Various Artists - National Anthems of World - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The first volume of the Naxos selection of operatic excerpts includes music ranging from Mozart to Puccini. The first of these composers is represented by the famous aria of the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute. Mozart had settled in Vienna, independent of a patron and of his father's guidance, in 1781. Ten years later, after variable successes, his fortunes seemed about to take a turn for the better. In 1791, the year of his death, he w rote two operas, the coronation opera La clemenza di Tito for Prague and the German Singspiel Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) for a suburban theatre in Vienna. The latter was still running at the time of his death in early December. The opera, imbued with Masonic symbolism and with a libretto by the actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder, who took a leading comic role in the work, deals with the ordeals and initiation of Tamino and his earthier companion, the bird-catcher Papageno, into the mysteries of enlightenment and his final union with Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night. In the first act of the opera the latter appears to Tamino, seeking his help in the rescue of her daughter from Sarastro, whom she brands as evil, although it later transpires that he is the leader of the enlightened band into which Tamino is eventually admitted. In Der Hölle Rache she declares, in brilliant coloratura, her enmity to her former consort Sarastro. Album Tracks 1. Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg Ov - Polish Nrso/Johannes Wildner 2. Aida Ritorna Vincitor! - Maria Dragoni 3. Il Trovatore Manrico?... Di Quella Pira - Daniela Longhi/Maurizio Frusoni/Jozsef Mukk/Budapest Festival Chor 4. Cosi Fan Tutte Come Scoglio - Johanna Borowska 5. Thais Meditation - Janos Selmeczi 6. Manon Lescaut Sola, Perduta, Abbandonata - Miriam Gauci 7. L'elisir D'amore Una Furtiva Lagrima - Vincenzo la Scola 8. La Traviata Follie!... Se

This is a musical trip from the mid-sixteenth century to around 1700, involving music in Late Renaissance style, carrying Spanish Catholicism across the Atlantic to supplant an indigenous culture. Once the invasion had taken root with the conquest of Tenochtitlán and it's transformation to Mexico City, the country became the target of fervent friars and preachers. Franciscans were first in 1523, then Dominicans, all fired with Christian zeal to convert the native population. From the outset they used music to great effect. The accounts that survive show how successful they were in teaching singing and playing, training choirs to perform liturgical music. By the mid-century it was claimed that standards had reached that of Charles V's chapel. Churches and cathedrals were established throughout the rapidly expanding New Spain. Conquest and Christianity imposed an almost exact replica of Old Spain. Liturgical books, prints of plainchant and polyphony were shipped in throughout the century. In this recording the singers present music by eight composers. Four of them never went to the New World; their music did. Three of them were born in Spain and were trained in music there; they held appointments in Spain and later emigrated to the new colonial cities. One more became the first composer-choirmaster to be born there of Spanish parents, thus criollo.

Frémeaux & Associés presents the voices of 20 great French philosophers who embrace all currents of thought of the 20th century; existentialism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, religion, epistemology and morality. Each intervention of the philosopher is preceded by a commentary on his life, his work and his thought. Frédéric Worms wrote for InchLes Études PhilosophiquesInch (PUF) that this sum of recordings constituted Inchthe major contribution of sound archives to French intellectual heritageInch and the philosopher adds that the discs of this anthology should be in everyone's library. Reader of 20th century philosophy in France. (...) and to hope Inchthat the media, far from denying it, thus reconcile the thinking word, through individuals and works! Of this too we have, in these discs, a remarkable anthology. This book is the official commented version of the sound anthology of French thought.