The Heroes Symphony of Philip Glass is one of two symphonies he wrote based on albums by David Bowie (the other is the Low Symphony). This recording by Marin Alsop, one of Britain's (and now America's) most talked-about conductors, suggests that the idea has been successful enough to move beyond the usual Glass orbit and into conventional ...
Famously unapologetic for bucking the avant-garde, Ned Rorem was largely ostracized by the new music intelligentsia of the 1950s, and his three symphonies from that decade were unfairly neglected. They remained so, even when neo-Romanticism became fashionable again toward the end of the twentieth century. This 2003 release from Naxos at last gives ...
This budget set includes a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 that won raves from British reviewers and a Gramophone Award in the late '80s, just a few years after pianist Peter Donohoe won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Here it is united with Tchaikovsky's other major works for piano and orchestra, the Concerto No. 1, the ...
Naxos' American Classics series has here gotten around to two Philip Glass symphonies not long after their premiere recordings on Nonesuch. Philip Glass: Symphonies No. 2 and 3 combines two works from the 1990s that are more or less not in the vein that made Glass popular, which is a good thing if the insistent patterning and repetition of his ...
This 2007 release of Paavo Berglund leading the Bournemouth Symphony in selected tone poems and incidental music by Jean Sibelius is a straight reissue of the same title from 1997. Berglund is a masterful Sibelius conductor, and these are some of the most persuasive performances on record. His approach emphasizes balance and accuracy; he does not ...
Unlike his insouciant, cabaret-styled music for The Threepenny Opera, Kurt Weill's Symphony No. 1 (1921) and his Symphony No. 2 (1933-1934) seem more dutifully observant of the European Classical tradition and perhaps a little straight-jacketed by formal obligations. This is not to say that these symphonic essays are dull or artificial -- far from ...
Even though he was widely celebrated as one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century, Leonard Bernstein has already become the subject of a critical reassessment and cautious revival in the early twenty first. This 2005 Naxos CD presents three of Bernstein's appealing but underplayed and under-appreciated concert works, ...
Even listeners who rightly treasured their LPs of Tippett's first three symphonies by Colin Davis and the London Symphony had to be grateful when Richard Hickox and the Bournemouth Symphony recorded all four of Tippett's symphonies for CD. After all, not only are Tippett's symphonies arguably in the same class as Elgar and Vaughan Williams', but, ...
Like Steve Reich and Philip Glass, John Adams has developed minimalism into a more expressive and versatile language than it promised in the 1970s, when pattern music was at its height but also at its most rigorous and severe. Judging from the works on this 2004 Naxos release, Adams has progressed from the limitations of static repetition, ...
The gift that conductor and composer José Serebrier inherited from his former mentor, Leopold Stokowski, is immediately apparent upon even a brief listen to this album. Both men have an alluring gift: the ability to make an orchestra sound gorgeous. Serebrier is perhaps one of the few remaining authoritative spokesmen for Stokowski, and his ...
One of the most popular of modern choral works, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana has found its way into many collections just on the strength of its foreboding opening, "O Fortuna." Because this work is well represented in all the major labels' catalogs, one has a wide array of performances to choose from; while several are excellent, it is difficult to ...
Long familiar as a concert suite, Béla Bartók's one-act ballet The Miraculous Mandarin (1926) is now more frequently recorded in its entirety, thanks to the CD's abundant playing time; the full piece easily fits with additional works. This 2004 release from Naxos offers not only the complete Mandarin, but also the rambunctious Dance Suite (1923) ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
![Sibelius, Sinding: Violin Concertos [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m04667kc0t9_t.jpg)
![Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m10333uw9mu_t.jpg)
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.