The appearance on disc of Antoine Dauvergne's opera-bouffon of 1753, Les Troqueurs is at once a happy occasion and a frustrating one. For while we can rejoice at the chance to make the acquaintance of this charming little intermede, it also serves to remind us that there are an awful lot of French comic operas from the second half of the eighteenth century that remain unheard. This is repertory that is both interesting and important to the history of opera in general, and Les Troqueurs is the work that stands at its head, for following as it did on the heels of the influential Paris performances of Pergolesi's La serva padrona it was the first real attempt at a wholly French comic opera in the same modern, dramatically light-footed mould.
The new album from award-winning, Billboard Top 10 World Music Guitarist Laswson Rollins. The album inludes 12 new original songs that capture the urgency of the moment, the exhilaration of the speed of sound, and the poignancy of the remains of the day.
Following the international success of their first album on Resonus, Venice 1629, Jamie Savan with his acclaimed period group The Gonzaga Band continue their exploration of lesser-known music in the Baroque Venetian orbit. Here they uncover the Vespers (1616), a forgotten masterpiece by Amadio Freddi, maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral during Monteverdi’s tenure at St Mark’s in Venice.
100 Hits Legends is a budget collection featuring tracks from legendary singer Frank Sinatra. Included are a variety of tracks from throughout the iconic jazz and popular singer's career.
As a solo artist and a collaborator, Andrew Gold defined a strand of mainstream pop during the late 1970s. His work with Linda Ronstadt – he led her band and arranged her blockbuster albums of the mid-'70s – catapulted him to a position where he was given the chance to score his own hits, which he did with 1977's "Lonely Boy" and 1978's "Thank You for Being a Friend," not to mention "Never Let Her Slip Away," which was a U.K. smash in '78. Gold stepped away from this solo career after 1980's Whirlwind, re-emerging in the late 1990s when he was acknowledged as the cult figure he is.
Dr. Ebbett produced the two volume UK singles collection in 2005 and according to the announcement made at the time of its release: It features the A and B sides of every regular issue British 45 rpm record the Beatles releases during their time together. This set is sourced entirely from 7 inch vinyl records – some of them being the original first-issue Parlophone 45s, some from the vinyl boxed set released in the 1970s…
Only some twenty works out of what was originally a far greater number of secular cantatas have survived in performable condition. They nevertheless offer a welcome complement to our image of Bach the church musician, and reveal a composer who approached secular music with the same artistic integrity and demand for quality that we find in his sacred music.
In 2002, 17-year-old Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz won second prize in the Artur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The next year, he won first prize in the Fourth International Hamamatsu Piano Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan. The year after that he won the Grand Prix at the International Piano Competition in Rabat, Morocco. The year after that, however, Blechacz hit the quintfecta at the age of 20 by taking all five top prizes at the 15th International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw: first prizes in polonaise, mazurka, sonata, and concerto, plus grand prize overall…