Kniazev

Customarily, the booklet notes for recordings containing music transcribed for instruments other than those for which it was written make the argument that such transcriptions were normal, accepted, and so on, in the years when the music was written. The ones for this disc make the same argument, but it's not so relevant in this case – the musicians here join performance style to transcription in an effort to make something new, not just to fill a hole in the cellist's repertory (Mozart never wrote anything for solo cello). The transcriptions from Mozart's sonatas for violin and keyboard were made by cellist Alexander Kniazev, but it is pianist Edouard Oganessian who sets the tone for much of the music.

In his early days the composer-pianist Igor Raykhelson – born in Leningrad in 1961, once a New York resident and now based in Moscow – studied both classical and jazz piano. Both influences have combined to create a uniquely personal, Rachmaninov-plays-the-Blues Neo-Romantic style: not only is Raykelson unafraid to write a good tune- it’s clear right away whose tune it is. And in his chamber and instrumental works, the parlando manner that Raykhelson absorbed from jazz becomes particularly effective. Raykhelson’s chamber music is usually written for his friends, and here he is joined by some of Russia’s finest musicians, including the cellist Alexander Kniazev and the pianist Konstantin Lifschitz- and the violinist in Raykhelson’s lyrical ‘Melodia’ is his wife, Ekaterina Astashova.

A comprehensive survey of classical music - for the casual listener, this might be all the classical music you need in your collection; for others this provides a starting point for further exploration. Unlike many collections of this sort, most of these 30 discs contain performances by some of biggest names in classical music. Included are: Bach's Complete Brandenburg Concertos; Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; Beethoven's Symphonies 5 and 9, plus the Piano Concertos #4 and 5; Symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms; concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Mendelssohn; music by Ravel, Handel, Gershwin, Debussy, Moussorgsky.

A comprehensive survey of classical music - for the casual listener, this might be all the classical music you need in your collection; for others this provides a starting point for further exploration. Unlike many collections of this sort, most of these 30 discs contain performances by some of biggest names in classical music. Included are: Bach's Complete Brandenburg Concertos; Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; Beethoven's Symphonies 5 and 9, plus the Piano Concertos #4 and 5; Symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms; concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Mendelssohn; music by Ravel, Handel, Gershwin, Debussy, Moussorgsky. Performers include Horowitz, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Boulez, Szell, the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and many more.

This substantial 25CD set offers a fascinating journey through one century of Russian Chamber Music. All Russian composers were active in this genre and often composed their most profound, personal music for it.

This Sony-made 30CD classical music collection covers almost all classical music, from the early Baroque period represented by Bach to the schools of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms represent romantic, national and even modern musical schools led by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, etc. representative, everything wonderful and vivid.