Morris Chamber Music

William Bolcom’s ambitious setting of William Blake’s complete Songs of Innocence and Experience for soloists, multiple choral forces, and orchestra occupied the composer on and off, beginning as far back as the late 1950s, with most of the work completed between 1973-74 and 1979-82. The composer’s renowned eclectic bent makes itself felt in the work’s nearly two-and-one-half-hour length. Musical eras, styles, and performance practices leapfrog back and forth in unpredictable progressions, keeping the listener in a constant state of suspense ……

Jed Distler@ClassicsToday.com

A Voyage Through Classical Music - a collection for lovers of classical music. Excellent selection of orchestral, chamber and other music, including songs with piano, strings, brass and other instruments.

December holds in its hands many worlds of celebration as the month unfolds with Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas and the eve of the New Year. Over the centuries a great deal of music has marked this time of year, but very little has been added to the canon in recent decades. Gordon Getty inspired us with his composition of delightful new Christmas carols to invite a group of American composers to celebrate the season in music. The result is a rich and tuneful recording of new holiday classics for you to share with your friends and families. We hope that you enjoy this festive and joyous music throughout the season and for many years to come.

Yo-Yo Ma is considered the world's greatest living cello player, a professional musician since the age of 5 whose celebrity transcends the world of classical music.

James Levine makes Siegfried, sometimes the problem child among the four operas of Wagner's Ring cycle, attractive and interesting. He is aware of the darker side of some of the comic scenes–the seemingly benevolent dwarf Mime carries the weight of Wagner's many prejudices–but manages to keep them uneasy rather than positively sinister thanks to the finally judged performance of Heinz Zednik. Siegfried Jerusalem is admirable as Siegfried, full of boyish enthusiasm during the reforging of the sword, and of authority in his confrontations with the dragon and with Wotan. (The dragon itself is, as so often, an unfortunate compromise between realism and stylisation.) James Morris is extraordinary in Wotan's scenes here, his combination of injured pride and relieved joy when Siegfried demonstrates, by shattering his spear, that Wotan has entirely lost control of events is exemplary.

The 200th anniversary of Haydn's death arrived in 2009, and this mammoth box boasts one CD for every year that's passed! Well, not quite, but only a composer as prolific as this Viennese-classical master could even come close: 150 CDs of symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, oratorios and more beautiful music that have challenged performers and inspired composers for centuries.