24 days in the top 100 
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Based on the hit crossover program by Jeannette Sorrell that premiered in 10 sold-out concerts in Cleveland in 2009. From the driving rhythms of New England dances, to the spiritual heights of an old-time Revival Meeting, this recording explores the rich tapestry of early American folk music, performed on period instruments by artists who are steeped in the folk tradition as well as historical performance. Jeannette Sorrell and her group of crack instrumentalists and singers deliver haunting Appalachian ballads, lively fiddle tunes and shape-note hymns. Favorites include "Down in the River to Pray" and "Go to Sleep, Little Babe," made popular in the Cohen brothers' film "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"
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(2)On Rose of Sharon, Joel Frederiksen and the Ensemble Phoenix present a program of rarely heard American vocal music from the 18th and 19th centuries. The release takes its name from a passage in the Song of Solomon that was set by William Billings in his 1778 book The Singing Master s Assistant. Billings is widely considered the father of American choral music. In his day, singing schools spread all over New England and played an important role in the development of an independent music tradition in America. With songs by the Quakers, Shakers and the Moravian Brethren as well as selections from the collections The Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony, the music on Rose of Sharon spans the years between the Declaration of Independence to the end of the Civil War a crucial period in the political and cultural birth of a new nation.
(33)No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: BACH,J.S.
Title: ART OF FUGUE
Street Release Date: 08/12/2003
Genre: CLASSICAL COMPOSERS
2 days in the top 100 (5)
(31)No Description Available.
Genre: Childrens
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 7-MAY-2002
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(110)The Canadian Tenors have crisscrossed the globe thrilling millions of music lovers with their magical voices, their wonderful sense of humor, and their memorable music. The foursome have received rave reviews and standing ovations around the world from the Tel Aviv Opera house where they shared the stage with Andrea Bocelli to Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Coliseum with David Foster and Friends to Toronto s Air Canada Centre where they headlined at ONE NIGHT LIVE with STING and Sheryl Crow. They have performed over 80 concerts for over 150,000 people on three separate continents and have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities as they share a passion for bringing awareness to impoverished children world-wide. The Canadian Tenors will join David Foster on his Hitman tour across the U.S.
An intimate LIVE recording from Tony Award® winner Lea Salonga - Absolutely the next best thing to being there!
Hans Gal: Symphony No. 3 (World Premiere Recording) Avie continues to bring the music of Hans Gál to light with the world premiere recording of the
Third Symphony conducted by committed advocate Kenneth Woods. Woods made headlines with
his first recording of Gál s music on Avie; here, he conducts the enterprising Orchestra of the Swan
in the first of a projected cycle of all four of Hans Gál s symphonies.
Featuring limited edition packaging in a real wooden box with heat stamped cover design, Timber is composed by Michael Gordon, co-founder of Bang on a Can and Cantaloupe Music. Timber is an evening-length tour de force. Scored for six graduated wooden Simantras percussion instruments devised by French composer Iannis Xenakis the work brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level. In this new work, Gordon shapes the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures often each players' hands are in separate rhythmic 'worlds', each traversing a different dynamic contour from loud to soft to loud, similar in some respects to his solo for percussion, XY.
2011 sees the first recording by The Sixteen completely devoted to Palestrina! The disc marks the start of a new project, which will result in
a series of new recordings exploring a selection of the composer s vast output. Possibly the greatest composer of liturgical music of all time,
Palestrina is a towering figure in Renaissance polyphony. This first disc features some of the sumptuous music he wrote for the Assumption.
(1)Ingrid Fliter is a one-off, the kind of pianist we have not seen in years. She plays Beethoven with an old-master's touch and Chopin with reckless passion. (La Scena Musicale) For her third EMI Classics recording, Ingrid Fliter turns to three of the most passionate and powerful Beethoven sonatas with titles to match: Op. 13 `Pathétique', Op. 31 No. 2 `Tempest' and Op. 57 `Appassionata'. The iTunes bonus tracks are the Opus 33 Bagatelles Nos. 2, 6 and 7.
Fliter said recently, "Through working on Beethoven's music I discovered the man, the humanity he expressed in his music. He took his life and music -and his mission- very seriously. He was an extremist. He did not give any concessions or compromises. He was not afraid of showing himself as he was and as such made many enemies as well as friends, lovers and admirers. I am among the latter."
Reviewing a recent recital that included Beethoven's Sonata No. 18, Op 31 No. 3, Chicago Classical Review wrote, "Fliter brought not just a sterling technique but just the right sense of quirky humor and individuality to this music. Rarely will one hear the jocular side of Beethoven put across with such spirit, the dynamic contrasts underlined, and Fliter's light articulation bringing a vivacious Haydnesque wit to the music. [...] She also brought out the pensive side of the songful Menuetto and the rollicking Presto was aptly con fuoco making a rousing conclusion to a first-rate Beethoven performance."
Fliter is associated in many people's minds with the music of Chopin. She was the Silver Medal winner of the Frédéric Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2000, since which time she has performed his music extensively and made two critically acclaimed Chopin recordings for EMI Classics. Comparing the music of Chopin and Beethoven, she said, "Playing Beethoven requires a totally different approach than playing Chopin. Chopin is more about him. You are the interpreter, you create the sound and people receive the beauty from you. But Beethoven is all about him wishing to communicate with the world. He wanted to catch the sky, catch nature and be part of it. He was all about giving. And this is something I want to create when I play. It's not about me, it's about the music, it's about Beethoven."
Of the three Beethoven sonatas performed on this CD, only one was assigned its title by the composer. This was the `Grande sonate pathétique', composed in 1798 in Vienna and dedicated to Prince Karl Lichnowsky, a supporter who had introduced Beethoven to Viennese aristocracy. The sonata was composed at a time when Beethoven was becoming aware of his encroaching deafness.
Although Beethoven did not name his sonata Op. 31 No. 2 `Tempest,' there are unconfirmed reports that he thought of Shakespeare's play in connection with the music. Beethoven's only sonata in the unusual key of D minor dates from 1802, a dark period in his life and the year of his Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter addressed to his brothers "to be read and executed after my death". In it, he described his despair over the progression of his deafness, his rejection of suicide and his decision to "endure this wretched existence" for the sake of his work.
The name Appassionata affixed to Beethoven's Sonata Op. 57 was not chosen by the composer but is very apt as the work is passionate, dramatic and tempestuous. The title was chosen by the publisher in 1838, 11 years after the composer's death. The Appassionata was composed in 1804/1805 and possibly into 1806. It cost Beethoven a great deal of time and effort in the same period that he was composing the Eroica Symphony, the Kreutzer Sonata and the Leonora Overture No.2. Beethoven is said to have considered Op. 57 his greatest sonata until he composed the Hammerklavier in 1818.
Ingrid Fliter began her studies in her native Buenos Aires before moving to Europe to continue them in France and Italy. She won prizes at important competitions, including the Busoni Competition and the International Frédéric Chopin Competition. In 2005, Fliter became the fifth recipient of the prestigiousGilmore Artist Award, made every four years by an anonymous panel of judges who assess a number of pianists over a period of time without their knowledge. Age and nationality are immaterial. The winner must possess broad and profound musicianship and charisma and must desire and be able to sustain a career as a major international concert artist. Two of the four previous Gilmore Award winners were EMI Classics artists Leif Ove Andsnes (2002) and Piotr Anderszewski (1998). From 2007-2009, Fliter was on the roster of BBC's New Generation Artists scheme, through which she appeared with many of the BBC's orchestra and participated in prominent UK festivals.
Today Fliter divides her time between Europe and the United States. Recent and forthcoming engagements include the Philharmonia Orchestra (3 April at the Royal Festival Hall in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23), the Royal Stockholm, Rotterdam, Bergen, Royal Liverpool and Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestras and the Sydney and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. This season marks Fliter's International Piano Series debut at the Southbank Centre in London (7 June, 2011) with an all-Beethoven recital. She also looks forward to engagements at festivals in France, Spain, the Czech Republic, the UK and Japan.
Ingrid Fliter is an exclusive EMI Classics recording artist. When her first CD, an all-Chopin disc, was released in April 2008, The Telegraph wrote, "The warmth of her playing and the lyrical impulse of her interpretations are combined with discretion in matters of dynamics, pianistic decoration and tonal colour to make these pieces flow from her fingers with the spontaneity of someone deeply immersed in the music's idiom." Her second release, the Complete Chopin Waltzes, inspired strong words of praise from Gramophone: "Ingrid Fliter sets a new benchmark for the complete waltzes. From beginning to end, this is among the finest Chopin recordings of recent years... Each waltz emerges as if a great actress were reading a short story, each with its own colour and character. Fliter's `timing' is judged to perfection; her tempi are near ideal; she never loses sight of Chopin the poet or reinvents him as a red-blooded virtuoso"
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(1)The partnership between Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra has proved to be one of the greatest success stories in classical music. On their latest recording for Channel Classics, these great artists present a new perspective on Schubert s powerful and romantic ninth symphony. As a contrast to the majestic sounds of the Great C Major, Fischer s pairing is a charming early work, the Five German Dances. As usual, Channel provides masterful sonic engineering that compliments the performers consummate musicality.
2 days in the top 100
All seven operas are brought together in a compact 18-CD box set, offered at a super value price, in a Limited Edition of just 10,000 sets. John Eliot Gardiner's outstanding series of recordings of the seven mature Mozart operas took the musical world by storm in the 1990s.They set new standards of singing and orchestral performance , bringing a new dimension to these great works in their vitality and vividness - and making them natural first choices for the consumer. THE SET COMPRISES:
* Idomeneo : "Unless and until further research proves otherwise, this version will remain the definitive recording of Mozart's early masterpiece for a long time to come ... Gardiner's reading is in almost every respect profoundly satisfying" (Gramophone)
* The Abduction from the Seraglio : "The overture immediately establishes the extra zest of the performance. So Konstanze's great heroic aria Martern aller Arten has tremendous swagger; thanks also to the glorious singing from Luba Organasova, at once rich, pure and agile, the close is triumphant." (Penguin Guide)
* The Marriage of Figaro : "Bryn Terfel and Alison Hagley make an outstanding Figaro and Susanna ... Hillevi Martinpelto's unaffected, youthful sounding Countess ... Rodney Gilfry provides a Count with plenty of fire and authority ... so much more a realization of the work than simply a performance of its music." (Gramophone)
* Don Giovanni : "Vividly dramatic, beautifully paced and deeply expressive. The performance culminates in one of the thrilling accounts ever recorded of the final scene ... A recording that sets new standards for period performance and view with the finest of traditional versions." (Penguin Guide)
* Così fan tutte : "The full flavour of Così, its effervescence as well as its deeper qualities, comes over more intensely as a result ...The poise and technical assurance of all the singers, not least Rodney Gilfry as Guglielmo, put this among the finest versions of Così." (Penguin Guide)
* La clemenza di Tito : "Here we are present at a live performance on period instruments. The difference in dramatic electricity is most marked ...Above all there is an overriding sense of a true ensemble with chorus, orchestra and soloists in complete harmony" (Gramophone)
* The Magic Flute : "An electrifying account ... Gardiner is helped enormously by his choice of singer as Pamina, a young German soprano with a ravishingly pure and sweet voice, flawlessly controlled, Christiane Oelze." IN OTHER WORDS, A MUST-HAVE! PACKAGINGand PRICE:
* Classic capbox, with 136-page booklet
* Full synopses in English, German and French
* REMEMBER: it's a LIMITED EDITION - a one-time pressing. Don't miss out!
