Vivaldi Juditha Triumphans

Ameling, one of the world's most beloved recitalists is captured here in a 5 CD collection offering some of her most beautiful recordings of song. While we are used to her perfection in songs of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Faure and Hahn, an added joy is her "pop" side, tackling - without a whiff of pretension, Porter, Kern, Gershwin, Ellington, et al. What an absolute joy it is listening to this amazing artist sing these songs with an almost uncanny natural ease. There is no resorting to a "pop" voice and yet most of these pop standards songs sound as though they could have been written for her. Clean attacks, sometimes a bit of the pop technique of hanging on to a consonant longer than a classical artist normally would shows an appreciation and understanding of the style. Still, there is never once a compromise of her vocal beauty.

This release celebrates and commemorates Yo-Yo Ma's 30 year recording career with Sony Music. Created with the full participation of Yo-Yo Ma, 30 Years Outside the Box, is the definitive collection of this iconic artist. The box set contains every original album Yo-Yo Ma has recorded including 2 discs of rare and never before released material.

Yo-Yo Ma Plays Cello Masterworks is an eight-CD box set of previously released material recorded in the 1980s and 1990s, and presumably so familiar to his fans that the package doesn't even come with a booklet. It really is a no-frills affair, right down to the thin cardboard sleeves that repeat the same photograph on the box, instead of offering original cover art. But the greatest disappointment is that only three of J.S. Bach's Six Cello Suites were included, so listeners seeking them should forego this budget package and find the complete suites, which Ma recorded twice.