Suited Monk

Baritone Gerald Finley's generous selection of Barber's songs includes two of his most familiar cycles, 11 individual songs, and Dover Beach, for baritone and string quartet. The songs all come from Barber's early period and range from "There is nae Lark," written when he was 17, to the Hermit Songs of 1953. Finley doesn't have a huge voice, but he can deliver plenty of power when required, and he has an appealing warmth and ease. His delivery is refreshingly free and unmannered, and it is ideally suited to the directness of Barber's songs. He shows wonderful sensitivity to the texts and makes even the most overdone songs, such as "The Daisies," sound convincing and newly imagined. The Hermit Songs are sung almost exclusively by women, perhaps because of the tradition that Barber established when he gave the premiere performance accompanying Leontyne Price, whose recording remains a gold standard. The texts, mostly written by Medieval Irish monks, largely reflect a male perspective, and Finley's fine performance ought to give courage to more men to take up the cycle.

Decca's Ultimate Classics is a five-CD box set that presents the best-known pieces of classical music in a straightforward, no-frills program. Most of the selections are quite famous, taken from larger works by such great masters as Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and many others, so beginners and casual listeners are sure to find many of the most familiar melodies here. The information provided with the set consists only of tracklistings and identification of performers, so there is no material on the background of the music, the composers' lives, or the original albums these recordings appeared on.

Charly's live John Coltrane recordings from '61, '63, and '65 reveal just how much the tenor and soprano saxophonist's playing changed in the first half of the decade: a sonic shift from aggressive tonality to unfettered exploration. While the 1965 disc, Live In Paris, does find Coltrane covering familiar song territory with "Naima," "Impressions," and "Afro Blue," it also shows him dismissing solo structure in favor of volcanic flights. The record features the saxophonist's classic quartet of pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bassist Jimmy Garrison recorded at the Antibes festival and the Selel Pleyel in Paris; these concerts were not only part of Coltrane's last European tour, but would also mark the beginning of the end for the group (Tyner and Jones, traditionalists at heart, would soon depart in the face of their boss' increasing need for freedom, being replaced by Alice Coltrane and Rahsied Ali respectively)…