Lark on a String

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Emerson Quartet has made its first all-Haydn recording, featuring seven of his most famous quartets on two CDs. Presented chronologically, the program is arranged for utmost contrast of tonality, atmosphere, and character. The prevailing mood is joyous, as befits the occasion, though three quartets are in minor keys. The opening work, Op. 20, No. 5, is dark, brooding, and achingly beautiful. –Edith Eisler

These six quartets represent a high point of the Viennese classical style. In his later quartets, Haydn began traveling on the road to musical Romanticism and reached out to a large musical public. These magnificent pieces, on the other hand, have an intimacy, an elegance, and a generosity of spirit that make them very special, even given the almost unparalleled series of masterpieces that the Haydn quartets represent.

Arsenal of Democracy is the first solo recording by deconstructionist composer Julia Wolfe. Wolfe (b. 1958), who is the co-founder of New York's annual Bang On a Can festival, takes the orchestra from its traditional methods of emotional coaxing and replaces them with a ballistic immediacy that challenges the entire impression of what modern orchestration can achieve.

With influences as varied as Beethoven, Motown, and Led Zeppelin, Wolfe's compositions often contain bold, direct attacks, the body energy of pop music; the unreigned expressiveness of rock and roll; and, above all, a sheer delight in sound.

Limited edition 100 CD box set on the premiere classical label Deutsch Grammophon. Subtitled from Gregorian Chant to Gorecki. For some it will be the ultimate reference tool. For others a big place to start on something they always wanted to know about. Either way, the idea is to present a comprehensive history of Classical Music from its origins to the present day, covering all periods, including all major composers.

This two-CD collection offers a strong, masterfully performed selection of Vaughan Williams' shorter orchestral works. All the best-known pieces are here–the Tallis Fantasia, the Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending, Dives and Lazarus–as well as lesser-known but equally beautiful works such as the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, the Concerto Grosso and the Oboe Concerto. Disc One is devoted to performances by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; on Disc Two, Barry Wordsworth and the New Queen's Hall Orchestra take over, except for one selection–the fiercely dramatic Partita for Double String Orchestra–performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic. I did not think there could be a more beautiful performance of The Lark Ascending than the one by Boult and Hugh Bean, but the recording here by Marriner and Iona Brown is at very least its equal. For anyone who loves the music of Vaughan Williams, or for anyone who wants to get acquainted with this great and underrated composer, this double-CD set is a must.

Celebrated as the musical poet of the English landscape, Vaughan Williams was also a visionary composer of enormous range: from the pastoral lyricism of The Lark Ascending and the still melancholy of Silent Noon to the violence of the Fourth Symphony and the grand ceremonial of All people that on earth do dwell, he assumed the mantle of Elgar as our national composer. This edition, released to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, presents all the major orchestral, chamber, vocal and stage works, as well as many lesser pieces and rarities, in the finest interpretations. All your favourite Vaughan Williams is here, in over 34 hours of music on 30 CDs.

This is a Great Classical piece for the lovers of classical, as well as the ones who may hate it. These Adagios CDs get beter and better each time there is a new release. I must warn you there some good as well as some bad ones. There is a certain Adagio flavor for everyones.

Mozart was still in nappies at the time when Haydn more or less single-handedly invented the string quartet. Nearly half a century later, as he struggled - and failed - to complete his last quartet, Beethoven was already at work on his Eroica Symphony. In the interim, Haydn wrote considerably more quartet masterpieces than Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert put together, raising the medium to a level of sophistication, subtlety and originality that provided a yardstick for all later composers. Mind you, it took him some time to get there: it isn't until the eighth CD of this set that we reach the first of the unequivocally great works, the six quartets which make up Op. 20.