Enigma Best of 2 cd

Of all England's living Knight-Conductors, Richard Armstrong is perhaps least represented on record. For 13 years, director of the Welsh National opera, he is best known for his work in that medium with just a handful of recordings.
In 1986, Marks and Spencer the famous department store decided to make its own in-house recording of the Enigma Variations coupled with the Introduction and Allegro and Serenade for Strings and booked Armstrong into EMI's Abbey Road Studios in July with the London Philharmonic to record this disc. The London Philharmonic had this music in its bones by then thanks to Adrian Boult and others, but Armstrong coaxed versions from them that are uniquely his own. Midway between Boult and Barbirolli, Armstrong's interpretations are scrupulously played but also at moments energetic, thoughtful and above all heartfelt. You get the feeling this conductors connects with the music.

Pump up the volume! No single phrase captures the sound of the 1980s better. Big, loud, bold, and brash – even the ballads had power! The ’80s were the last golden era of Top 40 radio. This was a magic time when the best music was also the music that filled America’s airwaves. Artists like Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, U2 and Prince were at the absolute zenith of their commercial careers, but that was only half the story.

The trio Arabesque was created by two Frankfurt-based German producers at the height of the disco era in 1977. After one album and a few singles that found surprising success in Japan, the producers changed the lineup, keeping Michaela Rose and replacing the two other members with Jasmin Vetter and Sandra Lauer…

This CD, issued under license from Vanguard by Italy's Universe label (on their Comet imprint), is one of the handsomest re-releases of its kind ever to turn up on CD. The sound is fine – and it's so hard to find an unworn copy of Ballad for Americans and Other American Ballads that anything would be welcome – but the producers have taken special care to re-create the original artwork and annotation in all of it thoroughness in a mini-LP-style gatefold CD package that's neat, handsome, and respectful of the original release, and will probably last for decades on shelves. As for the music, the CD showcases four sides of Odetta's work – her gifts in art-song and conceptual music in "Ballad for Americans," her solo folk and blues singing in the accompanying studio sides, her way with an audience in a live setting with the Carnegie Hall tracks, with her singing in a choral setting on the final four tracks of that LP. It all sounds great, and could arguably be a best of Odetta, even if it isn't an official anthology of that type. It's just sort of a shame – and an enigma – that it takes an Italian-based label to give these recordings their due respect in the 21st century.