Vadim Shefner

Royal Ballet Principal Marianela Nuñez delights as Princess Aurora, with Vadim Muntagirov as her Prince Florimund, in this performance of a timeless classic. Marius Petipas The Sleeping Beauty holds a special place in The Royal Ballets repertory, with its vibrant sets and glittering costumes and featuring such iconic moments as the Rose Adage, the Vision pas de deux, the exuberant wedding celebration and the charming fairy-tale guests, all danced to Tchaikovskys richly layered music one of the most beloved ballet scores of all time. This Sleeping Beauty captures all the magic and virtuosity that ballet has to offer.

Vadim Repin’s DG debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker under Riccardo Muti gave the musical world and his many fans exactly what was expected of this first-class violinist: an incomparably refined, technically brilliant and at the same time highly emotional interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

Apparently a staple in Russia, the music of Taneyev exists on the fringes of the repertoire in the West, something that should be rectified–and will be if this superb CD made by a starry cast of performers gets the attention it deserves. He’s a Romantic composer, but hardly of the heart-on-sleeve variety, since he was a master of counterpoint and firmly encased his Romantic impulses in a well-fitted classical jacket. Sometimes he makes you think of a more modern, pungent Brahms with a Russian accent.

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert, held each year on 1 May, is invariably an international highlight. Performing in 2008 in Moscow's renowned Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle presented outstanding performances of works by Beethoven, Stravinsky and Bruch, whose Violin Concerto featured one of today’s most fascinating artists, the Russian violinist Vadim Repin.

Although he is fondly remembered for his many exemplary film scores composed during the Second World War, Korngold's more "serious" concerto works – particularly those written after the war – are becoming increasingly well-respected and widely performed. Chief among those works gaining tremendous popularity is his violin concerto. Hints of the sweep and grandeur of the film genre can still be heard in the concerto, but never to the point where Korngold's music sounds trite or unpolished.

In 1999, the US broadcast commission (FCC) decided absurdly enough that a pro-women empowerment record (Your Revolution featuring Sarah Jones) was too ‘crude’ for radio whilst allowing countless records that promote negativity to go. The decision ended up in court several years later under appeal with several leading Ivy league English professors coming to the defense of freedom of speech, freedom of expression and to argue the double standards of the ban and fine.

Wieniawski is one of those Romantic composers beloved of violinists and tolerated by everyone else. Judging from the number of performances and recordings, his music’s allure is fading fast, which is a pity because much of what he wrote is very attractive and at least entertaining. This is particularly true of the Fantaisie brillante on Gounod’s Faust, full of good tunes and effective contrasts. Violinist Vadim Brodski has orchestrated the piece very idiomatically in the best sense: it’s actually better sounding than Wieniawski’s own symphonic writing.

Le Transurfing est une technique de développement personnel mise au point par le physicien Vadim Zeland. La première fois que cette idée lui est apparue, c'est au cours d'un rêve ordinaire. Depuis, sous l'effet d'une fulgurance, l'auteur a écrit ce livre qui a transformé la vie de millions de personnes dans le monde. Transurfing, terme proposé par l'auteur, nous apprend que nous pouvons créer nous-mêmes la réalité que nous souhaitons et que nous aimons. Pour cela, il suffit d'appliquer une technique simple et rigoureusement scientifique, fondée sur les lois de la physique quantique. …