For 30 years, the answer to the question "Who's got the best recording of the delightful woodwind chamber of Strauss?" was "Edo de Waart and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble." While there have been other fine recordings, notably the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's DG recording, de Waart and the Netherlanders were so simple, so relaxed, and so virtuosic, so unutterably charming that they were the clear first choice. While this recording by the Ensemble Villa Musica may not be a first choice, it is mighty close. In this the second of two discs dedicated to Strauss' woodwind chamber music, the Ensemble Villa Musica has the same sort of simple grace and easy virtuosity that distinguished de Waart and the Netherlanders. .
For its harmonia mundi début, the London-based La Nuova Musica, led by David Bates, presents a true rarity: the original 1712 version of Handel's opera 'Il pastor fido' (The Faithful Shepherd) featuring Lucy Crowe, Anna Dennis, Katherine Manley, Madeleine Shaw and Clint van der Linde.
…Celebrated German label MDG have assembled a fine and varied chamber music programme of four movement concertos and sonatas plus an overture which shows off the composer in some of his finest and most varied colours and textures. Listeners unfamiliar with Telemann can comfort themselves as each and every one of the works contained here has expressive charm in abundance and sustained musical interest. No bland and plodding keyboard continuo here. (…) Telemann’s strength and depth in these chamber compositions is never in doubt and with consistently fine playing from the Ensemble Musica Alta Ripa this is certainly a worthy release.
C.P.E. Bach’s two surviving oboe concertos both began as keyboard concertos that were later transcribed for oboe; their intended performer was probably Johann Christian Fischer, a virtuoso based in Potsdam in the mid 1760s. This would perhaps account for their technical and immensely challenging solo lines, which suggest that, like his father, Carl Philipp Emmanuel revelled in pushing instruments and performers to their limits.
These albums aims to provide a selection of some of the most representative classic of world music, as well as a selection of recent successes, universalized in version "World". This denomination, we have baptized for the occasion as "La Musica De Los Dioses" (The Music of the Gods), provides a spectrum of influences, whose origins are in the most remote places on earth. Sounds, percussion and voices of the Amazon jungles, islands of Borneo and Indonesia or multiple regions of Africa converge here with influences from very different cultures and current rates.
The celebrations of ABBA’s 40th Anniversary year of 2014 continue with the latest release in the acclaimed ABBA Deluxe Edition series. In April of this year, Waterloo Deluxe Edition was released, attracting 4-star reviews in the music press, and in November, ABBA’s Spanish-language 1980 album Gracias por la música will receive the Deluxe Edition treatment. The original album has been expanded with 5 bonus tracks, plus a 40-minute DVD featuring vintage promo clips and previously unreleased television material. Gracias por la música Deluxe Edition will be released November 10, 2014.
Gracias Por La Música is a 1980 album by Swedish pop group ABBA. Gracias Por La Música was originally released due to the unexpected surge in popularity for the group in Latin American countries such as Mexico and Argentina after the release of the Spanish-language versions of "Chiquitita" and "I Have a Dream" in 1979…
Música Callada (Music of Silence) is a very special work, one of the most beautiful and elusive in the entire piano repertoire. It is extremely difficult to perform. On the one hand, there’s the temptation to stretch each piece out hypnotically, if monotonously, while quicker speeds preserve the music’s melodic essence at the expense of much of its atmosphere and harmonic richness. For although much of the music is indeed quiet, and none of it moves quickly, it is all meaningful. Mompou himself found the perfect balance between incident and repose, and of all the pianists since, Jenny Lin arguably comes closest to doing the same, only in much better sound. It’s not so much that her tempos match Mompou’s own (she’s actually not copying him–it would hardly be possible in a work containing 28 individual pieces), but rather that her phrasing and sense of timing let the music breathe and sing with its own special poetry. To take just one example, consider the sadness that Lin finds in the fourth piece, “Afflitto e penoso”, by allowing the piece’s harmonic color time to speak simply and eloquently.