Verdi Essential

This is one of the best recordings I've heard of Gershwin's two big piano works. Eugene List is just phenomenal. He plays with a big, steely sound, but has plenty of feeling for the jazzy accents of both works. I can't praise Howard Hanson's contribution enough. The orchestra simply speaks Gershwin, in a manner that only a great conductor who absorbed this music and the influences on it in his youth could bring off. Hearing Hanson conduct Gershwin is like hearing Serafin conduct Verdi, so complete is the identification with the composer. The sound engineering is some of the best Mercury produced in Rochester, wide ranging with plenty of detail. I do question what Stars and Stripes is doing here, although it is a good performance with a student orchestra. Nevertheless, this is essential listening for the Gershwinaholic, as iconic in its way as Oscar Levant's performances.

A user's guide to opera—Matthew Aucoin, "the most promising operatic talent in a generation" (The New York Times Magazine), describes the creation of his groundbreaking new work, Eurydice, and shares his reflections on the past, present, and future of opera

The Italian operatic repertoire offers some of the most passionate and much-loved music in the classical canon. In this outstanding collection, Azer Zada has selected music of moving intensity, dramatic power and spiritual resolve in works by Donizetti, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini and Verdi. Favourite tenor arias such as Nessun dorma!, Una furtiva lagrima, Recondita armonia and E lucevan le stelle are included, as well as three essential intermezzi by Mascagni.