Artur Rubinstein Collection, Vol 81

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: Hugely enjoyable music, fresh and free of pretence
Disadvantages: Unfamiliarity?

...Brazil’s most celebrated classical composer wrote some two hundred works for piano, many of which sadly languish in the wilderness. This disc will do much to advocate his appealing musical personality. The collection begins with the suite “As Tres Marias,” a trio of movements lasting barely three minutes. Based on the stars of Orion’s belt, it is one of Villa-Lobos’ most popular pieces, here played with great panache by the Canadian virtuoso Marc-Andre Hamelin. The closing Rudepoema, a fiercesome score from the 1920s dedicated to Arthur Rubinstein, paints a completely different sound picture. It’s a concentrated work, powerful and uncompromising, and perhaps surprisingly it delves into the world of polytonality as realised by Milhaud in the same decade. It takes several listens to fully appreciate the larger scale that Villa... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Varied popular songs plus some obscure ones
Disadvantages: The obscure songs are probably not to everyones taste

...This is the second CD I have brought from this series, I find these CD's a general overview of the years music relating to well known tracks to some that are unknown to me. This therefore make is a very good album to listen to as you know what you are getting from some of the songs. artists like Sterophonics, Muse, Athlete, The Libertines and so on are well known and will appeal to the majority. There are however some more obscure songs bands like Client, Bees, which although are not to bad for my taste they may not appeal to everyone. On the whole I have found this to be a good album in my collection and one that I will listen to if I can not make up my mind. If you like the main popular songs on this album then I would recommend to have this in your collection.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful