Simon & Grandfunkel

One of the most popular artists of the early-'70s singer-songwriter explosion, Carly Simon made her reputation by combining radio-friendly musical values with lyrics that tackled issues of romance and family with a frankness that's still disarming.

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it. Its very existence is something of a fluke – in the spring of 1972, the five original Simon & Garfunkel albums, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water, were still selling almost as well as they had in the 1960s; indeed, Bridge Over Troubled Water had carved out a seemingly permanent place for itself on the charts for years; and between the continued radio play of the duo's biggest hits, and the inevitable discovery of their catalog by successive new waves of junior high and high school students, those five LPs stood among the most profitable parts of the Columbia Records back catalog, rivaling Bob Dylan's much larger library in sheer numbers.

Three of Szymanowski’s most important works show Rattle’s ability to energise music in which he believes. Sensuality and cogency blend in refined sound.

Few if any composers equalled Schumann in the breadth of his literary taste. His reading encompassed the major figures of European literature in German translation, as Die Weinende, a setting of Byron in his Jugendlieder collection, amply illustrates. The three sets of Lieder und Gesänge in this volume are among his most expressive, the earliest dating from his magical ‘year of song’ of 1840. They take as their subject matter a panoply of romantic concerns: love of nature, the changing of the seasons, parting from one’s beloved, the allure of mermaids, as well as more cheerful strophic songs. This is the final volume in this acclaimed series.