Meditative Music

If ever there were a recording that should be played in small doses, it's this one! Alan Hovhaness' serene, metaphysical, meditative music can send you into a near trance-state or, depending on the work, into a rage. Working with the principles of oriental art and mysticism, Hovhaness creates musical cells of exquisite beauty and then, coming from that same paradigm, repeats them seemingly endlessly.

Darko Nikčević and Srdjan Bulatović, the internationally renowned guitar duo from Montenegro, are acclaimed for their virtuosity and for exciting performances that blend influences from the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This programme captures the spontaneous nature of their musical creativity and documents the strange period in which the world first stood still under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on a shared Balkan heritage and using eloquently transparent melodies, these pieces express uncertainty and isolation as well as the deepest and most beautiful of emotions, from inner peace and contentment to a cheerful appreciation of life itself.

Margot Reisinger has composed, performed and produced contemporary World Music based on a great diversity of cultures. In her unique style she brings together artists from a wide range of ethnic musical traditions with contemporary Western musicians to create a cultural understanding in the universal language of music…

"Meditation Elements" is designed for deep relaxation, sleep therapy, stress relief, massage, aromatherapy, yoga and meditation. Gold CD artists perform classical and New Age music that is the perfect music for relaxing in the spa, at work or at home.

David Starobin - New Music for Guitar, Vol. 8 (2013) {Bridge 9404}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 233 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 133 Mb
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© 2013 Bridge Records | BRIDGE 9404
Classical / Modern Classical / Modern Classical / Guitar

David Starobin continues his award-winning New Music with Guitar series after a six year hiatus. Volume 8 includes two solo works and two chamber pieces in their premiere recordings. Starobin's own composition, Variations on a Theme by Carl Nielsen, takes Nielsen's “Song Behind the Plow”, first published in 1899, and subjects it to 12 variations. Paul Lansky's Partita for guitar and percussion is in four beautifully wrought and intricate movements. Six Pages by the Danish composer Poul Ruders, presents miniatures that range from light and comic to sustained and meditative. George Crumb's Ghosts of the Alhambra is a song cycle based on poems of Lorca, and features the distinguished American baritone, Patrick Mason.

Franz Xaver Scharwenka - Piano Music Vol.4 - Seta Tanyel (2003) {Hyperion-Helios CDH55134 rec 1995}
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© 1995, 2003 Collins Classics / Hyperion Records / Helios | CDH55134
Classical / Romantic / Early 20th Century / Piano

'… brimful with alert character and beauty whilst the two piano pieces are delightful in their raucous melodies … briliantly done by Tanyel' (Classical Net Review). It was brave and useful and laudable of Seta Tanyel and the now-defunct label Collins Classics to have embarked, in the 1990s, in a thorough exploration of the music of Xaver Scharwenka (1850-1924), and one must be grateful to Hyperion to have reissued almost all of it. The 4-volume traversal of his solo piano music doesn't embrace I think Scharwenka's complete piano output, but it is still very substantial. Add to that the three first piano concertos (apparently Collins didn't live long enough to record the Fourth, and the first is the one disc that Hyperion did not reissue, Piano Concerto 1, obviously because they already had another one in their catalog, Rubinstein: Piano Concerto No. 4; Scharwenka: Piano Concerto No. 1) and what I think was the complete chamber music. However, I didn't always feel that the results lived up to the project's promises.