Early Music For Meditation

At a simply unbeatable price, Meditation offers ten CDs worth of intimate instrumental favorites by classical masters. These timeless melodies are a soothing, soul-satisfying balm for our hectic, harried lives. Sail away with Pachelbel's Canon, Albinoni's Adagio, Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, Debussy's "Clair de lune," and Brahms's Lullaby, as well as melting masterworks by Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and many others.

Leslie Howard’s recordings of Liszt’s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard’s Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt.

The Russian Orthodox music presented here comes from the music for Great Lent, which is a meditation on the meaning of Holy Week. Great Lent or Velikiy Post, is the most important and one of the longest of the four Lenten periods in the year. It opens with a powerfully meditative chant 'Let all mortal flesh keep silent' which is specially sung only once a year along with the Old Testament lamentation 'By the rivers of Babylon'. The music here is, as usual with Orthodox chant, profoundly solemn and deeply meditative - some would say even mystical.

Meditation, mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca's 2014 release on Deutsche Grammophon, is an album of serene vocal and choral works that express religious feelings with an operatic touch and showcase the Latvian singer's warm and radiant voice. Choosing pieces from the early Baroque era to contemporary works, Garanca presents a soothing program that is consistent in its comforting tone and gentle treatment, though as a purely musical consideration, it tends to flow a bit too evenly and predictably. Insofar as the selections represent the Christian tradition, including settings of the Ave Maria, the Salve Regina, the Sanctus, the Agnus Dei, and the Regina Coeli, the character of the collection admits little variety, except for the general alternation between penitential and quietly ecstatic moods.

The music of Théodore Dubois (1837–1924) has rather been overshadowed by that of other French composers of the same period, not least Fauré and Saint-Saëns. But Dubois does not deserve his relative neglect: not only was he a superlative craftsman, but he could also unfold a fetching melody and had a strong sense of musical narrative. This recital of chamber works for oboe and strings is noteworthy for a further quality, one often underestimated: much of the music is, quite simply, charming.

This disc is another installment in the Naxos Barber series, conducted by Marin Alsop. It has some interesting, little-heard music: Die Natalie, variations on Christmas carols, and the Commando March. Both show Barber's versatility and Die Natalie contains some deft counterpoint as Barber creates some remarkable music on those themes. The Piano concerto is well played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the soloist, Stephan Prutsman.

One of the great mystics of the early 20th century, George lvanovich Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol on the border of Russian Armenia and Turkey. As a young man, he began to travel east as far as Tibet, Afghanistan and Central Asia, in search of spiritual enlightenment. Visiting ancient temples, Gurdjieff learned from spiritual teachers and absorbed music from all the places he visited. On his return to the West, he gathered a group of followers who were drawn to his charismatic personality.