Classical > 10 GBP to 15 GBP Classical > Stage works

Bethlehem - Rutland Boughton

Advantages: Beautifully sung and played. Gorgeous seasonal treasure
Disadvantages: Very heavily cut

This is a glorious work and my Christmas listening is incomplete without it. The recording is first rate with wonderful soloists and fine playing. My only gripe is that it is very heavily cut, with probably about a third of the total running time missing. King Herod fares particularly badly, with only one verse of his show steeling helentenor aria included. The ballet music (very much in the style of the Bachanale from Saint Saens' 'Samson et Dalila') ...
...in the 2005 New London Opera Group production and realised just what a powerful piece it is. However, for all my gripes about cuts, this piece really needs to be more widely heard. If you don't have a lump in your throat when the third shepherd gives the baby Jesus his mittens, you have no soul! ...

ChrisCann 21.11.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Rutland Boughton: Bethlehem

The Best Review in the World...Ever!!

Advantages: All the pieces are short
Disadvantages: There are 4 of them

This is a truly awesome collection of the most popular classics. I have to say that it is probably factually correct and thus not questionable under the Trades Description Act. Here are 4, not 3, but 4 CDs packed full with a seemingly endless flow of tunes you will instantly recognise. Now, let's be honest, who will this appeal to? Well not me that's for sure, but here are the top ten reasons why buying this CD collection may be an option for you: ...
...2. You want a quick bluffers guide to classical music so you can impress your mother-in-law at the Proms 3. You are a music teacher and need a resource for the class 4. You are a Classic FM fan 5. You are writing a music quiz and have no other classical CDs 6. You have a short attention span 7. You are buying something posh for your working class granny 8. You can't stand long pieces of classical music 9. You need shiny objects to keep the ...

Rogerbyname 21.06.2007 · Read full review
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Review of (The) Best Classical Album in the World...Ever!

A cracker of an album to be nuts about.

Advantages: Exquisite dance music. A fesrive fantasia.
Disadvantages: A little too fast moving

With all the festivities of Christmas now begun, we are bombarded with advertisements of Christmas Films, Pantomimes and CDs. Among these, and often overlooked, is The Nutcracker composed by Peter Llyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky was already well known for his Ballet music when he composed the music for the Nutcracker in 1892 with compositions for Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty already completed. Both had, however, been unfavourably received by ...
...The Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Vsevolozhsky commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose another ballet. Vsevolozhsky himself suggested that an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Alexander Dumas, be used as a subject for the ballet. Tchaikovsky was not originally impressed with this idea stating that it lacked the dramatic and emotional tension that had inspired his earlier ballets. But despite his discontent ...

MAFARRIMOND 04.12.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Highlights

sleazy landlord vs. scheming servants

Advantages: Great singing and lively performances
Disadvantages: Live recording noises! Quite expensive

If anyone had told me 4 years ago that I would become a huge opera buff I probably would have laughed in their face! But here I am, spending my money on buying operatic recordings, going to see operas, and singing opera. If you’re looking for an introduction to the world of opera, you won’t find a more perfect introduction than Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro - filled with wonderfully drawn characters and ‘hummable’ ...
...my interest and is still my favourite. ---Synopsis--- The opera is set in Spain (but is sung in Italian!) and the action takes place over the course of one day - the wedding day of Figaro and Susanna, both servants to the Count and Countess Almaviva. Unfortunately for the couple, the Count fancies Susanna and, as well as stalling the wedding plans, is planning on reviving the ‘droit de signor’ which allows him the right to deflower ...

bubblegum_princess 30.11.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro

Sumptuous works by a little-known composer

Advantages: Good recordings of unfamiliar, but rewarding works
Disadvantages: None

Karlowicz is a relatively unknown composer whose chief claim to fame was his untimely death in a skiing accident just before the First World War. He left a small collection of works, the later of which (figured in this disc) show a talent that was tragically snuffed out before he could achieve greatness. The Symphonic Poems featured here reveal a composer adept at interesting orchestral effects (try the sad theme at the start of the Lithuanian Rhapsody, ...
...writing for the lower-toned instruments of the orchestra. Karlowicz has clearly learnt a lot from Richard Strauss, whose shadow fell across much pre-1914 music, but it often lacks the extrovert quality of the Gernman composer's tone poems; as the inlay notes say, there is a 'brooding' quality to much of this music, particularly evident in the middle sections of these works. Another feature of Karlowicz's writing is his tendency to pick himself up ...

chivhu 15.09.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Karlowicz: Symphonic Poems Vol 1