Song Of The Ney, The (Persian Classical Music) - Hossein Omoumi

Advantages: beautifully written, great characters, more about Alexander the Great, historic, romantic
Disadvantages: contains violence and abuse

...Today I have the pleasure to present to you one of my favourite books ever. This book is so intense and beautiful - I soaked it up like a sponge! The persian boy What is it? "The persian boy" is a novel by Mary Renault. Mary Renault was born in 1905 and lived until 1983. She was a lesbian and fought the Apartheid in South Africa. She wrote several books on Alexander the Great - a biography and several historic novels centering him. It is assumed that Alexander was bisexual and took the persian eunuch Bagoas with him when he connquered Persia. This book tells us a lot about Alexander through the eyes of Bagoas, his lover and servant. Why did I buy it? When the Alexander movie by Oliver Stone came out in 2004, I was absolutely amazed and wanted to find out more about Alexander. I was thrilled when I found out about Mary... Read review

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Advantages: Great songs - wonderful, popular tunes
Disadvantages: A few songs aren't as good as the others

...I recently bought this CD from amazon, costing £4.97 (which I thought wasn't too bad a price for a CD of anout 75 minutes of good, popular classical music), because I thought it would be nice to have to listen to when I'm learning to drive in a few months time. When the CD arrived I put it on the shelf, intending to keep it until I'm learning to drive but the attractive cover was too attractive and so I just had to listen to it - and I'm glad I did. The CD is really good, with some absolutely wonderful songs like Gabriel's Oboe and Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini (18th movement), played by famous orchestras like the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra etc. Tracks include: 1. Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - first movement (07:12) This famous piece of music is played by the North German Radio Symphony... Read review

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

...cheaper discs. I've always found Naxos to be reliable and, indeed, some of my favourite versions of classical pieces can be found on this label. One thing to note, if you're not overly familiar with classical music, is that the recording can make all the difference. The variation in interpretation of the musical score can be as varied as thinking of all the cover-versions of popular songs - no two are ever 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... Read review

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