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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 [Includes DVD]
from: Cso Resound
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Bernstein: Candide; West Side Story; On the Waterfront; Fancy Free
from: Sony
: :This release comes from Sony's immense backlog of famous recordings of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. In fact, these works trace the evolution of the New York Philharmonic into a world-class orchestra in the late 1950s under Bernstein's hand. At this remove in time, we can almost hear New York in these works. Bernstein deftly captures the shimmering glamour of his music, particularly in Overture to Candide and the astonishing Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. If you don't own this music--and these ...
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Amore: Romantic Italian Love Songs
from: Decca
: :From Calaf's 'Nessun dorma' from Turandot, in which the singer exclaims his love for the ice princess and the victory he will have over her, through Lionel's realization that he will have a new life and be happy with Lady Harriet in Martha ('M'appari'), and on to Rodolfo's falling in love with Mimi in La Bohème when he touches her hand ('Che gelida manina'): here we have some of opera's most beautiful love songs, sung by Pavarotti when he was in his golden-voiced prime. His ...
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Tchaikovsky: Concerto No. 1/Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 2
from: RCA
: essential recording:What a story there is behind this recording! When Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War with his playing of this concerto, it created an international sensation. The recording followed immediately thereafter, and Cliburn was launched on an international career of unprecedented celebrity for a classical musician. Perhaps the attention was too much, too soon, given his subsequent burn-out and retirement from public life. Fortunately, we have these unique recordings to document what was, ...
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300 Years of Guitar Masterpieces
from: Vox (Classical)
: :Manuel Barrueco is one of the best guitarists I've ever heard. Listen to his own arrangement of Albeniz's Suite Española and you'll have trouble believing it's only two hands on one guitar. But Barrueco doesn't use his technique to show off. He's a solid musician, as expressive in Bach as in Villa- Lobos. He also makes transcriptions that respect the origins of the music. This is a wide-ranging guitar collection, but all the music is worth hearing, especially in performances like these. The disc is ...
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Puccini: La Boheme [Blu-ray]
: :Manuel Barrueco is one of the best guitarists I've ever heard. Listen to his own arrangement of Albeniz's Suite Española and you'll have trouble believing it's only two hands on one guitar. But Barrueco doesn't use his technique to show off. He's a solid musician, as expressive in Bach as in Villa- Lobos. He also makes transcriptions that respect the origins of the music. This is a wide-ranging guitar collection, but all the music is worth hearing, especially in performances like these. The disc is ...
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Bizet - Carmen / Levine, Baltsa, Carreras, Metropolitan Opera
: :Manuel Barrueco is one of the best guitarists I've ever heard. Listen to his own arrangement of Albeniz's Suite Española and you'll have trouble believing it's only two hands on one guitar. But Barrueco doesn't use his technique to show off. He's a solid musician, as expressive in Bach as in Villa- Lobos. He also makes transcriptions that respect the origins of the music. This is a wide-ranging guitar collection, but all the music is worth hearing, especially in performances like these. The disc is ...
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Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
:Description:The acclaimed 1995 Bayreuth production by Heiner Müller, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with fire and sensitivity. Siegfried Jerusalem and Waltraud Meier were the Tristan and Isolde of choice throughout the decade, and were at the height of their interpretive powers. Müller and stage designer Erich Wonder have compressed the monumental story into a clear and fascinating geometry of love, creating highly evocative spaces through projections of colors and forms. First DVD release of this memorable performance, in wide-screen format and 5.1 DTS Surround Sound. Staged ...
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Tarik O'Regan: Threshold of Night
from: Harmonia Mundi
: :Threshold of Night presents the Austin-based choral group in a program of premiere recordings of new works for voices and strings by the award-winning young British composer Tarik O'Regan. These peices- setting texts of British and North and South American writers - explore teh ecstasies of heaven and the challenges of life on Earth. O'Regan's is a music of polarities, sometimes contained with a single piece. The works here range from the dense and propulsive to the airy and meditative. Settings of 2 poems ...
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Hildegard von Bingen: Canticles of Ecstasy
from: RCA
: :Although Hildegard von Bingen's music has been around for 900 years--and recordings of her music for decades--it seems that only now, as we approach the turn of another millennium, the time is right for the world to pay attention. In this first-rate traversal of her music--the most popular of several volumes released by the early-music ensemble Sequentia--we hear music that resulted from Hildegard's legendary visions, which often included song texts that she subsequently collected and dispensed to her religious community of women. As rendered here ...
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