Britten: Violin Concerto; Canadian Carnival Overture

Advantages: Excellent recordings on one CD
Disadvantages: Competing with so many other recordings

...These recordings of the Brahms and Sibelius Vioin Concertos are performed by Tasmin Little and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As you would expect, the quality is excellent. Tasmin has no difficulties with the technical side of the music, giving a first rate performance. There is little I can say about the CD. There are a few recordings of these concertos competing for top place, and this one is certainly in the running. However, it might be worth comparing this to the recordings by Kennedy and Maxime Vengerov before parting with your money, but it is really down to a matter of personal preference.... Read review

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Advantages: An excellent introduction to Classical Music
Disadvantages: None

...catalogue. The names are not all familiar , but the music is uniformly excellent, so for every Beethoven you get a Corelli, for every Verdi you get a Palestrina and so on. The first CD opens with a Gregorian Chant (De Profundis) and is followed by "O Virga Mediatrix" by Hildegard Von Bingen. More familiar territory is covered on the second CD which opens with Scubert's "Ave Maria" and includes Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" , finishing with Orff's "O Fortuna", Britten's "Playful Pizzicato" and Glass' "Violin Concerto - 1st Movement". A very listenable collection, and available for 8.99 GBP from Amazon. This is the sort of opinion where a spell checker is not much uses. I hope I got all the names right. Useful related web sites are www.naxos.com www.hnh.com Copyright © 2001 by Mike Singleton, Newcastle, England... Read review

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Advantages: Lively, fun, recorder solos
Disadvantages: None

...other reviews) is an instrumental work that contrasts solo instruments against a larger ensemble of instruments. In this recording the solo instrument is the recorder and the larger ensemble the typical Baroque accompaniment of violin, viola, cellos and harpsichord continuo. Early Baroque concertos consisted of four movements alternating slow and fast movements. Later Baroque concertos moved to three movements (fast – slow – fast). Although Telemann composed in the late Baroque era, he retained the four-movement pattern to his concerto writing as seen in the three concertos of this CD. The recorder emerged s a solo instrument in the 17th Century. The Baroque recorder was mainly popular at the beginning of the century with a large amount of chamber music composed for it. By 1730, the flute was generally used in its place. Telemann... Read review

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