The Heart of a Woman, And Other Poems

Clara Schumann's presence in the history of European music has become firmly fixed in recent years: the many new biographies, editions, recordings and performances of her compositions testimony to her significance and influence. Her songs, not as well known as her works for piano, are among the treasures of her creative work and can take their place with the best of the German Lieder repertoire.

From the twelfth century (Saint Hildegard) to the twenty-first, the voices of The Gesualdo Six weave a meditative reflection around the ancient Office of Compline in a moving sequence of music from fourteen composers.

Hyperion have come up trumps again with another delightful disc of out-of-the-way music. The brainchild of Graham Johnson, it is subtitled "150 Years of English Women Composers", with notes by Sophie Fuller, author of a book due out next year entitled The Pandora Guide to Women Composers. In the course of the programme the performers uncover a host of imaginative, impassioned and/or joyful songs that have lain for too long literally unsung, and revived others that were hugely popular until very recent times. Let me say at once that they couldn't have more perceptive or loving or enthusiastic interpreters than Johnson and Johnson, who excel even their own high standards of singing and playing.

On the face of it, John Denver was an unlikely candidate for pop stardom. He achieved fame with a message of wide-eyed optimism at a time when the U.S.A. was wracked by political scandals, economic uncertainty and the after-effects of the Vietnam War. His boyish looks and wholesome persona went against the grain of a society obsessed with hipness.
Denver provided an alternative vision and millions responded to it. A veteran of the folk movement (including a stint with the Chad Mitchell Trio), he emerged as a positive voice who could reach across the generational divide with his music.
Included in this definitive set of John Denver's recordings are his many gold and platinum-selling LPs including Poems, Prayers and Promises (with the hits "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Sunshine on My Shoulders"), Rocky Mountain High and Windsong (with such enduring compositions as "Annie's Song" and "I'm Sorry") as well as later forays into country and pop, all of which contain hidden gems worthy of deeper investigation.
A highlight of this set is a true rarity, the 1966 LP John Denver Sings, a privately pressed, limited-run album released only to John's friends and family. The recording captures Denver's youthful idealism and guileless spirit qualities that remained a part of his music until his tragic death in a 1997 plane crash.
The most complete package to date of John Denver's The Complete Studio Albums.Contains 24 original RCA albums released between 1969 and 1986, plus Denver's rare privately pressed 1966 LP, John Denver Sings. Many of these albums have never been available on CD. Each individual album is packaged in a replica mini-LP sleeve reproducing that album's original cover art.