Eric Satie Flute

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance).

Never aging and always giving peace and pleasure … A magical combination of notes, Great sorcerers … Here is the music that sounds in this release, presented to us by Madacy Special Mkts, giving you the opportunity to once again join with a beautiful, in a kind of selection, seemed to have long been familiar to all of us, works …

Never aging and always giving peace and pleasure … A magical combination of notes, Great sorcerers … Here is the music that sounds in this release, presented to us by Madacy Special Mkts, giving you the opportunity to once again join with a beautiful, in a kind of selection, seemed to have long been familiar to all of us, works …

Carter’s backing band here included young and youngish players like pianist Kenny Barron, drummer Lewis Nash and flute player Hubert Laws, along with four cellists and a harpsichord player. The selections move from the half-expected (Lewis’ stuff, and a couple of Carter originals), to the truly invigorating - like "Vocalise" from Rachmoninoff, "Prelude No. 4 in E Minor" by Chopin and Eric Satie’s "Gymnopedie." Carter, as always, plays with atmosphere, and restaint - though he is never boring. On "Friends," Carter presides over a far more delicate enterprise, and his playing matches that depth: he improvises in ways both impressionistic and intelligent, lyrical yet frank. It makes for one of the more challenging, yet strangely familiar recordings in the Davis-related canon. Jazz devotees will find a smooth passage into the classical genre, yet Carter’s legendary sophistication helps provide a new and invigorating take on these ages-old orchestations.

Greatest Ever Classical Gold is a wide-ranging collection of classical favorites, drawn from the best-loved concertos, orchestral music, chamber works, and keyboard pieces. The selections come from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, and the greatest composers in history are represented, among them Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and many others. Newcomers to classical music will likely recognize most of the pieces immediately, and the few that are unfamiliar to them are instantly accessible and highly memorable.

With Discreet Music (1975), Music for Airports (1978), and Thursday Afternoon (1985), Brian Eno invented a new music genre, ambient music, which he defined as "able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." These versions performed and arranged by Dedalus Ensemble, according to the musicians and the critics who listened to it, goes beyond what you expect from it. A mental base that takes you far away. One of the only music without beginning or end in which we want to stay as long as possible.