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More Than Just A Fleeting Wisp of Glory

Advantages: Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, Alan Jay Lerner's lyrics, Frederick Loewe's music-most of it.
Disadvantages: Some shopworn, predictable tunes and weak orchestrations.

Perhaps there's something to be said for more circumspect times. Today, all tabus are virtually gone, despite the misapplied and misguided efforts of those (screaming banshees called) extreme right-wing conservatives. Truly, when nearly anything and everything, no matter how outrageous and crass, can be sung or spoken or presented on the stage, where's the need for imagination and resourcefulness, clever lyrics and naughty innuendo in today's plays? ...
...were written by American lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Unlike the bland texts of such hits as 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Miss Saigon,' 'Jesus Christ, Superstar' and their kin, 'Camelot' virtually oozes sly and happy and not-so-happy wit through every phrase. Anyone still remember what comprised genuine wit-the kind which one rarely hears on the stage these days? But back to the irony of my premise: yet why is there still so much mediocrity in the lyrics ...

zerbine28 22.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Loewe: Camelot - original Broadway cast

A female hand, a feminine composer

Advantages: Sheer luxury of tone and sonority
Disadvantages: Can we ever have enough time for such diversity?!

Chopin from a female hand! I'd say, if you want just one set of these nocturnes you'll do no better than shop here with this lovely lady! There are so many ways to interpret Chopin no one pianist will ever get him wired 100% but here is a very good offering from Deutsche. I previously had a set by Ashkenazy and I way prefer this: less of the thundering concert pianist and more the subtlety of a chamber recital which for me is the style Chopin ...
...was best at home in Parisian salons. Still some thunder and lightning here, tho'! Probe Chopin's inner soul in his most enigmatic, restless, vital, original, diverse dynamic set of works for solo piano. Super for the student: listen before you learn, and sublime for the classical connoisseur, I think secretly even concert artists buy this for comparison! There are Chopins, many interpretations. Here is a set you'll come home to. ...

watchpig 03.11.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Chopin: Ballades; Nocturnes

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

Music for Meditation

Advantages: A good introduction to sacred music
Disadvantages: A rather niche album on which those into the genre will find nothing new

...the same. Requiem is subtitled "music for Reflection and Meditation". It takes various well known settings of the requiem mass, together with a couple of other fitting pieces and puts them together in one place. If one is so minded, one should note that this album is NOT a requiem mass. The pieces don't follow in the right order but, having said that, to the knowledgeable, the whole album stands on its own as a good religious set. One of the other ...
...who are less well-known. When one says "requiem" one might think of Verdi or Mozart but here we also have offerings from Spanish composer Lobo (a motet) and the Italian Pergolesi (an extract from his Sabat Mater). I feel that Naxos have really got it right with this compilation. The perfect balance between the known and the unknown is struck with excerpts from the more well known Requiems by Mozart and Verdi featuring more than once meaning ...

CareBear 15.09.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Requiem - Classical Music for Reflection & Meditation

Remembering ABBA's Classic Songs

Advantages: Contains super hit tracks
Disadvantages: None

The ABBA Agnetha Falskog vocals Benny Anderson vocals, keyboards, synthesizer Bjorn Ulvaeus vocals, banjo, guitar Anni-Frid Lyngstad vocals Full Tracks Listing 1. Dancing Queen 2. Knowing Me, Knowing You 3. Take A Chance On Me 4. Mamma Mia 5. Lay All Your Love On Me 6. Super Trooper 7. I Have A Dream 8. The Winner Takes It All 9. Money, Money, Money 10. S.O.S. 11. Chiquitita 12. Fernando 13. Voulez Vous ...
...Your Mother Know 16. One Of Us 17. The Name Of The Game 18. Thank You For The Music 19. Waterloo About each track (This contains year of recording and running time of each track. I personally like to read some few lines of each track when I read music reviews to help me familiarized with the song, so I added some lines of each track.) Dancing Queen (1976) 3:51 You are the dancing queen Young and sweet, only seventeen This track has ...

browndoll 25.08.2009 · Read full review
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Review of (The) Greatest Hits of Abba