The first Pages album (simply known as Pages) from 1978 was an artistic triumph but a commercial failure. Its combination of jazzy pacing, bluesy coloring, and pop-rock overtones simply was too much of a cross-genre product to be successful in any of those markets. As a result, the second Pages offering from 1979 was decidedly more pop-rock in style…
Celebrating Meredith Monk as composer, these Piano Songs give us a world at once playful and earnest. Written or derived from work composed between 1971 and 2006, the pieces inhabit Monk’s unique universe, as played by two of new music’s most distinguished interpreters, pianists Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker. These pieces are ‘songs’ because they have strong roots in Monk’s pieces for voice, and because they are direct, specific, and imagistic.
Great CD from Herman Rarebell. Doing all his Scorpion songs with various artists…
Japan only release edition! Best selection album of Sarah Brightman. 18 tracks, releasing in SHM-CD format. Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, musician, songwriter, and dancer. Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she later married. She went on to star in several West End and Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, where she originated the role of Christine Daaé.
Rachmaninov’s rarely heard, and unfinished opera, Monna Vanna is recorded here in a newer edition by Gennadi Belov and led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, an iconic artist and expert in Russian music. This recording of Monna Vanna is a world première recording of the sung Russian version – the language in which Rachmaninov originally intended the opera to be performed.