Viúva Rica Solteira Não Fica Widow And Rich No Longer a Bitch (2006) José Fonseca e Costa, Bianca Byington, Cucha Carvalheiro, José Raposo, Comedy, Drama

One hates to admit it, but at this point in his career, pianist Maurizio Pollini is no longer a Mozart player. Although a supreme virtuoso, a passionate intellectual, and a consummate artist, Pollini has grown too brilliant, too intense, and too calculating for Mozart. Pollini's tone is crystalline, his textures are transparent and his tempos are perfect in this breathtaking 2005 recording of the G major and C major piano concertos, but it all seems too cold and too objective. Although he is also directing the Wiener Philharmoniker from the piano, this doesn't seem to encumber Pollini's virtuosity in any way; indeed, he appears to enjoy the challenge, audibly coaxing more force from the musicians' playing.

The plot couldn't be simpler: the Spanish nobleman Belmonte must free his fiancée Konstanze, her English maid Blonde and Belmonte's servant Pedrillo from the clutches of the Turkish Bassa, or Pasha, Selim. Belmonte must sneak into the pasha's seraglio and sneak back out again, all the while eluding and outsmarting Osmin, the overseer of the harem. With his Salzburg production of 2003, young Norwegian director Stefan Herheim raised a storm of controversy that continued to crackle in 2006, when the production was revised for the Mozart 22 cycle. The controversy was largely due to the fact that Herheim transposed the events to the inner world of the human psyche.

Lester Young's significance in jazz is not hard to gauge. His playing influenced almost every saxophonist that came after him. On this release, we hear Young teamed up with two other jazz legends, drummer Buddy Rich and Nat "King" Cole on piano. Following 10 tracks by this unique trio, we are treated to four additional tunes as performed by a sextet led by Young. The trio portion of this album is especially lush and intriguing, featuring wonderful renditions of Young's original, "Back to the Land," Gershwin's "The Man I Love," and a duet version of the gorgeous ballad, "Peg O' My Heart" (Rich had gone out to get something to eat). Cole's intimate piano style wonderfully complements Young's light, airy tone and unorthodox phrasing, and Rich, known for a flashy approach, plays quite sensitively here, using brushes on most tunes…