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1.Handel: Messiah from: Duo May 10, 1993
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £10.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £6.98 You Save: £4.01 (36%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £6.46
This is more like it. I bought the Harry Christopher/Sixteen version and was left unmoved by it. This however, was sublime - fantastic soloists, an orchestra and chorus that sounded as if they meant it, a wonderful range of emotion beautifully realised. To me this is what a performance of the Messiah should sound like. The other reviewers got this one spot-on. I can only 'rejoice greatly' for such a recording.

2.Bach - Brandenburg Concertos from: Universal Classics March 03, 1995
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £10.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £6.98 You Save: £4.01 (36%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £4.99
I don't know much about classical music unlike the other reviewers for this CD. However, I was fortunate in that my mother bought me a record (remember them?) of Concertos no 1,3 and 5. You get 1. all 6 Brandenburg concertos beautifully played by English Chamber Orchestra. Normally albums of Bach's Brandenburg concertos only have three of the concertos. Having listened to a few of these, the quality of this CD is at least equal to those recordings in my opinion. 2. two additional concertos: the Concerto for Oboe, Violin and Strings and the Concerto for Flute and Strings. The first of these, as observed in the other reviews, is stunning. I think this CD is fabulous to listen to and is a complete steal for ... Read More:

3.Vivaldi: Four Seasons & Concertos RV257, 376 & 211 from: Sony Classics June 18, 2002
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £8.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £6.47 You Save: £2.52 (28%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £3.99
Most people reading reviews of this disc are probably more interested in The Four Seasons than anything else. As the most frequently played work in the 'classical' repertoire, it has become something of a cliché. How can any new recording offer something different? Well, Carmignola and the Venice Baroque make every effort to do so and this CD fizzes with energy. The storm in the allegro of 'Summer' really does have some clout. Carmignola's playing of the big four is virtuosic and impassioned, while the orchestra contributes massively (theirs is no mere accompaniment).The VBO always offer a multi-layered sound, recorded here in incredible detail. But my interest lies primarily in the three world-premiere recordings also offered here. It might be imagined ... Read More:

4.Bach: Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo from: Channel Classics September 30, 2002
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: £13.39
This is one of those recordings which transforms a work. I had struggled for years to like the Sonatas and Partitas, but a succession of recordings by great violinists had left me feeling thoroughly excluded by them. When I heard Rachel Podger, I suddenly saw the utter delight and involving beauty in the pieces. She loses absolutely none of their intellectual weight, but makes them dance, glow and sparkle. In the great Chaconne from the D minor Partita, for example, I had always previously reached the end feeling rather wrung out and exhausted with the effort of trying to penetrate a difficult and forbidding piece. With Podger’s recording I find myself engaged, carried along and very sorry when the final, breath-holding not dies away. I cannot recommend ... Read More:

5.Bach - Goldberg Variations (1955) from: Sony Classical July 26, 2004
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £6.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £4.97 You Save: £2.02 (29%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £4.50
This is a truly iconic disc, the legendary performance that introduced an eccentric Canadian pianist to the world at large. Gould had made a sensational debut in New York with a programme that included Beethoven's Op 109 sonate, a Sweelinck fantasia and the Webern variations. Snapped up by a CBS talent scout, he requested his first release should be Bach's Goldberg Variations, a seldom performed work the Leipzig cantor wrote for an aristocratic insomniac. As the recording took place, Gould sat on his pigmy stool, swaying, groaning, humming and playing like a god. Inbetween takes he popped pills, donned his overcoat and ate arrowroot biscuits washed down with spring water as the press gathered curiously to see the spectacle. The resulting LP sold 40,000 copies, redefined Bach ... Read More:

6.Allegri - Miserere; Lotti - Crucifixus; Palestrina - Stabat Mater Dolorosa from: Coro May 05, 2003
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £12.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £9.98 You Save: £3.01 (23%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £6.49
Allegri's Miserere is given the top billing on this disc, perhaps because of some celebrated special effects, explained in the liner notes, that it contains. The first track is devoted to a sombre and beautiful Crucifixus (from the Nicene Creed) by one Lotti, an older contemporary of Bach. Admirable and compelling, both of these, but what I bought this disc for was the two items by Palestrina, his Stabat Mater and the celestial Missa Papae Marcelli. It is not just the quality of the early music specialists these days but the sheer profusion of them that continues to astonish me. I looked through the list of singers (18, not 16) and while I did not recognise most of the names offhand that may simply be because I did not investigate my large record collection, and I ... Read More:

7.Bach - Goldberg Variations (1981) from: Sony Classical July 26, 2004
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £6.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £2.98 You Save: £4.01 (57%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £5.69
I feel compelled to write this review as I think it is slightly unfair to give a one-star review based on his constant humming. I think the first thing to say is that the Goldberg Variations is a fantastic piece of music, and is pretty much infallable as far as music goes. Goulds playing achives a great depth and variety of tone, whilst maintaining a strong sence of clarity that lets all of Bach's lines sing through, I think Gould has achieved something mind-blowing here! Whilst at first one could find the performance marred by his constant humming, and it is prevelant, especially when listening on headphones, it is worth listening past. I think it provides a unique insight into how he is shaping the music that we don't often hear. To be honest I find myself ... Read More:

8.Vivaldi - The Four Seasons from: EMI Classics May 08, 1997
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £15.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £10.97 You Save: £5.02 (31%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £5.49
I am constantly playing this in the car because I love it so much, other recordings are good but this is just a little bit different, in the Allegro movement of Spring if you listen to the bit before the whole violin and viola section thunders it's way to the tumultuous tweeting solo, you will notice that Nigel bow's 4 times in quick succession instead of the usual 2, the cadenza allows for this and Nigel exploited it with typical panache. It's good to see him back in the limelight once more with his new recording, now lives in Krakow with his Polish missus.

9.Bach, J.S.: Great Organ Works by: Peter Hurford October 12, 1994
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £10.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £7.98 You Save: £3.01 (27%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £5.70
Well-judged tempi, good recording, the scholarship you'd expect from Mr Hurford, allied to imaginatively chosen registration. The C Minor Passacaglia & Fugue are particularly good - I've been looking for a sensitive recording of this for ages after dismissing a lot of ponderous versions which start off with the big guns already blazing!

10.Monteverdi: Vespers 1610 · Venetian Vesper Music 1642 /Tavener Consort, Choir & Players · Parrott by: Taverner Consort, Andrew Parrott January 24, 2000
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: £10.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: £2.98 You Save: £8.01 (73%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: £4.99
I was very disappointed to find that Virgin/Veritas have not included the very full and interesting 68 page booklet, containing the libretto, essays and notes, which came with the original EMI publication.

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