Various Artists - My Playlist for Gardening - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Garden themes from our musical heritage. An album of fragrant songs and instrumental pieces from centuries of musical tradition. Titles include 'Greensleeves', 'Where the Bee sucks', 'Summer is icumen in' and 'Roses in Bloom', in a delightful evocation of a great English garden.

Ensemble Perspectives, an a cappella vocal quintet founded and directed by Geoffroy Heurard, creates programmes that blend the mainstream classical repertory with lesser-known composers and folk and pop songs. These pieces are sung in transcriptions 'tailor-made' for Perspectives, which works with world-renowned arrangers and composers of all aesthetic persuasions. The group's new album, entitled Playlist, allows today's ears to grasp the timeless threads that link Purcell to Brahms, a traditional song to an American song crooned by entire generations. A playful and inspired journey through the music of Purcell (Dido's Lament), Brahms, Ravel and Fauré, traditional songs such as Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and Frère Jacques, and songs by Charlie Chaplin (Smile), Michel Legrand (La Chanson de Maxence), Paul Simon (Mrs. Robinson and 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover) and Tom Waits (Alice).

Music and art are inexorably bound together, and this playlist of inspirational and relaxing classical works provides the perfect background to time spent drawing and painting. From the iconic ? rst notes of Promenade from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, to Murphy's sublime Scintillation from And then at night I paint the stars, these works span a multitude of hues and tones, from Higdon's Pale Yellow to Bliss's Purple. Prime your canvas, prepare your palette and immerse yourself in a world of colour and sound.