' 'One by One' and these Piano Songs- 'Vanity of the Vanities' 'The Rainmaker' 'Incommunicado' 'anyone lived in a pretty how town' (text by e.e. cummings) 'The Age of Noon' The Cassandra Cycle (excerpted) 'Cassandra's Entrance' 'Song for Old Wars' 'She Thinks of Heaven' 'She Devises a Lullaby' -relish as I do, if you will, Ronnie Kuller's orchestrational witticisms and delights, as with her leitmotif approach to 'Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains),' here and elsewhere gracious without unnecessary reverence or over-caution. Be carried off by Emmy Bean's sumptuous and entrancing delivery of 'Father Neptune,' but don't miss the cheeky wink in her voice as she alights on the song's more eyebrow-raising lines ('And it's still his creed that he has no need of a wifeexcept on shore'). Perhaps you're familiar with the melancholy pervasive in Converse's tunes, but her humor is equally nimble. And of course, don't disembark before you experience 'One by One,' the song currently making the hapless gigger unprofessionally bleary-eyed in the middle of a rehearsal. Loneliness has found it's most crystalline, most desolate voice in these verses, and to these ears at least, it is a one-of-one. That quote at the top of the page? It arrives by way of a recorded conversation between Connie and her mother concerning an in-processopera! This heroine of songwriting contained multitudes-a conclusion you are funneling toward as you make your way through this enchanting tracklist-and with Her Only Light, we are finally provided Connie Converse in full, resplendent resolution. -Doyle Armbrust

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Songs of Connie Converse
Sono Luminus Oct 2026
CD
$16.99

SONGS
Crystal Records Oct 2011
CD
$20.99

Humoresques

Haenssler Classic

$20.99 Nov 08, 2019

Sofja Gulbadamova's recording of a total of 14 Humoresques by the composers Edvard Grieg, Max Reger, Antonin Dvorak and Robert Schumann demonstrate the very wide range that music bearing this title could have in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. While the literary humoresque was a popular and entertaining, relatively short-lived "Biedermeier-style narrative form" (Appel), musical humoresques covered a whole range of forms - from the small-scale to the large-scale, multi-part format, from the amusing and lively through to the enigmatic and ambiguous. Be prepared for contrasts, exaggerations, the OTT and the seemingly incompatible, for pieces that can cause you to laugh or indeed to cry, and which plumb the depths of the abysmal, the desperate and the gloomy - music that speaks both directly and sometimes between the lines.

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Humoresques
Haenssler Classic Nov 2019
CD
$20.99

WHAT ABOUT US: BEST OF 1955-61

ACROBAT

Vinyl

$27.91 Sep 22, 2023

Vinyl LP pressing. The Coasters were one of the key vocal groups of the '50s and early '60s who successfully bridged the gap between the doowop and R&B eras of the early '50s through to the rock 'n' roll explosion and beyond, with a run of hits that extended into the 1960s. Starting life as a spin-off from the doo-wop group The Robins, they were adopted by the up-and-coming songwriting and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as a vehicle for their work. They decided to change their name after their first hit from The Robins to The Coasters as they switched from Leiber & Stoller's Spark label to the Atlantic subsidiary Atco. This fantastic LP manages to feature all their US R&B chart entries and Hot 100 top tens alongside a selection of their best singles, starting with their biggest hits as The Robins and continuing through as The Coasters to 1961. It naturally features the legendary US and UK hits Searchin', Yakety Yak, Charlie Brown and Poison Ivy, plus other memorable US successes such as Smokey Joe's Cafe, Down In Mexico, Youngblood, Along Came Jones and Little Egypt. It's not only a hugely entertaining slice of R&B-flavoured rock 'n' roll, with hits that were landmarks along the rite of passage for many baby-boomers, but a testimony to the songwriting and production genius of Leiber and Stoller - heir humorous 'street saga' songs providing the biggest of the group's hits.

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WHAT ABOUT US: BEST OF 1955-61
ACROBAT Sep 2023
Vinyl
$27.91

Humoreske in B Flat Major
Channel Classics Jan 2001
CD
$20.99

American Soul from Broadway to Paris / Duo Rosa

Haenssler Classic

$20.99 May 17, 2019

“AMERICAN SOUL: from Broadway to Paris” is the title of Duo Rosa’s second opus, featuring art songs, Broadway melodies and cabaret tunes. In this new project, the two musicians maintain a concept that was one of the keys to the previous album’s success: a blend of classical and popular music in a varied, accessible programme that pleases audiences of all ages, regardless of whether they are classical music lovers or not. Concertgoers were mesmerized by the energy exuded by Duo Rosa on their first tour — Return World Tour — and by the theatrical effects with which they infused classical melodies and Latin American popular songs. Thus it is only natural that they would now turn to North American repertoire, in all its flamboyance, to present a recital brimming with emotions: happiness, nostalgia, humour, sadness…and many other surprises! To grasp the audience’s attention and hold them spellbound, the duo has selected a series of highly popular songs combined with less well-known classical melodies. They perform famous Broadway tunes such as I feel pretty and Somewhere by Bernstein from West Side Story, or Gershwin songs including The man I love and I got rhythm from An American in Paris. The cabaret genre is likewise present, with numbers by Kurt Weill (Buddy on the nightshift and Je ne t’aime pas) and William Bolcom’s humorous Amor. Léna Kollmeier also displays her skill as a solo pianist in two attractive, demanding pieces filled with imagery.

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American Soul from Broadway to Paris / Duo Rosa
Haenssler Classic May 2019
CD
$20.99

IVES, C.: Songs, Vol. 5

Naxos

$19.99 Oct 28, 2008

When, in 1922, Charles Ives published a volume entitled 114 Songs, he was indirectly drawing attention to the fact that the genre played a central part in his output. 85 years on and, for all that his wider reputation may rest on orchestral, chamber and piano music, songs represent the heart of his creative thinking. Nor was that initial volume comprehensive; Ives having written nearly 200 songs, of which this edition includes all those he completed. The expressive variety is vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting, from those drawing on Austro-German Lieder and English parlor-song traditions to ones that evince anarchic humor as keenly as others do profound vision, is analogous to the evolution of American music over the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Although it would be possible to collate Ives's songs according to type, the alphabetic approach adopted by this edition ensures each volume (of which this disc is the fifth) contains a representative cross-section of his achievement. A wide range of poets is set, including a number of (mainly early) German settings as well as forays into French and Italian writers. The temporal distance (1887-1926) traversed by these songs is as little compared to their stylistic diversity or their emotional range.

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IVES, C.: Songs, Vol. 5
Naxos Oct 2008
CD
$19.99

The Art of the Bawdy Song / Baltimore Consort
Sono Luminus Nov 1988
CD
$18.99

Sousa: Music For Wind Band, Vol. 20 / Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama Wind Orch

Naxos

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Jan 29, 2021

John Philip Sousa personified turn-of-the-century America –the comparative innocence and brash energy of an advancing nation. His ever-touring band represented America across the globe and brought lively and entertaining music to hundreds of American towns. Sousa’s name is eternally connected with famous marches such as The Stars and Stripes Forever, but his exceptional inventiveness also saw the creation of popular operettas such as El Capitan. This program also includes Sousa’s adaptations of humorous songs and popular ballads as well as his Good-Bye, based on the idea of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony but with a modern twist.

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Sousa: Music For Wind Band, Vol. 20 / Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama Wind Orch
Naxos Jan 2021
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

SONGS
INTAKT RECORDS Apr 2011
CD
$18.35

WHEN COMEDY WAS KING

VCI VIDEO

DVD

$12.93 Oct 17, 2017

Famed comedy-short director and documentarian Robert Youngson compiled these hilarious clips of the silent clowns stars who continue to keep America laughing! Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Harry Langdon, Ben Turpin, Fatty Arbuckle, and the Keystone Kops all appear, in excerpts from classics like "Fatty and Mabel Adrift," "Cops," "A Pair of Tights," "Teddy at the Throttle," "Yukon Jake," "The First 100 Years," "Big Business," and many more.

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WHEN COMEDY WAS KING
VCI VIDEO Oct 2017
DVD
$12.93

I LOVE GERMAN FOLK & DRINKING / VARIOUS
KADO Nov 1995
CD
$7.00

Sondheim: Sweeney Todd / Henschel, Stone, Schirmer

BR Klassik

$29.99 Jan 29, 2013

SONDHEIM Sweeney Todd • Ulf Schirmer, cond; Mark Stone ( Sweeney Todd ); Jane Henschel ( Mrs. Lovett ); Gregg Baker ( Anthony Hope ); Rebecca Bottone ( Johanna ); Jonathan Best ( Judge Turpin ); Adrian Dwyer ( Beadle Bamford ); Diana DiMarzio ( Beggar Woman ); Ronald Samm ( Pirelli ); Pascal Charbonneau ( Tobias ); Bavarian R Ch; Munich R O • BR 900316 (2 CDs: 123:59) Live: Munich 5/6/2012

Composer-librettist Stephen Sondheim maintains that Sweeney Todd is not an opera, and so does the annotator for the present release. Nevertheless, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (its full title), since it premiered on Broadway in 1979, has been revived by several opera companies, including the New York City Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Chicago Lyric Opera. Why? Musically, it is highly sophisticated, and operatic voices are not wasted on it. Furthermore, with its larger-than-life dramatic themes, including mistaken identity, lust, vengeance, obsession, madness, and murder, how more operatic could a theatrical work be?

There have been several recordings of this work, including the unforgettable original cast recording on RCA with Len Cariou in the title role, and Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett, his cheerfully amoral partner in crime. That version will never be eclipsed, but each new recording adds a welcome new perspective. The one reviewed here, recorded in the Munich’s Prinzregententheater, is the most operatic yet, even more than the one with the New York Philharmonic which features singers such as Heidi Grant Murphy (Johanna), John Aler (Beadle Bamford), and Paul Plishka (Judge Turpin). This time around, we have legitimate operatic singers in all of the main roles; only DiMarzio appears not to be a “classical” musician per se. In other words, here we have an ensemble of acting singers, as opposed to singing actors such as Cariou, Lansbury, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, and Michael Cerveris, who all have made major contributions to this opera’s . . . I mean, musical’s performance history.

It turns out fairly well. I was immediately pulled in by Ulf Schirmer’s conducting, which is tense, taut, and stylish. In fact, you might not hear a better conducted Sweeney Todd anywhere. The Bavarian Radio Choir also adds much to the success of this performance. Although their diction is less clear than that of English-speaking ensembles who have recorded this music, their dramatic involvement is high, as is their musicianship.

This is an actual performance. Apparently the time, funds, or energy to correct the inevitable live lapses was unavailable, and thus we have oddities such as Henschel at one point rechristening Beadle Bamford as “Beadle Rumford.” A few memory lapses are covered professionally, but will leave those who know the show well asking, “What did (s)he just sing?” These issues are minor, though.

I’m more concerned about two other points. One is the lack of (black, very black) humor in this production. For example, I can’t understand why, in “A Little Priest,” the wonderfully uncomfortable pun about a meat pie made from a general (“With or without his privates?”) has been removed. This is a grim show, still there is much about it that can be very funny, and allowing it to be so makes the gore and horror even more effective. As the original Mrs. Lovett, Angela Lansbury was charming and endearing; she might bake you into a meat pie, but you couldn’t stay angry with her for long! Henschel can’t inspire that kind of affection, and she makes it clear that her murderous instincts were present even before opportunity allowed them to come out. The other thing that concerns me is the way in which some of the big dramatic moments are almost thrown away. Todd’s aborted murder of Judge Turpin (interrupted by Anthony’s untimely arrival) should be a big moment, but it isn’t. Similarly, soon after, in Todd’s “Epiphany,” we should feel his mind crack and his murderous rage insanely swell to encompass all of mankind, not just the Judge, but Mark Stone is not that fine an actor, the direction is too hurried, and one of the show’s most Brechtian moments doesn’t come off. The last segment of the show, with its string of murders and its Grand Guignol effects, moves forward jerkily, sometimes grinding to a halt, and sometimes not pausing long enough to make its points. On Broadway, Harold Prince would have fixed these miscalculations, but, at least as I am hearing them on CD, they were not addressed in Munich’s Prinzregententheater.

All of the singing itself is very fine. One curiosity is a baritone Anthony; Gregg Baker’s voice is darker than Mark Stone’s. Anthony is supposed to be an inexperienced sailor, newly arrived in London, and the early scenes between him and Todd feel strange, because the voice relationships have been inverted from the original production. I really missed hearing a tenor’s voice soar into “Johanna,” one of Sondheim’s most rapturous love songs. Also, the multinational cast presents a variety of accents. In 1979, Cariou had almost no accent at all, while Lansbury made the most of hers. Here, we have the reverse: a cockney Todd in Baker, and a Mrs. Lovett of no particular nationality or region in Henschel. Someday, there will be a production of this work in which everyone gets on the same page with dialects.

So, if you want an operatic Sweeney Todd , or a fresh look at it, this new recording will satisfy. It has many enjoyable moments, but a few unfortunate ones as well. If you do not know this show at all, however, the Broadway cast recording—still in print, thank goodness!—is the only place to begin. This show is one of the masterpieces of American musical theater, and absolutely needs to be heard.

FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

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Sondheim: Sweeney Todd / Henschel, Stone, Schirmer
BR Klassik Jan 2013
CD
$29.99

Por los Montes de Conares, Music & Erotism in the Spanish Go

Brilliant Classics

$9.99 ~~$12.99~~ Save 25% Mar 21, 2025

Saucy songs of sex, love and life in the Spanish Golden Age, revived and performed with relish by a native early-music ensemble. Of the 10 composers featured on this entertaining new album, only two have any claim to fame: Juan del Encina (1468-1529) and Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710). The others will be discoveries for even the most assiduous collectors of early music: the likes of Luis de Briceno, Diego Pisador, Juan Bon and Juan Aranes. This rarity value, appealing in itself, is perhaps less germane to the character of the album than the bawdy and boisterous character of the whole. Many of the melodies may have originated as settings of sacred texts, but they became attached to decidedly profane verses: one song to the tune of another, as it were. The booklet essay exposes the many double-entendres latent within both texts and settings. Several are couched in explicitly anti-clerical vein, mocking the clergy for their hypocrisy and priapism. Other texts rejoice in the pleasures of hedonism, for both men and women, inviting the listener to enjoy by proxy the prospect of threesomes and happy endings. In the nature of such songs, the music swaps sophistication for good, simple fun, based on strong Spanish rhythms, rooted in chaconne and folia ground basses. Several of them were originally sung as verses and chorus, with everyone present joining in. There are also seguidillas of a more erotic and sensual nature, but the texts still appeal to the listener with a dirty mind. These reconstructions accordingly seek to recapture the rough and tumble of a late-night session at a grimy bar in 17th-century Burgos. Not, perhaps, an album for those who like their music on the straight and narrow. Led by Jose Duce Chenoll, Amystis has a track record of success in unearthing both sacred and profane musical treasures from Golden-Age Spain. 'Chenoll has an endearing way of letting his singers express the music with a natural flow free of effects.' (Fanfare on works by Joan Bautista Comes, 95231). - This highly interesting and original concept album presents vocal works from 16th century Spain dealing with eroticism in all it's forms. - In this music we find the vivid expression of the amorous, sexual, private and at the same time playful life of a society which gave expression to it's impulses and passions, thus describing a vivid sound tapestry of Spain's Golden Age of Juan del Encina, Garcilaso, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Gongora. - Presented are works by many, nowadays forgotten, composers. The excellent, comprehensive and scientific liner notes explain the text of each song, illustrating the often double meaning of certain words and phrases. - The title of the CD takes up the title of a poem by an anonymous Spanish poet ("Through the mountains of Conares - Sung by the Amystis solo vocalists and played by a rich instrumental group including viola da gamba, recorders, vihuela and percussion, everything under the direction of Jose Duce Chenoll.

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Por los Montes de Conares, Music & Erotism in the Spanish Go
Brilliant Classics Mar 2025
CD
~~$12.99~~ $9.99

The Way You Look Tonight

Ladybird Production

$18.99 Apr 19, 2024

Isabella Lundgren - vocals
Carl Bagge - piano - music arrangements
Musica Vitae - string ensemble

On the 20th of January 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of America. In his speech, he said: “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” With those words, he echoed the lyrics from the song "Pick Yourself Up," written by Dorothy Fields in 1936. Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1904– March 28, 1974) was an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote over 400 songs, 15 Broadway musicals, and 26 films. Her strong characterizations, her precise language, and heartfelt and humorous approach have granted her a special place in the history of American music and popular culture.

This album is a love letter to this remarkable woman who was way ahead of her time. /Isabella Lundgren

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The Way You Look Tonight
Ladybird Production Apr 2024
CD
$18.99

Because They Have Songs

Metier

$25.99 Sep 19, 2025

Edward Cowie is one of the most notable voices in contemporary music and considered by many to be the "leading contemporary composer of music that is related to the natural world" (Fanfare). A remarkable polymath, Cowie is renowned as a composer, visual artist, and natural scientist. Because They Have Songs is the fourth in Cowie's epic series of duo-works featuring cycles of stunning 'sonic portraits' of birds he has encountered on his travels across the world, exploring the relationships between the bird singers, and where and how they sing. It follows three highly acclaimed releases featuring birds of the UK (Bird Portraits MSV 28619), Australia (Where Song Was Born MSV 28620) and the US (Where the Wood Thrush Forever Sings MEX 77104), each highlighting 24 distinct bird species. This latest release, the fifteenth to feature his music on the Metier label, is devoted to 24 avian wonders of Africa. The title of the album is taken from a traditional African text which says, "Why do birds sing? Because they have songs". Edward Cowie went on safari to remote parts of Botswana, across dense bush and open plains where giraffe, wildebeest, zebra and antelope roam, through vast wetlands, majestic rivers and lakes, and shrub-dotted deserts. On his journey he sketched what he saw (included in the album booklet) and transcribed the natural sounds of insects, the noises of animals in movement, and the magnificent and powerful voices of African birds in all their moods and colours. The result is a vibrant and awe-inspiring interweaving of not only the sounds of singing creatures but also the rich environment in which they sing. The album has revelatory performances from Gerard McChrystal, justly hailed as a "magician" on saxophone, partnered with Richard Shaw's superb craftsmanship on piano, a comprehensive coupling of technique and imagination. Cowie's earlier albums in the bird song sonic portrait series received resounding praise worldwide and are poised to become iconic chamber masterpieces on the global stage: "You may well be thinking 'but Messiaen has already done it'. But Cowie's approach is gentler, almost more loving." -MusicWeb "imaginative, captivating and really very moving" -The Strad "Cowie is an endlessly inventive composer and this is a treat" -BBC Music Magazine

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Because They Have Songs
Metier Sep 2025
CD
$25.99

Rorem: Selected Songs / Carole Farley

Naxos

$19.99 Nov 01, 2001

REVIEWS:

Carole Farley, whose range is as impressive in stylistic as in purely vocal terms, shows herself here to be an ideal interpreter for Rorem, and his playing responds with hand-in-glove precision and sympathy. The voice itself, at once tensile-strong and appealingly vulnerable, seems in splendid condition.

-- Bernard Jacobson, Fanfare

The CD's first nine tracks, settings of Theodore Roethke, fairly represent the Rorem approach - conservative, elegantly crafted, subtle and flexible in expressive range. Song No. 1, "The Waking," shows his fondness, akin to that of Satie and Poulenc, for setting each syllable to a single note value, but by the second track, 'Root Cellar,' he has yielded to the occasional temptation to assign two notes to one syllable. 'Orchids' shows a pictorial gift, with music as limp as the plants described. There's Ivesian humor in 'The Serpent,' even a twisty melisma in 'Snake.'

The sequence of what follows, chosen for variety, should have something for everyone, and everything for some. Most of the songs are short, never gilding the lily. Gertrude Stein's 'I am Rose' gets just a few bars. But with a longer piece, such as Elizabeth Bishop's 'Visit to St. Elizabeth's,' the composer performs the feat of stretching out a fast tempo. Rorem finds rare magic in the monotone second verse of Tennyson's 'Ask me no more,' and broad, big-boned music in 'Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night,' first of a closing group of five devoted to Walt Whitman. Especially in the first three of these, Rorem's own poetry rises to meet Whitman's, and the cause of the American art song has been ratcheted up a peg."

-- John W Freeman, Opera News

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Rorem: Selected Songs / Carole Farley
Naxos Nov 2001
CD
$19.99

Horns for the Holidays / Junkin, Dallas Wind Symphony

Reference Recordings

$18.99 Sep 11, 2012

If you are a lover of Christmas music—carols, popular songs, and all manner of medleys and clever arrangements of such—and you miss this extraordinary recording by the first-rate Dallas Wind Symphony, then your holiday listening stands to be just a bit more dull, less festive, and more ordinary than it could have been. This is a terrific program, in exemplary sound, that not only celebrates the Christmas music tradition but exemplifies the best of the wind ensemble genre, with its unique sonorities and long tradition of both originality and sense of playfulness and humor on the part of composers and arrangers.

The program opens with the obligatory fanfare—suitably titled Festival Fanfare—a nifty arrangement by John Wasson commissioned by the Dallas Wind Symphony, not surprisingly a showpiece for horns, full of familiar Christmas tunes. A decent but kinda square Sleigh Ride follows, along with a straightforward arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring that beautifully exhibits the colors and rich textures of a first-rate wind band.

Among the highlights: my favorite, a celebration of the much-maligned minor mode—DWS saxophonist David Lovrien’s Minor Alterations: Christmas Through the Looking Glass, a “recasting” of favorite Christmas songs and carols (and even snippets of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker combined with Deck the Hall!) into a wonderful medley of minor-key madness (along with some melodic and rhythmic twists) that definitely calls for repeated listening. Another standout is The Christmas Song, with its fine alto sax solo by Donald Fabian, swingingly accompanied by the ensemble.

The big “classical” work is an arrangement simply called Russian Christmas Music, which apparently draws its sources from “Russian folk and Eastern Orthodox church music”. At almost 14 minutes, it’s by far the program’s most substantial entry, and it does show a wider range of technical virtuosity and different aspect of interpretive awareness than required in most of the other works, even if Alfred Reed’s arrangement begins to seem a bit long for the material after about 10 minutes. Never mind; any drift of attention is quickly recalled front and center with the concluding Christmas And Sousa Forever—the title giving away the concept. Wait until you hear how arranger Julie Giroux juxtaposes excerpts from such Christmas favorites as Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker with The Stars and Stripes Forever (and a couple of other marches)—not to mention the way she accompanies Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with that famous piccolo solo! It’s tempting to use that well-worn line, “if you buy only one Christmas CD this season, this one should be it”—but I won’t; I’ll just say that if by chance it is the only one, you won’t be disappointed.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

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Horns for the Holidays / Junkin, Dallas Wind Symphony
Reference Recordings Sep 2012
CD
$18.99

Blues Dialogues: Music by Black Composers / Barton Pine, Hagle

Cedille

$19.99 Oct 19, 2018

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, “an exciting, boundary-defying performer” (Washington Post) known for her “bravura technique and soulful musicianship” (New York Times), headlines a groundbreaking album of blues-influenced classical works for violin and violin and piano by 20th and 21st century composers of African descent.

World-premiere recordings include Noel Da Costa’s ‘A Set of Dance Tunes for Solo Violin,’ based on American fiddle tunes; Daniel Bernhard Roumain’s ‘Filter,’ which conjures the sounds of electronic dance music and psychedelic guitar; Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Woogie Boogie,’ a humorous and inventive reimaging of the boogie woogie blues dance; and Billy Childs’s ‘Incident,’ a single-movement violin sonata / tone poem written as a response to a fatal shooting by police. Another premiere is Wendall Logan’s violin and piano arrangement of Duke Ellington’s 1935 composition, ‘In a Sentimental Mood.’ The album’s title track, Dolores White’s improvisational ‘Blues Dialogues,’ draws on classical, jazz, and country music, as well as African-American vocalizations and a blues harmonic language. David N. Baker’s gospel-tinged ‘Blues (Deliver My Soul)’ evokes the ecstatic energy of a Black church service. Charles S. Brown’s ‘A Song Without Words’ was inspired by bottleneck guitar player and gospel blues master Blind Willie Johnson. Each movement of William Grant Still’s ‘Suite for Violin and Piano’ evokes the work of a different African-American visual artist. Clarence Cameron White’s ‘Levee Dance, Op. 26, No. 2,’ a favorite of violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, surrounds a traditional African-American spiritual with a playful, syncopated dance. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s ‘Blue/s Forms’ and ‘Louisiana Blues Strut’ befit a composer with a legacy of achievements in the classical, jazz, modern dance, and pop music worlds.

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REVIEWS:

What a fascinating, beautiful disc… The disc’s title is valid: these really are ‘dialogues’ in the most creative and stimulating sense…Need it be said that Pine plays everything here gloriously… Listen to how unaffectedly she outlines the melody of Still’s central slow movement. In passages of virtuoso display, she’s as sure-footed and as agile as an acrobat.

– Gramophone

This is a superb CD, clearly one of Barton Pine’s real masterpieces. Highly recommended to any other classical violinist who wants to tackle these works, and listeners who enjoy jazz and blues-influenced classical music.

– The Art Music Lounge

This is an amazing disc. Barton Pine and partner Matthew Hagle are to be commended for such a thoughtful, gracious, and inspiring program, recorded in Cedille’s typical robust and clear sound.

– Audiophile Audition

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Blues Dialogues: Music by Black Composers / Barton Pine, Hagle
Cedille Oct 2018
CD
$19.99

Pockets: Songs for Little People

GIA

$18.99 Jan 01, 2006

Celebrated composer and performer Joe Wise knows how to evoke giggles, wiggles, and smiles from little ones. Pockets, one of Joe's most popular children's recordings, is filled with folksy songs that inspire participation and movement. Includes bonus tracks from his other children's CDs.

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Pockets: Songs for Little People
GIA Jan 2006
CD
$18.99

MANY SIDES OF PHIL HARRIS 1931-52

ACROBAT

$20.63 May 06, 2022

Phil Harris was a singer, drummer, bandleader, songwriter, comedian, actor and broadcaster, who combined those disciplines in a long and successful career which encompassed making hit records with a novelty twist and becoming a voice artist in movies, most famously as Baloo in the 1967 film "The Jungle Book". He started his recording career as drummer and co-leader of a hotel orchestra in San Francisco and over the years developed a signature style of comedy on record using the narrative "talking blues" style, positioning himself as an archetypal southerner, with his signature composition being "That's What I Like About The South". He reached a career peak as a recording artist with the humorous novelty US No. 1 with "The Thing" in 1950. This excellent value 52-track 2-CD set comprises selected A & B sides from his releases on the Victor, Columbia, Decca, Vocalion, Varsity, ARA, Hit & RCA-Victor labels from this era, including early titles by the Lofner Harris St. Francis Orchestra and Phil Harris Cocoanut Grove Orchestra. It features all his career chart entries, including the 1950 No. 1 "The Thing", the No. 2 "One-Zy Two-Zy", and the Top 10 hits "What Have We Got To Lose?", "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette)", "The Old Master Painter" and "Chattanoogie Shoe-Shine Boy", plus his Top 20 hit with The Bell Sisters "Hambone". He was a multi-faceted artist, and this collection provides a highly entertaining selection of his work on record that showcases his unique style of music and comedy.

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MANY SIDES OF PHIL HARRIS 1931-52
ACROBAT May 2022
CD
$20.63