Itzhak Perlman - Vivaldi: The Four Seasons - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

As Jacob Kellermann points out in the commentary to this album, there is an unbroken tradition of performing arrangements of Franz Schubert's music on the guitar. Already in his lifetime some of his most popular songs appeared with simplified guitar accompaniment, marketed by music publishers wanting to exploit the growing market for domestic music-making. Schubert himself composed very little for the instrument, and there are doubts regarding Schubert's own skills on the instrument. Nevertheless it is well known that the guitar was in fashion with the middle-class Viennese among which Schubert and his circle of friends moved. In his notes, Kellermann argues that elements of the light, melody-driven and carefree musical style favoured in that environment and present in stylized form in much of Schubert's music is the very aspect that makes it so inviting to play on the guitar. DuoKeMi was formed by Kellermann and Daniel Migdal in 2006, and the two are constantly aiming to expand the repertoire for their combination of instruments. This has resulted in a number of commissions as well as new transcriptions, often by Kellermann himself as in the case of the much-loved Arpeggione Sonata recorded here.

The Greatest Classical Masterpieces! Features a carefully picked selection of the world's most popular classical compositions including works by Pachelbel, Bizet, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Berlioz, Debussy, Vivaldi, Dorati, Rossini, Borodin, Khachaturian, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Dinicu, Albinoni and Rimsky-Korsakov. Featuring the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York, the Symphony Orchestra of Turino de la Radio Televisione Italiana, and I Solisti di Zagreb. All selections newly remastered. Album Tracks 1. Adagio for Strings and Organ 2. Pachelbel Canon 3. Carmen Aragonaise 4. Habanera 5. Hungarian Dance No. 7 6. Hora Staccato 7. The Prince and the Young Princess from Scheherazade 8. Slavonic Dance No. 8 9. Minute Waltz 10. Marche Hongroise from the Damnation of Faust 11. Flight of the Bumblebee 12. Polka from the Age of Gold 13. Gopak from the Fair at Sorochinsk 14. Sabre Dance from the Gayne Ballet 15. The Maid with the Flaxen Hair 16. La Vie Parisienne 17. William Tell Orchestra 18. Largo from the Vivaldi Concerto for Guitar 19. Borodin Polovetsian Dances from Price Igor

The shimmering string harmonics at the opening of Gustav Mahler's First Symphony bring to mind the suspended breath of spring, and will have signaled even to the very first audiences that a new symphonic era was being ushered in. Soon enough the composer introduces some of the elements that would become key components of his musical language sounds of nature (here cuckoo calls) are combined with quasi-militaristic fanfares and 'high-art' chromatic wanderings in cellos, as if to illustrate Mahler's view of the symphony as an all-embracing art form. The symphony, which the composer originally gave the subtitle 'Titan', borrows extensively from the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. But Mahler also incorporates elements of Moravian popular music (in the second movement) and - in the slow third movement - famously quotes a minor-mode version of the children's rhyme Bruder Martin (also known as Frere Jacques). The finale transports the listener to a world of Gothic theatricality reminiscent of Grand Opera, before arriving - after a number of false starts - at the symphony's heroic chorale-like ending. This symphonic 'world-in-microcosm' is here brought to life by the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska on the fourth installment in a series which has earned the team the description 'among the finest exponents of Mahler's music' on the website allmusic. Com. Details 1. Symphony No. 1 in D Major, "Titan" 2. I. Langsam, Schleppend 00 16 06 3. II. Kräftig Bewegt, Doch Nicht Zu Schnell 00 07 25 4. III. Feierlich Und Gemessen, Ohne Zu Schleppen 00 11 23 5. IV. Stürmisch Bewegt 00 20 57