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Beethoven - Symphony no. 9 'Choral' / Furtwängler, Schwarzkopf, Höngen, Hopf, Edelmann (Great Recordings of The Century)
from: EMI Classics
: essential recording:No single performance will ever tell us everything we need to know about a masterpiece like the Beethoven Ninth, but this one comes close. The inspired intensity of everyone involved--at the postwar reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951--comes across very vividly in this new transfer. Just hear the way Furtwángler evokes the atmosphere of chaos coalescing into order at the opening of the first movement and you can tell a superior musical and spiritual consciousness is at work. Except for the poor first horn, whose bloopers are the main detriment, ...
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Magnus Lindberg: Sculpture; Campana in aria; Concerto for orchestra
from: Ondine
:Album Description:Magnus Lindberg is an internationally leading contemporary composer and one of the best known from Finland. Commissions from the world's leading orchestras, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, and his many recordings on Ondine and other major labels have helped to position him at the forefront of orchestral composition. Energy, color and a thrilling density of material are the hallmarks of his recent style, and the works recorded here for the first time offer an entrancing example. This disc follows on the great success of the previous Clarinet Concerto ...
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Bach & Beyond - Gabriela Montero
from: EMI Classics
: : Taking as her base 12 works of Bach, Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero proceeds to play variations on each. The works are familiar and most Classical fans will recognize their melodies instantly. But Montero, who is closer to a jazz improvisationalist than a classical pianist merely embellishing, alters rhythm as well as melody, and the results are invariably both surprising and delightful. The Presto from the Italian Concerto is positively wacky, but 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' sticks to the piece's mood with truth and originality. Montero plays 'beyond' Bach with good taste ...
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Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 - 4
from: Decca
: : Taking as her base 12 works of Bach, Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero proceeds to play variations on each. The works are familiar and most Classical fans will recognize their melodies instantly. But Montero, who is closer to a jazz improvisationalist than a classical pianist merely embellishing, alters rhythm as well as melody, and the results are invariably both surprising and delightful. The Presto from the Italian Concerto is positively wacky, but 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' sticks to the piece's mood with truth and originality. Montero plays 'beyond' Bach with good taste ...
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Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7
from: Deutsche Grammophon
: : In 2006, the 25-year-old Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel's star on the international scene is rising fast, with prestigious conducting assignments and this CD of two of Beethoven's most-popular and often-recorded symphonies. It's a bold calling card for a label that has outstanding versions of these symphonies by the likes of von Karajan, Abbado, and Carlos Kleiber, among others. If Dudamel doesn't eclipse those or others atop the mountain of Beethoven symphony recordings, he gives fine performances brimming with vitality and excitement. His youth orchestra sounds as good as many better known ensembles, playing ...
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Glass: Violin concerto
from: Naxos American
: :Philip Glass's signature doom-and-gloom minor sonorities and shifting rhythms scintillate and eddy under the touch of Adele Anthony and the Ulster Symphony. The solo line in the Violin Concerto is at odds with a unified orchestra throughout, and Anthony's romantic tone draws the listener in for an exploration of the texture, grain, and fiber of Glass's structural minimalism. The Ulster Symphony's rendering of Company and Akhnaten, under the leadership of Takuo Yuasa, forms brilliant darts of tonal color. As a musical adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose of the same name, Company's dark ruminations ...
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Max Raabe and Palast Orchester: Dance & Film Music of 1920s
: :Philip Glass's signature doom-and-gloom minor sonorities and shifting rhythms scintillate and eddy under the touch of Adele Anthony and the Ulster Symphony. The solo line in the Violin Concerto is at odds with a unified orchestra throughout, and Anthony's romantic tone draws the listener in for an exploration of the texture, grain, and fiber of Glass's structural minimalism. The Ulster Symphony's rendering of Company and Akhnaten, under the leadership of Takuo Yuasa, forms brilliant darts of tonal color. As a musical adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose of the same name, Company's dark ruminations ...
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Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake
from: Class. for Pleas. Us
: :Philip Glass's signature doom-and-gloom minor sonorities and shifting rhythms scintillate and eddy under the touch of Adele Anthony and the Ulster Symphony. The solo line in the Violin Concerto is at odds with a unified orchestra throughout, and Anthony's romantic tone draws the listener in for an exploration of the texture, grain, and fiber of Glass's structural minimalism. The Ulster Symphony's rendering of Company and Akhnaten, under the leadership of Takuo Yuasa, forms brilliant darts of tonal color. As a musical adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose of the same name, Company's dark ruminations ...
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Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (excerpts)
from: Sony
: :Philip Glass's signature doom-and-gloom minor sonorities and shifting rhythms scintillate and eddy under the touch of Adele Anthony and the Ulster Symphony. The solo line in the Violin Concerto is at odds with a unified orchestra throughout, and Anthony's romantic tone draws the listener in for an exploration of the texture, grain, and fiber of Glass's structural minimalism. The Ulster Symphony's rendering of Company and Akhnaten, under the leadership of Takuo Yuasa, forms brilliant darts of tonal color. As a musical adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose of the same name, Company's dark ruminations ...
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Beethoven: Symphonies 2 and 7 [Hybrid SACD]
from: Bis
: :Philip Glass's signature doom-and-gloom minor sonorities and shifting rhythms scintillate and eddy under the touch of Adele Anthony and the Ulster Symphony. The solo line in the Violin Concerto is at odds with a unified orchestra throughout, and Anthony's romantic tone draws the listener in for an exploration of the texture, grain, and fiber of Glass's structural minimalism. The Ulster Symphony's rendering of Company and Akhnaten, under the leadership of Takuo Yuasa, forms brilliant darts of tonal color. As a musical adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose of the same name, Company's dark ruminations ...
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