Editorial Product Review: : Constantly exhorted to 'sing,' string players naturally try to emulate that most beautiful musical instrument, the human voice; no wonder they literally want to get their fingers on the treasures of the vocal repertoire. Joshua Bell has appropriated some of its best-loved songs and operatic arias, from Mozart through the romantics to Orff. Slow, sustained, lovely and yes, singing, these beguiling melodies and wide emotional range are eminently well suited to the violin. Credit for most of the arrangements is given to J.A.C. Redford, ...
Editorial Product Review: : Constantly exhorted to 'sing,' string players naturally try to emulate that most beautiful musical instrument, the human voice; no wonder they literally want to get their fingers on the treasures of the vocal repertoire. Joshua Bell has appropriated some of its best-loved songs and operatic arias, from Mozart through the romantics to Orff. Slow, sustained, lovely and yes, singing, these beguiling melodies and wide emotional range are eminently well suited to the violin. Credit for most of the arrangements is given to J.A.C. Redford, ...
Editorial Product Review: : Sir Adrian Boult's recording of the Enigma Variations with the London Symphony was made when both he and the orchestra were at their peak. It reflects an extraordinary blend of spontaneity and the grand manner, and shows great insight into the score. Smooth, flowing, and majestic yet animated, it is a finely molded account in which every variation counts toward the whole. Boult's approach is direct and eloquent rather than rhetorical, but very expressive. The sound is closely miked and remastered at a very ...
Editorial Product Review: : Sir Adrian Boult's recording of the Enigma Variations with the London Symphony was made when both he and the orchestra were at their peak. It reflects an extraordinary blend of spontaneity and the grand manner, and shows great insight into the score. Smooth, flowing, and majestic yet animated, it is a finely molded account in which every variation counts toward the whole. Boult's approach is direct and eloquent rather than rhetorical, but very expressive. The sound is closely miked and remastered at a very ...
Editorial Product Review: : Sir Adrian Boult's recording of the Enigma Variations with the London Symphony was made when both he and the orchestra were at their peak. It reflects an extraordinary blend of spontaneity and the grand manner, and shows great insight into the score. Smooth, flowing, and majestic yet animated, it is a finely molded account in which every variation counts toward the whole. Boult's approach is direct and eloquent rather than rhetorical, but very expressive. The sound is closely miked and remastered at a very ...
Editorial Product Review:Album Description:Old School, the new album from New York City's East Village Opera Company is an album 300 years in the making. Using a few centuries worth of opera's greatest hits as their launching point, the album took 12 months and 14 engineers to record and involved 65 involved musicians in 10 different studios around the world. EVOC has once again taken a selection of opera arias and re-imagined them as popular songs, using full symphony orchestra, R&B horns, and choir alongside the group's guitars, ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:The score for La Bohème comes to glowing life under Herbert von Karajan's baton, and Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti make beautiful music together as the ill-fated lovers. The smaller parts are wonderfully sung, the comedy sharply profiled, and the pathos contained in such a way that the opera's ending proves remarkably gripping. London's sound is excellent. --Ted Libbey
Editorial Product Review: :Resplendent in voice and manner, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti deliver 21 songs of traditional sacred music and secular numbers in a remarkable 1999 live recording from the opulent Viennese concert hall (Konzerthaus), with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and a renowned choir. The Three Tenors are practically as famous as the faces of Mount Rushmore and inspire perhaps even more awe and adulation around the world than the four presidents. The performances--whether alone, in tandem, or simply as the threesome that has made ...
Editorial Product Review: :Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach is one of those rare novelty recordings that never gets boring. In the capable hands of Carlos, Bach's keyboard masterpieces sound like they were made for the otherworldly blurps, farts, and chimes of a Moog synthesizer. And, in a sense, they were. Bach's inventive music doesn't lose any of it's contrapuntal punch in these complicated arrangements and, novelties aside, the playing is great on this Grammy Award-winning classic. Whether performing Bach's 'Two-Part Inventions,' 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,' or 'Wachet Auf,' ...
Editorial Product Review: :THE STORY: After the dramatic send off of his music into space aboard Voyager II, Mr. Bach drops in on a little girl at the piano -- along with his magic orchestra and choir. THE MUSIC: Over two dozen excerpts, including Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, Brandenburg Concerto #5, Flute Sonatas and Badinerie, Air for the G-string, Goldberg Variations, paino minuets and preludes, organ music and choral Cantata #78.
Small and light enough for a shirt pocket, Samsung's Helix YX-M1 is a one-stop audio entertainment center with an XM radio, a digital music player, and room for 50 hours of tunes, but it comes up short on battery life.