Chopin/Delibes/Gounod: Ballet Music

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

.... As is appropriate, there is quite a lot of Berlioz included, for he is one of the greatest orchestrators that ever was and his music really defines what "colour" in music is. There are two selections from the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust (a strange cantata-opera-symphony hybrid), beginning with the "Ballet de Sylphes," a light and fairy-like little waltz, giving ample proof that Berlioz could write music subtle as wind when he wanted to. The following "Menuet des feux follets" is likewise sweetly light, but features little surges of drama appropriate in a witches' sabbath, which allows the good humour of drunken dancing to sweep the section to a close. To cap off the sensitive Berlioz, there is the subtle and magical "Queen Mab Scherzo" from his "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette that is filled with quicksilver movement, magical feeling... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Everything you could ever want from a classical CD
Disadvantages: none

.... The Nutcracker - Suite Composed by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky 17. Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor Composed by Felix Mendelssohn 18. Cavalleria rusticana Composed by Pietro Mascagni 19. Gloria in D Composed by Antonio Vivaldi 20. Coronation Anthems Composed by George Frideric Handel 21. Cantata No. 147, 'Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben' Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach 22. Requiem in D minor Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 23. Ave Maria Composed by Charles Gounod 24. Miserere mei Composed by Gregorio Allegri 25. Requiem Composed by Gabriel Fauré 26. Lakmé Composed by Léo Delibes 27. Les contes d'Hoffmann Composed by Jacques Offenbach 28. Pavane Composed by Gabriel Fauré 29. Gianni Schicchi Composed by Giacomo Puccini 30. Madama Butterfly Composed by Giacomo Puccini 31. Nabucco Composed... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: A discovery unforgettable
Disadvantages: Nothing

...(Rewrite on 09/07/2001) Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (great italian "virtuoso") spent his life to search a kind of perfection during interpretations. He knew this perfection to be impossible but, for him, "perfection" was union between composer and player. Then,this perfection isn't impossible... Glenn Gould tryed the same sound by his pianos: in this way he was very careful to music structure: beauty of musical phrases, to give a geometrical "presence" to music a.s.o. Of course his Bach interpretations (but Beethoven and Mozart also), even if on a piano and not on a harpsichord or "fortepiano" , are excellent. Michelangeli is on the other side of the moon... His Chopin is mysterious, full of shadows and, in some compositions, unknowable. But, how does Michelangeli obtain this wonderful result? To answer it is simple and very... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful