The Best Of Violin

Eroica Trio - The Best Of Eroica Trio (2005)
Composer: Tomaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi, Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Johannes Brahms, et al.
FLAC+CUE+LOG | 324 MB | no scans
MP3 CBR 320kbps | 165 MB
Classic/Chamber | EMI Classics | 74:58

This generous album (nearly 75 minutes long) contains 14 selections from the award-winning trio's other CDs. Thus, the range of music is quite wide. The artists (Erika Nickrenz–piano, Adela Pena-violin, & Sara Sant'Ambrogio–cello), though accomplished soloists, meld their playing beautifully. Most of the pieces are very lively–not too relaxing or useful for meditation–but great for listening.

A documentary film by Bruno Monsaingeon devoted to the 20th century's greatest violinists, The Art of Violin really cannot be faulted. The same, incidentally, can also be said of the similar volumes that cover the piano and singing, so there's never been a better time to collect a personal audio-visual archive of some wonderful historical performers. The added dimension provided by the painstakingly collected film material (here featuring no fewer than 20 outstanding soloists Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, and Eugene Ysaye) is of exceptional value when observing violin technique, and the diversity of approaches presented here in loving detail is in itself a subject for endless comparison.

It would seem a strange thing compiling the work of Charlie Haden's decade-long Quartet West Group onto a single disc. The reason isn't that they recorded so much material, but more because the material was themed record by record. Yet that is exactly why a compilation like this does work, because this group played music utilizing different aspects of the same theme: to evoke the spirits, ghosts and sprites of a Los Angeles that has moved off the screen of real life into the stuff of myth. That Haden and his group, which included drummer Larance Marable (who replaced Billy Higgins after the group's first, self-titled album in 1986), saxophonist Ernie Watts, and pianist Alan Broadbent could make it all sound so present and real, gives the impression that there was truth in the images. This is not only from a West Coast point of view (though there it is imbued more with the striking visual reveries to accompany the tunes) but also in the popular culture mythos in the collective American mind.

'Drawing on archival performance footage and interviews, The Art of Violin evokes the vast panorama of the world of the violin in the 20th century and its most outstanding performers. ….it is hard to express the explosions of joy occasioned by the discovery of long sought-out but undreamed-of archives, such as some silent - and later resynchronised - film footage, or the few brief moments of Chausson's Poème played by Ginette Neveu, the silent yet moving (in every sense of the word) images of Kreisler and Ysaÿe, the awe of a young Menuhin, the superb single camera shot of David Oistrakh performing the cadenza from Shostakovich's First Concerto.'

Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra is a compilation album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in 1995 only in the US. The compilation favours album versions rather than single versions; tracks such as "Rock 'n' Roll Is King", "Shine a Little Love" and "Boy Blue" are longer. The compilation is sequenced chronologically and is based around US singles sans 3 from Xanadu, with exception of the European hit "Rockaria!" on disc one.