(The) Magic Bassoon

Advantages: Good introduction to the Opera and Mozart
Disadvantages: Narrative breaks up the musical flow

...In a promotion aimed to make Opera more understandable and accessible, Naxos have produced a series of CDs entitle “Opera explained”. The ninth in the series released on 22nd October 2002, is The Magic Flute composed by Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart. All the CDs in the series roughly follow the same format. The first section of the CD, lasting for approximately quarter of an hour, provides a brief and basic biography Of Mozart and illustrated by excerpts from a variety of his works. The recording continues with musical highlights from the Comic Opera interspersed with explanations of the plot and music. Mozart composed the Magic Flute in 1791 as a commission from Emanuel Schikaneder who provided the libretto. It’s debut performance took place on December 5th just a few weeks before Mozart’s death. The plot is basically that of a love... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Useful for helping to teach yung children about musical instruments
Disadvantages: The story is a little bit grown up for some of the younger audiences.

...Sergei Prokofiev is a fantastic composer and this is one of his best works. Peter and the Wolf is a story about how a child disobeys his gandfathers advice, and has a rather scary encounter with a wolf. He is saved by some huntsmen and the story ends happily. Each of the characters has its own representative instrument from the orchestra. Peter, a young boy is represented by the strings, who have lots of tunes with excellent harmonies. Peter's grandfather, whom Peter ignores, is played by the bassoons, a personal favourite of mine as i myself play one. I think that the bassoon has been chosen to play the grand father because it has a sense of age, and, being a bass instrument, has a sense of authority and towards the end sternness for the disobedience of Peter. Throughout the tale there are animals. The cat is played by the clarinets... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

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

...with this idea stating that it lacked the dramatic and emotional tension that had inspired his earlier ballets. But despite his discontent and personal setbacks, Tchaivoksky finally completed the score in April 1872 working in collaboration with librettists Ivan Vsevolozhskii and Marius Petipa . The ballet was first performed on 6th December 1872 in the Marinnsskii theatre and has been a Christmas favourite ever since. Tchaivoksky scored his ballet music for 2 piccolos, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, bass drum, military drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, triangle, castanets, toy instruments (rattle, trumpet, drums, cuckoo, quail, cymbals), celesta, 2 harps, SA chorus and strings. Tchaivoksky also completed a piano arrangement... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful