Berlioz: Grand messe des Morts, Op 5

Advantages: Colourful and always exciting
Disadvantages: absolutely none

...works for the state, the Requiem or "Grande messe des morts" and "Te Deum" feature enormous orchestras and choruses (the Requiem's Dies Irae alone featuring batteries of trumpets in all four corners of the church blasting away at each other and are then succeeded by the simultaneous drumming of eight pairs of timpani, creating an unforgettable wave of sound). As an opera composer he had less of a success. His first opera, "Les Francs-Juges" only exists in fragments; Benvenuto Cellini was a total failure; the four hour "Les Troyens" after Virgil's Aeneas, was so huge that it was forced to be separated into two parts, and was even then performed only in part at the wholly unsuitable Opéra Comique, only receiving its first complete performance in the 1950's, a hundred years later; and the Shakespeare-based "Béatrice et Benedict" came so late... Read review

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Advantages: The experience of getting inside an artistic head
Disadvantages: French not quite idiomatic

.... Sur les lagunes 4. Absence 5. Au Cimetiere 6.L'ille inconnue RAVEL: Sheherazade: This is Ravel's Eastern nostalgia translated into songs. The cycle is based on Tristan Klingsor's text, and this rendition gives a strong experience of being briefly visited by a rather attention-deficited Oriental siren and her enchanted flute. 7. Asie 8. La Flute enchantee 9. L'Indifferent CHAUSSON: Poeme de l'amour et de la mer (Poem of love and of the Sea): Based on Maurice Bouchor's poems, this is pretty much a set of sung tone poems. Track 11 is a pensive instrumental number which contrasts well with the 2 songs sandwiching it. A final visit to the pensive lover by the sea whose lack of interest for companionship in the final tracks just demands that her privacy be respected at last and this 'eave-dropping' session must end. 10. La Fleur des eaux... Read review

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Advantages: Great performances of popular favourites and some rare gems
Disadvantages: Barely none, with perhaps slight issues with sound.

...Marketplace seem to begin from £2,98. For anybody even remotely interested in classical music and who already have a compilation album that contains all the usual suspects, this is ideal. Of recent times there are only a few compilations that have music I don't already have 15 times over, and thus "Colours of the Orchestra" was a really nice surprise. Warmly recommended if you want to expand you collection with something a little different. TRACK LISTING Disc 1 1. Alfvén: Midsommarvaka (12:43) 2. Anderson: The Typewriter (1:43) 3. J.S. Bach: Jesu bleibet meine Freude (3:27) 4. J.S. Bach-Stokowski: Toccata & Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (9:43) 5. Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op.11 (10:03) 6. Beethoven: Marcia alla Turca from The Ruins of Athens (1:48) 7. Berlioz: Ballet des sylphes (2:35) 8. Berlioz: Menuet des feux follets (6:06) 9. Berlioz: La... Read review

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