This is a collection of traditional Christmas carols and music from two of today's most respected choirs - The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Sixteen. These performances are subtle and restrained ones from a quiet chapel rather than a Songs of Praise edition from Westminster Abbey, so they are perfect for a quiet sit-down on Christmas Eve or calming Christmas Day morning reflection on life before the work begins.
Christmas CDs are in abundance, but this one offers some lovely traditional versions of songs as they were intended to be heard.
The others in the `Classic FM For' series are albums dedicated to Babies, Dinner Parties, Driving, Fitness, Mums, Romance, Studying, Weddings, so it will also ... Read More:
>>More Details
Recently I purchased the latest Katherine DVD Katherine In The Park, and was absolutely delighted with it. This concert, filmed at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod on 9 July 2006 a year earlier, clearly shows Katherine as a rising star who was fast making a name as one of the most popular singers of today. It is a delightful concert containing many of Katherines most popular songs:
L'Amore Sei Tu (I Will Always Love You)
O Sole Mio
Be My Love (her tribute to the great Mario Lanza)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Time To Say Goodbye
just to name a few. And to make it even better, the various arias and musical extracts from Bizet's Carmen with Katherine wearing a Spanish Costume (she looks absolutely ... Read More:
>>More Details
Recently I purchased the latest Katherine DVD Katherine In The Park, and was absolutely delighted with it. This concert, filmed at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod on 9 July 2006 a year earlier, clearly shows Katherine as a rising star who was fast making a name as one of the most popular singers of today. It is a delightful concert containing many of Katherines most popular songs:
L'Amore Sei Tu (I Will Always Love You)
O Sole Mio
Be My Love (her tribute to the great Mario Lanza)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Time To Say Goodbye
just to name a few. And to make it even better, the various arias and musical extracts from Bizet's Carmen with Katherine wearing a Spanish Costume (she looks absolutely ... Read More:
>>More Details
This was the piece of music that first really turned me on to classical music, listening to the very first performance from Coventry Cathedral on a small tranny radio. What I failed to realise then was that this massive impact was achieved by brilliant structural simplicity.
The whole work is effectively a study on the tritone, the 'diabolus in musica', that most disturbing and unstable of intervals. From the bells at the start to the harmonically ambiguous endings of the first and second movements and of the entire work; from the alternating tonics of the boys' Te Decet Hymnus to the alternating tintinnabulations of the soprano's Sanctus; from the fanfares of the Dies Irae to the two halves of the tenor's ineffable Dona Nobis Pacem at the ... Read More:
>>More Details
This disc may polarise opinion as everthing this pianist seems to do- I regret to say much of the antipathy seems to be the result of marketing hype and the way Grimaud's looks are used. Well...whatever, the fact is she is a wonderful pianist and an imaginative programmer. The only weak part of this disc is the concerto and that is principally because the piano is too prominent- which is an engineering rather than a musical issue. The other pieces are beautifully played. The Busoni version of the great Chaconne takes centre stage and rightly so.
>>More Details
This disc may polarise opinion as everthing this pianist seems to do- I regret to say much of the antipathy seems to be the result of marketing hype and the way Grimaud's looks are used. Well...whatever, the fact is she is a wonderful pianist and an imaginative programmer. The only weak part of this disc is the concerto and that is principally because the piano is too prominent- which is an engineering rather than a musical issue. The other pieces are beautifully played. The Busoni version of the great Chaconne takes centre stage and rightly so.
>>More Details
yes it didn't win a Gramophone award but surely it's a fantastic recording. crystal clear, well directed by Sir Charles Mackerras. Listening to them is pure joy. Dont know where to start? this is the recording that you can start with absolutely! 5 star!
>>More Details
This Cistercian abbey has a continous history since its foundation. My only criticsm is that according to the Rule Cistercians should chant in the Ambrosian mode - very slow & ponderous, and this CD is a little too fast. One of the plus points is that Cistercians do not have choir boys so the overall effect is a deeper more inspiring chant.
>>More Details
As a professional concert pianist for the last thirty years or so, it was a great relief to find that they have released everything you need on 2 CDs. Sure enough, since I bought it I have been able to discard the 1000 or so CDs that I had collected of performers like Cortot, Horowitz, Rachmaninoff and Schnabel (and I now have enough room for a pool table!). They are simply not necessary when you have these two CDs.
>>More Details