Viva 2007

NEWSDavid Garrett Announces First Career Anthology, ‘Unlimited (Greatest Hits)’. The collection also includes six brand-new songs to commemorate Garrett’s first hugely successful decade in the spotlight. Violinist extraordinaire David Garrett is set to release his first-ever Greatest Hits album, Unlimited, via Polydor/Island on 26 October.

100 Greatest Summer Songs contains the definitive Artists & Pop, Rock. The Best hits from Dua Lipa, Kylie Minogue, Chaka Khan, Duran Duran and many more.

This recording of La Sonnambula is notable on a number of fronts. It's the first recording of the opera based on a 2004 critical edition of the score that confirms the leading role was indeed written for a mezzo-soprano, although it has been performed by sopranos for much of its history. (Among the first Aminas were the celebrated mezzos Giuditta Pasta and Maria Malibran.) It's also the first recording using period instruments, in this case Orchestra La Scintilla, based at the Basel Opera and conducted by Alessandro de Marchi in an idiomatic and lively reading. And, as the promotional materials trumpet, it's the first recorded collaboration between superstars Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez. Although less hoopla is made of him, the recording also features a superbly lyrical performance by baritone Ildebrando D'Arcangelo.

The classic music station Catalonia Música celebrates its 30th anniversary. This 3CD edition brings together thirty years of history, not only of the station but also of other musical events that have taken place over these years, as well as news from other areas, which have as much to do with the art as with everyday life. As a musical memory, it offers a collage of headlines that summarizes three decades: each record includes ten years: from May 10, 1987 to May 10, 2017. The listener will travel through more than thirty large-format recordings. historical value, accompanied by some of the most reputable interpreters and directors: Pablo Casals, José Cura, Joyce DiDonato, Angela Gheorghiu, Henryk Gorecki, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Herbert von Karajan, Rafael Kubelik, Alicia de Larrocha, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Riccardo Muti, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Mark Turner, among others.

There is no complete surviving score for Vivaldi's Ercole su'l Termodonte, but there is enough existing material that modern scholars have been able to reconstruct it primarily by making new settings of the lost recitatives. The first production of the opera since Vivaldi's time was at Spoleto in 2006 in a version by Alessandro Ciccolini, which was released as a DVD. Conductor Fabio Biondi made a version introduced in Venice in 2007, which is recorded on this 2010 Virgin CD. Biondi's recording has the advantage of two international superstars in the leading roles, tenor Rolando Villazón and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and soprano Diana Damrau is nearly in their league. Villazón's earthy voice is usually associated with 19th century and verismo Italian repertoire, but he has an acute sensitivity to Baroque vocal style, and his robust, almost baritonal tenor is entirely appropriate for a larger-than-life character like Hercules.

For quite a few years in the 1950s, it was a tradition at the Lighthouse for music to be presented on Sundays from 2 p.m. until 2 a.m. The Lighthouse All-Stars formed the core of the all-star group, but quite often other notable players would sit in. This CD reissue presents live performances from one such Sunday. In addition to the usual bandmembers of the time (trumpeter Shorty Rogers, trombonist Milt Bernhart, Bob Cooper and Jimmy Giuffre on tenors, pianist Frank Patchen, bassist Howard Rumsey, and drummer Shelly Manne), trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, pianist Hampton Hawes, and Carlos Vidal on conga have opportunities to be heard. The music is straight-ahead, generally cool-toned, but with plenty of heat; "Viva Zapata" is a Latin romp. Virtually everyone is featured. Highlights include "Four Others," and Rogers' playing on "All the Things You Are" and "Bernie's Tune."