Requiem Mezzo Forte - Virgin Black

Advantages: Susan Graham sings nearly everything
Disadvantages: She doesn't live next door to me...

...'s and not as heavy as the likes of Marilyn Horne's or Teresa Berganza's). She has a luxuriously creamy middle register and can subtly shades her voice in different colors to great effects. Beautiful legato (connected lines of notes) singing with great pianissimo (very soft singing), but tends to get a bit edgy when singing mezzo forte and louder. Her lower register isn't as versatile as the rest of the voice. This singer is not known for vocal agility, though she isn't a draggy ocean liner either... She can cope fine in short and quick coloratura (florid singing of many notes in fast succession) runs, but she can't stay in Florid-ville like the true Rossini mezzo like Cecilia Bartoli or Vesselina Kasarova can. For a non-native speaker, her sung French is excellent (it helps that the voice is placed well forward). Her musicality is impeccable and she... Read review

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Advantages: Not bad
Disadvantages: Not special

...1997 proved a successful year for John Williams with the release of four films with his music in them: Rosewood, centering in the aggressions of several white people against the neighbouring black people in a peaceful Florida community in 1923; the sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World, offering much action and jungle music; Seven Years in Tibet (being definitely the best of the bunch), having several distinctly Tibetan melodies with a sweeping main theme; and then there was Amistad, making great use of African-sounding melodies. Amistad was based on a true incident of an uprising aboard the slave ship La Amistad in 1839 and the subsequent exposure of the slaves to the American judicial system. Despite being a Steven Spielberg film, it is not one of his greatest achievement, getting a little boring in the end. Again John Williams... Read review

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Advantages: Iconic and legendary tracks, nice cover art
Disadvantages: Some tracks are merely repetitions of earlier tracks

...The soundtrack to the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' is regarded in many different ways, just as the film itself is. Containing very little original material, but rather being an original combination of classical sounds, the soundtrack is powerful, harrowing and reminiscent of the images of the film. But it's likely that one will only appreciate it if also an appreciator of its accompanying movie. The overall theme of the music is dark, atmospheric, eerie and intense. The initial overture delivers indistinct noises of the black chaos (i.e. black screen) it plays over, a kind of representation of the state of the universe in the beginning of time. This track is largely without a melody and is purely there for its atmosphere of positive foreboding. The "sister track" to the overtures would be the two "Requiem" tracks, voiced by the Vatican... Read review

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