A Queen For All Seasons

This is a colossal 18-disc set that focuses on the iconic group’s hit-packed albums, plus two sets that explore the individual careers of founding members Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio. FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS - THE CLASSIC ALBUMS BOX contains 18 CDs of the albums that Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons recorded between 1962-1992.

This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

Another serious project in vein of Time Life Music, the "24 Golden Hits" is a compilation series of the world famous hits, released on CD circa 1987-1988. Here is the complete series packed into five boxes and each box was re-released separately. Each Volume-set contains the five discs and titled as "120 Golden Oldies". 600 "Golden" songs total and over than one day of the continuous listening!

Another serious project in vein of Time Life Music, the "24 Golden Hits" is a compilation series of the world famous hits, released on CD circa 1987-1988. Here is the complete series packed into five boxes and each box was re-released separately. Each Volume-set contains the five discs and titled as "120 Golden Oldies". 600 "Golden" songs total and over than one day of the continuous listening!

Follow-up volumes appeared in 1993 and 1996, extending the time period to 1979 and with additional songs from the 1972-76 period, available on cassette or CD (ALL 25 volumes were issued in both formats). Each volume has twelve songs. Despite the greater capacity of compact discs, the running time of each of the volumes is no longer than the limit of vinyl records in the 1970s, from 38 to 45 minutes long.

Martin Stadtfeld's new double album "Baroque Colours" presents a colorful sound panorama of the Baroque - with original works from Bach to Rameau as well as his own arrangements of well-known Baroque hits and unknown musical gems.

New Seasons is a project undertaken by oboist Albrecht Mayer to create "new" concertos for oboe, based primarily on the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. He and arranger Andreas N. Tarkmann used arias, sometimes including bits of recitative, and gave the vocal lines to the oboe, flute, and bassoon without changing too much of the accompanimental parts to create a cycle of four concertos. Compared to Handel's original instrumental music, these are naturally more lyrical and sometimes more declamatory, but it is surprising how often the music is very dance-like. Lively, moving rhythms are not what is normally expected in vocal music, but it makes the arias used here very natural sounding as concerto movements.