Queensland Symphony Orchestra Mogrelia - La Filleule Des Fees - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

After increasing successes with ballets, melodramas and theatrical works, Adolphe Adam won widespread acclaim with Giselle (highlights can be heard on 8.572924). A year later he wrote La Jolie Fille de Gand, which was received just as enthusiastically by audiences and critics alike. This delightful ballet-pantomime with trademark thematic brilliance is set in Ghent and Venice, it's plot one of abduction and romance. Adam's score, which features the use of cornets and the tuba-like ophicleide, displays a more daring sense of color than that of Giselle.

Legendary producer and bassist Bill Laswell is joined by Alice Coltrane, Santana, Pharaoh Sanders, Zakir Hussain and others make music for those they are inspired and moved by, and who they aspire to be, including his Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sonny Sharrock, Rumi and Pattabhi Jois.

Sigismond Thalberg was a Wunderkind and one of the most accomplished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. Mendelssohn, Chopin and Clara Schumann were impressed by his technical skills. As legend goes there was a big rivalry between Thalberg and Liszt, though mostly fomented by the press. Thalberg was also a composer whose focus laid mainly on fantasies on operatic themes. In the 19th century this was a genre aiming to delight audiences with the familiarity of known melodies, the ingenuity of the transcriptions and their spectacular virtuosity. Thalberg wrote fantasies on quite a number of opera by Italian composers. These fantasies and other works are presented now in a comprehensive set by the Italian pianist Francesco Nicolosi. Nicolosi specialized in the interpretation of Thalberg's composition and the result is truly remarkable. With an exquisite technique, a wonderful sound and an impeccable legato these recordings have no rival. They came to be in the 1990s as individual releases and brought Nicolosi the Bellini Golden Prize. They are now being made available for the first time as collector's item.