Best Of The War Years, The - Lena Horne

Advantages: Two outstanding peices of chamber music for an unusual combination of instruments
Disadvantages: On the surface quite contrasting works, listener must be openminded

...The work of Ligeti has been at the forefront of Western avant-garde since his escape from the oppressive communist regime of Hungary in 1956, and he is widely appreciated as one of the most outstanding contemporary composers. The Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano because it was born out of a three-year period of illness and writer's block after the completion of Le Grand Macabre in which time he laboured over a piano concerto but completed only two short harpsichord pieces (Continuum and Hungarian Rock), yet the result in 1982 was the Trio, one of the finest and most complex pieces written so far. His career up to this point had included such sucesses as his Requiem, Atmosphères and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001. Tiring of his own cluster-textural techniques and the avant-garde, Ligeti refreshed his compositional... Read review

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Advantages: Some hugely effective underscore cues that bring a lot of dramatic gravitas the music needs
Disadvantages: As a final Star Wars score by Williams it misses it's mark in the end

...is starting to sound a little too standardized to really make much of an impact. The opening "Star Wars and The Revenge of the Sith" is a perfect representation of this. After the opening Star Wars fanfare (somewhat curiously taken from The Phantom Menace recording), the opening cue begins straight out without the customary twinkling stars crawl with a large scale action piece that is very typical of Williams. Despite much volume and pounding around the cue just paddles around without really going anywhere and existing without trying to achieve any definite goal. This kind of sense of incoherence is what unfortunately seems to haunt much of Revenge of the Sith and acts as a considerable hindrance to the general enjoyability of the music. The two lamentations on the other hand are some of the best the score has to offer. The first is "Anakin... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: It comes with a comic book
Disadvantages: Its odd, very odd

...it very easily if you have it on repeat. So, here we go. TRACKS (15) STRAT HEAR (0:05) Its 5 seconds long. It says "Yes I believe we're about to begin" Thats about it! BASIN STREET BLUES (4:47) Lonely bass starts this album which is backed up by that lovely vinyl crackle that is lost in this era of digital. A horn is brought in to join the bass. However its not quite any type of horn. Its a horn that is scratched and pitch blended to give the appearance of differing notes. Now if thats hard to imagine then, well yeah its hard to imagine. Its noticable that its horn but also it has that lil undertone of DJed that you'll find in stuff like DJ Krush. A soft drum line, with a couple of samples this tune is chilled out. Its what it says it is, its the blues with a twist. RADIO NUFONIA (0:51) A more obvious DJed number here... Read review

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