Masterworks Brilliant

To determine the worth of this 40-disc set called Mendelssohn: The Masterworks, let's assign values to each disc on a scale of one to ten and then add up the total. To start with, there are 10 discs of Mendelssohn's complete choral works with Nicol Matt leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Since these performances are uniformly well sung and directed and possess an uncommon amount of enthusiasm for the recherché repertoire, let's give them eight points each for a total of 80 points.

This whopping 40-disc set, which sells for very little, contains familiar performances of the major works, and most of them are quite good. Symphonies Nos. 1-7 feature Kosler and the Slovak Philharmonic–not a first-class orchestra, but a fine conductor who gets the ensemble to play idiomatically and well. The Eighth is Menuhin's (not bad), the Ninth Paavo Järvi's (quite good). The concertos come from Vox and feature Firkusny (piano), Nelsova (cello), and Ricci (violin).

A brilliant and affectingly different collection of transcriptions of favourite Bach movements, at times uniquely exhilarating, at others showing Bach at his most expressively touching… Adams's recorder playing is musically dazzling…but the other players complete an ensemble which is delightfully fresh and alive.

On Regina Carter's Southern Comfort, her Sony Masterworks debut, the Detroit-born violinist continues the musical journey of self-discovery that began with 2006's I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey, a collection of her mother's favorite jazz standards. She followed it with 2010's Reverse Thread, a brilliant collection of traditional and modern African songs. Southern Comfort traces her father's side of history through the music of America's Deep South.
Assisted in performing and arranging by her own band and some helpful studio aces, Carter delivers a program that weds the America's Southern heritage in folks songs – gospel, spirituals, child ballads, blues – through to its cultural evolution in the mid-20th century's country music, jazz, and R&B.

George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), one of the preeminent Baroque composers, was born in Germany, educated in Italy, and spent most of his career in England, making him one of the first genuinely cosmopolitan composers noted, for the elegance, sophistication, and tunefulness of his music. He established his reputation in London as a composer of Italian opera, but after public taste shifted in the 1730s, he turned to English oratorios, the most famous of which is Messiah. Other popular works include Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, the operas Giulio Cesare and Serse, and the oratorios Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabeus.

Sony Classical honors the great Rubinstein’s historic recordings with this brilliant collection that contains some of his finest moments committed to tape.

Baldassare Galuppi - Complete Harpsichord Concertos - Roberto Loreggian (2011) {2CD Set, Brilliant Classics 94161}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 755 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 292 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2011 Brilliant Classics | 94161
Classical / Baroque / Harpsichord

Italian composer Baldassare Galuppi is rightly famed for his huge contribution to opera buffa. He was also a prolific and popular composer of keyboard music, particularly sonatas. Two volumes of these recently appeared on Naxos (review). This double CD from Brilliant is even more of a bargain. It brings together the six Harpsichord Concertos of the Paris National Library manuscripts and a second in F held at Dresden, with two Flute Concertos by Galuppi and a keyboard Concerto in D previously ascribed to him but long since known to be by Joseph Haydn.