Artur Balsam plays Mozart

Advantages: Unparalleled playing, Unbelievably good bargain for 6 CDs!
Disadvantages: Um, paper sleeves? No, seriously, it's great

...This box set comprises recordings from 1985-89, when Horowitz was 81 years old! In 1986 Horowitz returned to Russia after 60 years away to give his monumental Moscow recital of which the live recording is included in this set. I personally find this performance of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca to be the finest ever recorded. Alongside this is Scarlatti, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Schumann, Chopin, Moszkowski, and Schubert. Accompanying this recital is 5 other discs of outstandingly unique playing. As he got older, Horowitz's playing became a sort of caricature of itself in the nicest possible way. By this I mean, his dynamics became more extreme, he became more expressive than ever, and his sense of style was heightened to new levels. Horowitz's Mozart playing has been criticized for being too free and not in Mozart... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Haunting, passionate music to get lost in.
Disadvantages: It's classical and this puts people off before they even try it.

...interrupt it - particularly something as mundane as housework. Floon and I are obviously not alone in finding the quintet special. This music has aroused the passions of many and the notes say” Many musicians have spoken in awe of its spiritual Elysianism, including the pianist Artur Rubinstein (who requested the slow movement be played at his funeral), the great nineteenth-century cellist Alfredo Piatti (who asked for it to be played during his dying hours to send him into the next world), and the renowned quartet leader John Saunders who had the opening seven bars of the first movement’s second subject inscribed on his tombstone above the following Shakespearian quotation (Sonnet XVIII): So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. String Quintet in C Major, D956 (1828) The title conveys... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: The instruments actually manage to sing to each other!
Disadvantages: If there is any I'd like to know.

.... ---Le Nozze di Figaro--- 'Le Nozze di Figaro' or more popularly known as 'The Marriage of Figaro' is a monument of western art and is one of Mozart's most widely recognised songs. Although an opera I've here tried to describe the music, as unless you buy a DVD video of the opera you would not neccessarily understand the plot (and anywhay I'd prefer to conjour up my own thoughts for the music). It starts simply with just one instrument playing a few notes gradually picking up in speed and complexity and then quickly infuses many parts of the orchestra to bring its powerful effect up to full strength for the listener. It then calms to a more gentle pace as if one section of the orchestra were talking to the other and in turn replying. Later in the middle of the piece the conversation between the instruments gradually intensifies with one part... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful