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Samuel Barber: Orchestral Works, Vol.2

from: Naxos

Release Date January 29, 2001
Barber's cello concerto of 1945 remains one of the finest composed for the instrument of the last century, and its popularity continues to grow after initial neglect. The reason for its neglect is probably its extreme difficulty, but with the current generation of super-virtuoso's the music is slowly taking its rightful place in the repertory. And what music it is! Considered by Barber, and many music critics as one of his most successful scores, the cello concerto contains some of Barber's most beautiful and invigorating writing - all the hallmarks of Barber's style are here: the rich tonal harmony, the rhythmic complexity, the taughtness of architectural structure and the poignent, searching lyricism. The cello sings consistently high above ... Read More:

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Samuel Barber - Orchestral Works, Vol.1

from: Naxos

Release Date May 01, 2000
Marin Alsop makes Barber fly in a way no other conductor can. The RSNO gives a haunting performance and this is one of the best recordings of a Barber symphony - ever! Their performance of the Adagio for Strings in March induced tears. This CD is a must in any classical collection.

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Barber: Violin Concerto

from: Naxos

Release Date November 14, 2001
Like most casual listeners to classical music, I had heard very little Barber apart from that ubiquitous Adagio, and I wasn't sure what I was going to get.

Well, it's light-hearted and dainty, and perhaps not what you'd expect. It has to be pointed out that the four pieces on this CD are actually all very different. The Violin Concerto comes across as a "serious" piece, while the "Souvenirs" is almost like a set of pastiches. The "Serenade for Strings" sounds almost Prokofiev-like in places. However, the "Music from a scene by Shelley" is perhaps the most interestingly spooky piece, evoking images (to me anyway) of boggy, moonlit woods.

Barber is certainly an accessible composer and ... Read More:

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Barber - Capricorn Concerto

from: Naxos

Release Date November 01, 2004
Like most casual listeners to classical music, I had heard very little Barber apart from that ubiquitous Adagio, and I wasn't sure what I was going to get.

Well, it's light-hearted and dainty, and perhaps not what you'd expect. It has to be pointed out that the four pieces on this CD are actually all very different. The Violin Concerto comes across as a "serious" piece, while the "Souvenirs" is almost like a set of pastiches. The "Serenade for Strings" sounds almost Prokofiev-like in places. However, the "Music from a scene by Shelley" is perhaps the most interestingly spooky piece, evoking images (to me anyway) of boggy, moonlit woods.

Barber is certainly an accessible composer and ... Read More:

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Barber - Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op 24; Toccata Festiva, Op 24

from: Naxos

Release Date March 29, 2004
I must admit that I am not that enthusiasticd for American Classical music, but as soon as I heard that the budget label Naxos were issuing a CD of Samuel Barber's "Knoxville;1915" I rapidly acquired a copy.
The CD is coupled with three other compositions by Barber that, although pleasant, are hardly spectacular. However, there is little to offend listeners who have reservations about 20th Century music as Barber was very much as conservative. Never-the-less, it is interesting to discover this music that was previously unknown to me.
Most purhcasers will buy this disc for the composer's setting of James Agee's nostalgic poem that results in something that captures in music the melancholy of the period evoked by the likes of Owen and ... Read More:

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Myaskovsky - Complete Symphonies, Vol 11

from: Alto

Release Date August 06, 2007
All credit to Alto for issuing the remaining Myaskovsky symphonies, left stranded when Olympia sadly ceased to trade. Now, following a deal with Olympia, Myaskovsky fanatics like myself can finish collecting Svetlanov's great cycle at bargain price.

The 15th and valedictory 27th symphonies are amongst the composer's finest. The 15th sounds folk inspired but features only original material, it was completed in 1932 and first performed in 1935. it is full of memorable material with a deeply moving slow movement (often the best movements in Myaskovsky symphonies)

The 27th, from the very end of Myaskovsky's life is, if anything, even more moving. At the time of its composition, Myaskovsky was seriously ill with cancer and under critical ... Read More:

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Vaughan Williams - Complete Symphonies

by: London Philharmonic Orchestra

Release Date September 20, 2004
and I like the box too: I can always pick it out among the other VW sets ;-)
A wonderful evocative 3rd, a tense war study. Not very pastoral, nor bucolic or lyrical: I do not agree much with Vernon Handley's interpretation. Rather it is the past remembered, resigned melancholy that something is not quite right, yet with self-discovery and steely determination that is discussed and evolved by the soloists. Never forget that a war demands and makes a different mindset we do not understand. I find Rued Langgaard's deeply disturbing 4th Symphony, "Leaf Fall" 1916, to be in good company here.
Haitink's take on things generally differs just a bit from the English conductors, but I think "In the Fen Country" in particular justifies buying the set. ... Read More:

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Britten: War Requiem

by: Galina Vishnevskaya Peter Pears Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau The Bach Choir London Symphony Chorus The Melos Ensemble Of London London Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Britten

Release Date May 15, 2006
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 end of the Agnus Dei. ... Read More: