Enrique Chia

The premiere of Franz Lachner’s Symphony No. 6 was held in Munich on 19 April 1837 with the composer as the conductor. The Munich press termed it a “magnificent work” and an “outstanding masterpiece,” and in this truly extraordinary work Lachner refrains from the confrontational juxtaposition of large-format thematic blocks (above all occurring in his third and fifth symphonies), instead presenting a “more organic” compositional style in which motivic-thematic developments are realized step by step. Lachner’s Concertino for Bassoon and Orchestra is a work from 1824, composed during his Vienna years. He dedicated it to Theobald Hürth, who was then the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra’s principal bassoonist. It is not known whether or not Hürth ever performed this work in public, and performances of it are not documented.

Gordon Chin is one of Taiwans leading composers, and increasingly honoured by commissions and performances from major ensembles in North America, Asia and Europe. Featuring an array of exotic Chinese percussion instruments, Symphony No. 3 Taiwan is a dramatically powerful work cast in three movements which explore his native countrys turbulent history. Specific literary quotations from Shakespeare, Blaise Pascal and Samuel Johnson elucidate the expressive moods of the three-movement Cello Concerto No. 1.

Enrique Iglesias made a big splash with his first album, released in late 1995. The son of Latin superstar Julio Iglesias, Enrique's debut is devoted to polished, romantic pop tunes and power ballads, all with a contemporary pop/rock feel that shies away from many common clichés of Latin pop. The album was a major commercial success in Latin America and earned a gold record in the United States; it also won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album.

Alicia de Larrocha has been playing these works, the greatest in the repertoire of Spanish piano music, all her life – one of her very first recordings, 40 years ago, was of some of the Goyescas, and I had the pleasure of welcoming her first Iberia ten years after that (10/65); and immersed as she was from her earliest childhood in the authentic tradition (her mother, her aunt and she herself were all trained at Granados’s own school, of which she later became director), she has several times been asked to re-record them. She once said, rather wistfully, that she didn’t consider herself a specialist but that Spanish music was what the public constantly demanded of her. One can sympathize with her if she feels inescapably cast in this mould – but then she shouldn’t be so wonderfully persuasive in it! She employs plenty of subtle rubato but possesses the ability to make it sound as natural as breathing; yet she can also preserve a stimulating tautness of rhythm.

Thomas Rajna completed his cycle of Granados’s solo piano music within a year – 1976. As if to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their original appearance on CRD LPs Brilliant Classics has returned the cycle to the market-place. It’s in one slim box containing six nicely filled CDs and with extensive notes from Bryce Morrison. Nothing could be finer. Rajna was an expert advocate for Granados’s music and though recordings since have come – and gone – his have maintained an honoured place in the memory; and now, thankfully, in the disc drawer. And this is all the more so as so few are performed in public with any great conviction, beyond the obvious Goyescas and maybe Escenas Poeticas and Escenas Romanticas.

Découvrez les nombreux bienfaits de la graine de chia à travers le guide passionnant "Chia : Secrets d'une Graine Tout-en-Un pour une Santé Éclatante". Plongez au cœur de ce trésor nutritionnel, explorez ses racines historiques, et apprenez à intégrer cette petite graine dans votre quotidien pour stimuler votre bien-être global. Des recettes novatrices aux conseils pratiques, ce livre révèle les secrets bien gardés de la graine de chia, offrant une immersion complète dans l'univers de cette superfood. …

Découvrez les nombreux bienfaits de la graine de chia à travers le guide passionnant "Chia : Secrets d'une Graine Tout-en-Un pour une Santé Éclatante". Plongez au cœur de ce trésor nutritionnel, explorez ses racines historiques, et apprenez à intégrer cette petite graine dans votre quotidien pour stimuler votre bien-être global. Des recettes novatrices aux conseils pratiques, ce livre révèle les secrets bien gardés de la graine de chia, offrant une immersion complète dans l'univers de cette superfood. …

It should come as no surprise that Enrique Iglesias' 2008 Greatest Hits begins in 1999, when he made the leap from the Latin market into the mainstream. All his very successful '90s albums on Fonovisa are bypassed, written off as prehistory, so the spotlight shines only on his English-language singles of the new millennium: the club tracks and syrupy slow songs that gave him a significant number of crossover hits. With the exception of a couple of minor blips on the charts like 2000's "Sad Eyes," all these are here, starting with 1999's "Bailamos" and "The Rhythm Divine," running through 2000's "Be with You" and 2001's "Hero," stopping for 2004's "Not in Love," winding up with 2007's "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)" and wrapping up with two new duets, "Away" with Sean Garrett and "Takin' Back My Love" with Ciara. While this approach may lop off half of his career, it also does exactly what hits collections should do: it gives the casual listener the hits they want to hear and nothing else.