City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music

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.Brahms: The 4 Symphonies
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: Universal Classics

April 14, 2003
Karajan recorded the four Brahms symphonies three times for DG and for me the earliest (1963 or thereabouts) is the best by a fair margin, and although not perfect, the sound quality is better - more natural and open. There's more life, spontanaity and drama in the 60s cycle, which by comparison his later efforts sound somewhat mannered. Like much of Karajan's output, his earlier years with the BPO give better performances. Later repeats (say 1970 onwards) are generally marred by a BPO which had been over-refined by Karajan's influence in the way it sounded - plush and too 'well-rounded' - a good anology would be a typical German big car; smooth and comfortable but ultimately bland and boring. The approach might suit Richard Strauss but not ... Read More:
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.Beethoven: Violin Concerto / Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 / Horrace Silver: Creepin In /Nigel Kennedy
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
by: Nigel Kennedy

April 14, 2008
i too am a fan of nigel kennedy , but this recording doesnt do anything for me though as ever it is exceptionaly well played...but the combination of "modern" bits in among the classical music only distracts me..i like one or the other but if you are more adventurous than me,i highly recomend it!
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.Martha Argerich: Evening Talks (A Film by Georges Gachot) [2008] (NTSC)
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
starring: Martha Argerich
directed by: Georges Gachot

July 28, 2008
Martha Argerich, for many of us, has long been an enigma. She has always been a private person, one who does not seek the spotlight, who even cancels performances because, it is said, of nervousness, shyness. Filmmaker Georges Gachot, after years of entreaties, gets her to agree, to speak with him on camera. She comes across as a soft-spoken, shy, immensely intelligent but often cryptic person, one who has idiosyncratic but attractive ideas about her relationships with composers and various pieces of music. For instance, she will not play the Beethoven Fourth Concerto because she is afraid of 'what might happen', this after talking about the galvanic emotional effect it has had on her ever since she heard Claudio Arrau play it when she was six. ... Read More:
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.Satie - Piano Works
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: EMI Classics

February 07, 2000
This attractive and attuned Satie compilation from Tacchino, spanning the composer's eclectic career, rewards the listener with some of the most finely etched, sensitive and charming playing available. The popular Trois Gymnopedies [1888] offers just the right balance of sustained, nostalgic melancholy, and the wonderful Six Gnossiennes [1890-99], a mixture of mystery (Nos. 1-4), beauty (particularly No. 5) and perturbation (most ostensibly No. 6). The clever Sonatine Bureaucratique [1917] is tweaked by Tacchino to smack even more cleverly of a latter-day Scarlatti or, perhaps, Clementi, each note a pearly, articulated gem; and the lyrically inviting Valse ("Je Te Veux"), a real find, is memorable at every turn. The Veritables Preludes Flasques [1912], ... Read More:
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.Piazzolla: Tango Zero Hour
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: Nonesuch

April 03, 2000
This as hands down one of the most astonishing recordings I have ever heard. I bought it knowing a bit about tango, and a bit about Piazzolla, but regardless of that, this is incredible music. The music itself is gorgeous - dark, beautiful, ominous, brooding and deeply passionate. The playing is beyond compare - laser precise and yet at the same time gritty and rough. This is very much a band effort, and what a band - they swing, caress and whip up thunder.

Apparently this angered the tango purists in Argentina, as did much of Piazzollas output, and I can see why - this is modern, vital music, with clear influences from jazz, classical music and even the rush of punk. I must emphasise that you do not need to know much about tango to ... Read More:
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.40th Anniversary Greatest Hits Collection
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
by: The King's Singers

January 28, 2008
This as hands down one of the most astonishing recordings I have ever heard. I bought it knowing a bit about tango, and a bit about Piazzolla, but regardless of that, this is incredible music. The music itself is gorgeous - dark, beautiful, ominous, brooding and deeply passionate. The playing is beyond compare - laser precise and yet at the same time gritty and rough. This is very much a band effort, and what a band - they swing, caress and whip up thunder.

Apparently this angered the tango purists in Argentina, as did much of Piazzollas output, and I can see why - this is modern, vital music, with clear influences from jazz, classical music and even the rush of punk. I must emphasise that you do not need to know much about tango to ... Read More:
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.Mozart for Meditation
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: Philips

February 10, 1997
I really enjoyed this CD and I did find the music relaxing. However as someone who meditates regularly I do not think that it is music that would be used to meditate to. One can sit and relax to this CD but if you want to meditate this CD, in places, can be quite stirring and would not lend itself to an actual meditation practice.
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.Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: Great Recordings of the Century

September 04, 2000
There really isn't much to say.

Yes, this is an "old recording" and it shows the technology of its age with a slight lack of bright crispness, but DON'T LET THIS PUT YOU OFF.

There are some performances that are genuinely special and even if they were recorded in 1964, before the advent of digital recording techniques, they remain special nevertheless. This performance has gravitas, power, majesty and sublime magnificence.

Yes, I'd accept that Lucia Popp could have done with being a bit more fearsome - she is, after all, the epitome of monstrous evil - but that is the tiniest of criticisms when you're wallowing in her GLORIOUS voice and utterly brilliant coloratura.

This is the best recording of Die Zauberflote ... Read More:
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.Carnival Of The Animals - Narrated by Johnny Morris
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
by: Johnny Morris

October 05, 1998
I wish that I had read BNW's review before I bought this (not through Amazon). I though I would be able to skip the narration, but this is impossible because it goes on over the music. It is so bad, I didn't bother to listen to the whole CD. I am not going to give it to my 6 year old neice. I do not want to hinder her growing appreciation of music. I will not give it to a charity shop. It would be unfair to unload my dissapointment onto someone else. The disk is in the bin.
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.Allegri - Miserere; Lotti - Crucifixus; Palestrina - Stabat Mater Dolorosa
City Travel Guides > Classical Music > Classical Music
from: Coro

May 05, 2003
Allegri's Miserere is given the top billing on this disc, perhaps because of some celebrated special effects, explained in the liner notes, that it contains. The first track is devoted to a sombre and beautiful Crucifixus (from the Nicene Creed) by one Lotti, an older contemporary of Bach. Admirable and compelling, both of these, but what I bought this disc for was the two items by Palestrina, his Stabat Mater and the celestial Missa Papae Marcelli.

It is not just the quality of the early music specialists these days but the sheer profusion of them that continues to astonish me. I looked through the list of singers (18, not 16) and while I did not recognise most of the names offhand that may simply be because I did not investigate my large record collection, ... Read More:
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