Early Music For Meditation

Leonard Bernstein's own version bettered? Yes, indeed! This is, handily, the best sung, best played, most intelligently interpreted recording of Mass currently available. Of course, Bernstein's rendition always will have sterling qualities, including some wonderful solo singers with really characterful "pop" and Broadway voices, but for its sheer musical integrity combined with the advantage of the composer's final revisions to the score, this version is unbeatable. Jubilant Sykes, as the Celebrant, easily outclasses Alan Titus' very fine premiere recording of the role. His voice has more edge; he's more at ease with the various pop idioms; he sounds radiant at the work's opening and grows increasingly desperate as it proceeds. This only serves to make his climactic breakdown tragically believable.

The various street singers are, one and all, terrific. "God Said" becomes the work's comic climax, which is as it should be. "I believe in God", "Confession", "World Without End", and "Thank You" are both idiomatic and beautifully sung. The children's choir sounds luminous in the Sanctus, while the adult chorus, from Morgan State University, sings with gusto as well as immaculate diction, with every word clearly comprehensible. Marin Alsop knits the whole ensemble together with infallible insight and verve. Her tempos, a bit different from Bernstein's, quicker here ("God Said"), a touch slower there (the wild dance in the Offertory), are no less right.

David Hurwitz - classicstoday

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Dreams Melting, a revealing survey of British songs from the early 20th century by tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley.

Alexander Meshibovsky was born in Russia and graduated from the Kharkov Conservatory. He has performed throughout the former Soviet Union, as well as throughout Europe and the U.S. On this release he displays his broad repertoire capabilities as he performs works by Claude Debussy, Cesar Franck, and original compositions. In 1979, Mr. Meshibovsky immigrated to the United States, to work with Jascha Heifetz. In New York, he has appeared at Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, New York University, The Bruno Walter Auditorium, and at Lehman College. His extensive repertoire includes nearly 50 violin concertos from baroque to contemporary, early and modern Russian works, and his own compositions, arrangements, and transcriptions. Mr. Meshibovsky has served for many years as Professor of Violin at East Tennessee State University and the University of West Virginia, and is currently on the faculty of the Music Department at Lehman College, Columbia University Teachers College, and Long Island University.

Digitally remastered and expanded three disc (two CDs + DVD) editions of studio albums by British alternative rock band Suede. Collection includes: Suede (1993), Dog Man Star (1994), Coming Up (1996), Head Music (1999) and A New Morning (2002).

"Phénoménal Vengerov!" proclaims the cover of this budget box set, and for a one-word description that's not bad. Gifted with classic dark Slavic good looks, this Russian (in fact, Siberian) violinist has technique in abundance. In the music collected here, recorded for EMI between his signing in 2000 and an arm injury that temporarily sidelined him in 2006 and somewhat redirected his career, he's not so much a member of the "Russian school." In fact, the only Russian music on the three CDs is a transcription of the Rachmaninov Vocalise.

It was the age of the Lumière Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Karl Benz, the Wright Brothers and Louis Blériot, Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur – an age not unlike our own, marked by rapid scientific and technological development as well as intense literary, artistic and musical activity. The Belle Époque, the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the outbreak of World War One in 1914, was a time of apparent peace and prosperity but with a darker reality of social and economic deprivation lying not far beneath its gilded surface. This era of creativity and contradiction has long fascinated Daniel Hope: “I often wish I had a time machine to go back to the salons of Paris, indeed to that entire age,” he says.

Label ARCADIA (M.S.I.): Series "Esovision" - Collection [200 Albums] (1992-1995)
MP3 320 Kbps | Run Time: 08:00:25:25 | Size: 25.7 Gb
Genre: New Age, Ethnic, Experimental, Nature Recordings | Label: Arcadia Esovision

The largest and most definitive selection of long sequence material in the world, Esovision consists of Nature Recordings, Ancient & Early Music, Science Fiction and Ambient Textures; Melodic Soundscapes, Religious Vocals, Chants and Sacred Moods