Concertos for Four Horns

Advantages: Classic Concertos for Everybody
Disadvantages: Strings only!!!no woodwind...boo!

...The Four Seasons by Vivaldi Made famous by countless car adverts and Nigel Kennedy at the Albert Hall amongst other places. This has got to the piece that all fiddle player long to play and solo in! My first exposure to this came when I was seven, we had a hat making competition at school, the Hat Parade, and dad suggested making a musical hat and came up with the Four Seasons which was a favourite of mine as a youngster. Mum and me made the hat, which turned out to be a master piece in the end (for a 7 year old anyway!) and I won first place! I was fixed with Vivaldi for a long time after! Even a novice in classical music would recognise some of the notation! Vivaldi composed in Vienna, and was born 1678 and died in 1741. In these times, most music was composed and performed by telling a story and acting and dance were very... Read review

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Advantages: Good tuba muisc
Disadvantages: None

...The tuba has generally been ignored as a solo instrument, and although it enjoyed some success in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and the operas of Wagner, it didnt really emerge as a solo instrument until the 20th century. However, recently the tuba's potential as a soloist has been realised through the children's tale, Tubby the Tuba, where the whole point of the story is to highlight the fact that most peoploe would not think the tuba of being capable in taking a soloistic role, but the fact that it can take this role, and take it extremely successfully is shown here in this CD with these four Tuba Concerti, that were all written in the years after Tubby the Tuba. The first Tuba Concerto on the CD is Tuba Concerto (1978) by Edward Gregson. 1 - Allegro deciso 2 - Lento e mesto 3 - Allegro giocoso This concerto begins... Read review

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Advantages: It is simply one of the finest pieces of music ever written
Disadvantages: How dare you ask of any disadvantges!?!

...Harrison as soloist, but it was never really taken on, and was often considered as being "ugly" and a "failure." It took nearly 50 years for the Concerto to re-emerge to the public consciousness when a young cellist by the name of Jaqueline duPré took up the work and made it a world wide sensation. After DuPré's classic performances of the work in 1965 and 1970, the Concerto finally ascended to its rightful place of the most magnificent Concerto for Cello and Orchestra ever composed, right beside Dvorak's respective masterpiece. MOVEMENT BY MOVEMENT ANALYSIS (Listened version: 1965 recording by Jacqueline DuPré with John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra) I Movement: Adagio - Moderato Four jagged, outraged notes from the cello alone open the concerto as if to ask "What is this?" The cello continues in similar manner... Read review

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