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Divenire (Special Edition, BONUS DISC: 3 Brand New Remixes)

Wonderful easy listening, 2007-12-27
I picked this up after I was transfixed by the track Otremare which was used in the film This Is England. I'd read that most of the music by Einaudi sounds similar, yet each track is unique. I couldn't agree more. This is hughly addictive stuff. Mostly piano with the occasional string instrument thrown in, this makes for a great listen while pottering about or just winding down. I don't listen to a great deal of music like this generally so I can't really compare it to anything else or even claim to understand why I like it. But I do really like it.

A Classic Christmas: the Ultimate Collection of Christmas Classics and Carols

Simply Wonderful Listening, 2001-12-21
I have tried to buy this again for two years and I am thrilled it has been re-released. The CD is filled with many classical tunes that featured as THE Christmas TV tunes in my childhood and teens e.g. the Timex advert. Great tunes combined with good artists and best of all, not what you hear playing in all the supermarkets! A truely "Classey" classic that I would recommend to anyone who likes good music.

Siempre

Voices from heaven, 2007-05-20
Maybe at the age of 77yrs I am one of their oldest fans. I just want to keep on listening to those gorgeous voices. They not only give me goose bumps but I get a lump in my throat and stinging at the back of my eyes until I give in and let the tears flow. Any singers that can do that to a person have to be very special indeed. Thank you Simon Cowell for getting them together, but I would like to hear a little more singing in English.

Holst: The Planets / Elgar: Enigma Variations

Tales from the Greek Legends (Junior Classics)

Keeps the kids happy on long car journeys, 2006-08-02
We purchased this CD on the basis of another Amazon review and weren't disappointed. Ths kids (aged 8 & 6) love the stories (Heracles, Theseus, Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts among others) and the CD is requested on every car journey! It's a painless way of getting a bit of knowledge/history into us all. The stories are re-told in modern language with some music thrown in for effect at key points, which all adds to the effect. The narrator has a pleasant voice (important when these CDs are played repeatedly!) and even though we all know the stories backward now, enjoy them still.

Works of Igor Stravinsky [22cd]

Discs 3, 12, 13 and 20 ..., 2007-10-20
This extraordinary gathering of the main body of Stravinsky's works, substantially conducted by the composer, is an obvious eye-catcher, especially at the very appealing pricing. It is indeed wonderful, but inevitably there are some drawbacks. Few listeners will want to sit down to listen to 22 CD's of one composer's output in a row; most listeners will find their ears wearying somewhat at the very dated sound quality - the majority of the recordings are from the 1960's, and although many come up surprisingly well, the sound is often plummy and sometimes worse. Crucially, the harsh truth is that the majority of the conducting took place when Stravinsky was in his eighties. We love the feel of the authenticity, but I am sure I will not be the only listener who pines for greater energetic impact.

The four CD's I have sampled so far are the 3rd (of 7 discs devoted to Ballet music), the 12th and 13th (the two "chamber and historic" CD's) and the 20th (first of two on "sacred works").

From the 3rd, Les Noces is sung in some kind of English translation. If you are used to this in Russian, the words are sure to sound perverse at times. But the four pianists are an amazing line-up - Barber, Copland, Foss and Sessions, and the singing is pleasantly clean-voiced in a piece that glistens with some of Stravinsky's finest ensemble writing. Less successful is Renard the Fox, a piece of entirely different cultural positioning which nonetheless is made to sound bizarrely similar to Les Noces. The disc closes with a rendering of The Soldier's Tale whose cheerfulness comes across despite the limited qualities of the sound.

Discs 12 and 13 give a different slant, with the composer himself at the keyboard (recordings from 1934, 1938 and, with Szigeti in the Duo Concertant, 1945). The sound from 1934 (the Serenade in A) is really too poor to make much of, but the 1938 take of the Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (Igor and son Soulima Stravinsky) has an undeniable sense of father and son enjoying themselves without stretching too hard to get all the notes exactly right. Szigeti sounds happy enough to be with the great composer to be too worried about his accompanist's fingers. The solo piano works only really come to life as true interpretative performances when Charles Rosen steps up to do the Sonata, which as you would expect is done with huge refinement and intelligence.

The bigger chamber works are also a mixed bag. Best for me was the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, where the playing is full of sympathy and I found myself forgetting the 1951 sound quality. Some of the other light pieces left me with eyebrows raised as to why the great man troubled to write down some of the limp ideas - the Tango for example is surely too lugubrious even to be taken as ironic.

The Sacred music disc however includes some fine things. The Mass is probably best of these - the performance had me wondering anew at Stravinsky's intriguing choice of double wind quintet to accompany the choral writing. I have long loved the Cantata, but there are few surprises here (apart from "Right Mighty Elizabeth" being tossed away like a scrumpled sweetwrapper) and most afficionados of this fine work will want something much better recorded for regular listening or study. Lastly I really wonder why the Bach "Chorale Variations" arrangement was included at all - the choir sound almost as though they are sight-singing and the work is of very limited interest in relation to Stravinsky's wider achievements.

But I am not cavilling overall - just cautioning listeners that this fantastic offer is not all fresh caviare. I am listening on with enthusiasm !

Carols from King's

Songs of Joy and Peace: Deluxe Edition

Last Choir Standing

You can't go far wrong with this, 2008-11-08
For anybody who watched the series earlier in 2008, this is a must. It contains all the best songs from the final weeks of the series, although none of the earlier weeks seem to have been included. (Maybe this is because the earlier weeks were a bit ropey at times!)

The only downside is that Last Minute seem to have been excluded, and I know many others like myself, thought they were a real hit. On the whole though, very worthwhile.

Eternal - Best Of Libera

A rip-off? Maybe, but who cares?, 2008-12-17
So, Libera were to issue a 'Best Of' double CD. We were advised that it would contain a lot of their old material but with a smattering of new songs. And having checked the track listing, I noted that I had every one of their old tracks on previous purchases but I was intrigued by the new stuff. So, despite the incomprehensible ramblings of an earlier reviewer on here, I went ahead and purchased my copy.

Now, let me say first of all that this is an excellent collection. Even though a true 'Best Of' assembly would have included numbers that were recorded on their previous label, this is still impressive and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who has only recently discovered Libera. But the question for existing fans will inevitably be: "Is this a rip-off?" Well, certainly I can now dispose of my 'New Dawn', 'Free' and 'Visions' CDs since most of their content is on this collection. But, strangely, I don't feel as though I have been mugged in the way I did after buying their 'Angel Voices' album. For a start, I knew exactly what I was buying and I bought it so that I would have their new offerings: the brilliant 'You Were There', the haunting 'Mother Of God', yet another version of 'Gaudete', a remixed 'Sempiterna', 'How Can I Keep From Singing' and Steven Geraghty's brilliant production of 'Heaven'. Take it from me, these tracks alone are worth the price of this excellent double album. Yes, I know that some record company executive is, as we speak, relaxing in his leather-backed office chair, rubbing his hands at the thought of making a killing from recycling old material, but this is in the nature of the beast. Few record companies are reknowned for their generosity and, frankly, I don't care. I've got what I want and I'm pleased with it.

Now, does anyone want to buy a collection of second-hand Libera CDs, well used...?