Strange City
Strange City
ASIN: B00005OW70
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Repertory jazz can be a bad thing, rife with second-rate musicians cashing in on the reputation of one of the greats. The Herbie Nichols Project, however, is different. A notable and talented septet led by bassist Ben Allison, pianist Frank Kimbrough, and trumpeter Ron Horton, the group dedicates itself to the tragically overlooked pianist and composer Herbie Nichols, who died in 1963 of complications from leukemia. Only 44 when he died, Nichols recorded three albums for Blue Note and one for Bethlehem; however, Strange City, the Nichols Project's third album, features 10 unrecorded Nichols compositions. The group maintains the composer's angular bop style while freshening it up with the players' own unique perspectives as talented modern-day improvisers. The four horns in particular are a nice touch, fleshing out Nichols's written melodies with complex harmonic arrangements that Nichols's regular trio would never be able to do. Truly a labor of love, Strange City is the heady sound of good intentions well fulfilled. --Tad Hendrickson
Strange City,The Herbie Nichols Project,Palmetto Records,Jazz,Jazz Music,Modern Creative,Pop,Post-Bop
Average customer rating:
- Instruments of the Orchestra - Great Reference Material!
- Beginner or Expert
- Very Informative and Enjoyable
- Frank's view
- Excellent Intro for Those Not Familiar with the Orchestra
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Instruments of the Orchestra
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Naxos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B00006O0NT
Release Date: 2002-12-03 |
Tracks:
- Overture To 'Tannhauser'
- Domna, Pos Vos Ay Chausida
- We Don't Merely Use Instruments, We Play On Them. And They Play On Us.
- Hungarian Dance No.7
- The Violin Is One Of The Most Tender And Beautiful Instruments Ever Invented.
- Violin Concerto In D Major (Adagio)
- But For A Long Time It Was Seen As The Instrument Of The Devil.
- The Soldier's Tale: Triumphal March Of The Devil
- The Manipulative Seductiveness Of The Gypsy Violin.
- Csardas Music
- The Violin And The Initiation Of Nature
- The Four Seasons (Spring, Mvt 1)
- Birds Are Again Evoked In The Second Concerto, Especially Music's Natural Favourite.
- The Four Seasons (Summer, Mvt 1)
- Like The Devil, The Violin Is A Master Of Disguise.
- Old Viennese Dance No.3 'Schon Rosmarin'
- The Menacing Sensuality Of Ravel's Tzigane: A Very Different Side Of The Violin:
- Tzigane
- Do We Now Have The True Measure Of This Instrument? Not Just Yet.
- Caprice No.24
- The Many Effects Of The String Tremolando: Brandenburg Concerto No.4 (Last Mvt)/From Joy To Fright/Quartettsatz In C Minor/The String Tremolo Practically Spells The World Agitato.
- Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge (No.7)
- Prokofiev's Tremolo In Romeo And Juliet Should Not Be Heard Just Before Bedtime.
- Romeo And Juliet: Act IV
- Vivaldi Use It To Illustrate The Shivering Of Travellers Crossing The Ice.
- The Four Seasons (Winter, Mvt 1)
- The Violin Muted
- Clair De Lune
- The Gentleness Of Muted Strings Persists Even When A Whole Orchestra Plays.
- Piano Concerto No.21 In C Major, K.467 (Slow Mvt)
- The Pizzicato Violin
- Pizzicato Polka
- In Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto, The Accompaniment Is Pizzicato.
- Violin Concerto No.2 In G Minor (Slow Mvt)
- Varieties Of Pizzicato: Colas Breugnon (The People's Feast)/Now A Drier, Leaner, Hungrier Pizzicato. There's Not A Lot Of Comfort Here./Capriol Suite (Tordion)/The Use Of Pizzicato As 'Percussion'/Romeo And Juliet (Act I)/Mahler Used Pizzicato...
- The Planets (Mars - The Bringer Of War)
- The Technique Of Double-Stopping Enables The Violin To Play Duets With Itself./Sonata No.3 In C Major For Unaccompanied Violin (Fugue)/Now A Later Example Of The Same Technique
- Hungarian Dance No.4
- Double-Stopping Is A Standard Feature Of A Lot Of Folk Music.
- The Four Seasons (Autumn, Mvt 1)
- Now The Same Technique, But The Sound Might Have Come From Another World.
- Bolero
- Double-Stopping Can Only Approximate The Sound Of A Real Violin Duet.
- Cadenza To The Violin Concerto By Brahms
- Now Compare That With A Real Violin Duet.
- Forty-Four Duos (No. 1: Teasing Song)
- Another Duo By Bartok, Demonstrating The Violin's Rich Lower Register
- Forty-Four Duos (No.2: Maypole Dance)
- And Now What May Be The Most Beautiful Accompanied Violin Duet In History
- Concerto In D Minor For Two Violins (Largo)
- The Soul Of The Violin Is In Song; But What About This Weird Passage?
- Violin Concerto No.1 In D Major (Mvt 2)
- The Use Of Harmonies In The Orchestra Can Be Both Magical And Unsettling.
- Symphony No.1 'Titan' (Mvt 1, Opening)
- Tchaikovsky's Use Of Harmonics In The Sleeping Beauty Is Both Strange And Darling.
- The Sleeping Beauty (Act II, No.15: Entr'Acte)
- Ravel's Harmonics In Mother Goose Effect A Magical Transformation.
- Ma Mere L'Oye - Mother Goose (Beauty And The Beast)
- Stravinsky's Harmonics In The Firebird Transport Us Almost Into Another World./The Firebird (Introduction)
- The Natural Upper Notes Of The Violins Have A Unique Emotional 'Grab'.
- Also Sprach Zarathustra (Of The Afterworldsmen)
- Still In Their Upper Register, The Violins Unleash The Energy Of A Young Colt.
- Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge (No. 4)
- Elsewhere, Britten Uses The Same High Register To Create A Very Different Mood.
- Four Sea Interludes (Dawn) From 'Peter Grimes'
- To End This Outing With The Violins, A Charming Little Elfin Dance
- Elfenreigen
Tracks:
- Introduction To The Viola
- Viola Concerto (Mvt 1)
- Khatchaturian Gets A Very Different Sound From It: Fuller, Fruitier, More Exotic.
- Gayane Suite No.1 (Armen's Solo)
- Very Nearly The Whole Of The Violin's Upper Register Is Also Available To The Viola.
- Passacaglia, Op.33b From 'Peter Grimes'
- The Viola Can Bring A Special, Rich Twanginess To Pizzicato That The Violins Lack./Don Quixote/Berlioz Drew Sounds From It That Retain Their Metallic Strangeness Even Today.
- Harold In Italy (Mvt 4)
- The Muted Viola: Intimate, Gentle, Poignant In Dvork
- Cypresses (No.9)
- The Massed Violas Of The Modern Symphony Orchestra In Mahler
- Symphony No.4 (Mvt 3)
- The 'Period' Viola In Bach
- Brandenburg Concerto No.6 (Last Mvt)
- The Cello: A Voice Of Unique Nobility
- Suite No.1 For Unaccompanied Cello (Prelude)
- Brahms And The 'Soul' Of The Cello
- Piano Concerto No.2 In B Flat Major (Mvt 3)
- Most Orchestral Composers Tend To Emphasize The Cello's Lower Register.
- Cantata 'Herz Und Mund Und Tat Und Leben', BWV 147 (Soprana Aria: Bereite Dir, Jesu)
- In The Time Of Beethoven The Cello Remained As Fundamental As Ever.
- Symphony No.3 'Eroica' (Finale)
- But The Cello Is Not Condemned To Spend Its Life In The Basement.
- Elfentanz, Op.39
- Not Only In Recital Showpieces Like That Is The Cello Is Used In Its Highest Register.
- The Protecting Veil (Opening)
- A Cello With An Identity-Crisis: The Pizzicato Flamencan
- Flamenco
- Double-Stopping In The Lower Reaches Of The Cello's Range
- Solo Suiet For Cello And Piano (Sardana)
- It's In The Middle Register That The Cello Really Comes Into Its Own.
- Oriental Dance, Op.2 No.2
- It Was To The Cellos That Beethoven Gave Two Of His Most Famous Themes./Symphony No.5 (Mvt 2)/Still More Famous Than That Theme Is This One From The Ninth Symphony.
- Symphony No.9 (Finale)
- Introduction To The Double-Bass
- The Carnival Of The Animals (The Elephant)
- But The Double-Bass Can Be Intensely Expressive And Graceful.
- Elegy No.1 In D Major
- The Range Of The Double-Bass Is The Greatest Of All The String Instruments/Allegro Di Concerto, 'Alla Mendelssohn'/And It's Also Capable Of Very Considerable Virtuosity.
- Capriccio Di Bravura
- Double-Bass Solos In Orchestral Scores Are Rare But Often Memorable./Symphony No.1 'Titan' (Mvt 3)/In His Third Symphony Mahler Makes A Very Different Use Of The Instrument./Symphony No.3 (Mvt 1)
- The Double-Bass Muted In Prokofiev/Lieutenant Kije Suite (Kije's Wedding)/In Another Work Prokofiev Uses The Double-Bass To Enhance The Winds./Romeo And Juliet (Act III)/And He Combines The Bass Clarinet With A Shivering Tremolo From The Double-Basses....
- Symphony No.5 (Mvt 3)/So Much For The Strings/On Now To The Winds
Tracks:
- The Antiquity And Magic Of The Flute
- Prelude A L'Apres-Midi D'Un Faune
- The Versatility And Agility Of The Flute
- Orchestral Suite No.2 In B Minor (Badinerie)
- The Flute In Fifteenth-Century Spain
- Sa'Dawi
- Other Flutes: The Bass And Alto
- Chamber Music No.II
- The Piccolo - Aptly Named
- La Naissance D'Osiris (Mvt 6)
- From A Piccolo Of The Eighteenth Century To One Of Its Descendants In The Twentieth
- Suite No.1 For Small Orchestra (Valse)
- A Variety Of Techniques
- Chamber Music No.II
- Flutter-Tonguing. But Tchaikovsky Got There Eighty Years Before.
- The Nutcracker (Act II, No.2: Scene)
- From The Transverse To The Vertical: The Baroque Recorder
- Recorded Suite In A Minor (Menuet II)
- An Unfamiliar, Early Vision Of The Instrument
- Naelden, Naelden
- The Bachian Oboe
- Cantata 'Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott', BWV 80 (No.7: Duetto)
- Introduction To The Cor Anglais Or 'English Born'
- Symphony No.9 'From The New World' (Mvt 2)
- The Loneliness Of The Cor Anglais
- The Swan Of Tuonela
- The Cor Anglais Joins The French Horn In Haydn.
- Symphony No.22 'The Philosopher' (Opening)
- Introduction To The Oboe D'Amore, Beloved Of Bach - But Also Of Ravel
- Bolero
- The Clarinet Family: Boxing The Compass, From The Depths Of The Bass Clarinet.../The Egyptian (Violence)/...To The Raucous And Squealy.../Taras Bulba (The Death Of Ostap)/...To The Shrill And Complaining...
- Petrushka (No.8: Peasant With Bear)/...To The High Sprits Of A Playful Puppy./Symphonie Fantastique (Last Mvt)/And To The Downright Jazzy/Romeo And Juliet (Act II)
- As The High Clarinets Tend To Be Loud, So The Bass Tends To Be Soft:
- Gayane Suite No. 1 (Mvt 5)
- The Bass Clarinet Is Used By Most Composers Mainly As A Colouring Agent.../Petrushka (No.4: The Blackamoor)/...But It Does Occasionally Get A Whole Tune To Itself./Iberia (Almeria).
- The Range Of The Normal Clarinet Parts Goes Quite High...
- The Snow Maiden (Scene 5: Melodrama)
- ...And Quite Low.
- Peter And The Wolf (The Cat)
- The Clarinet As Concerto Soloist
- Clarinet Concerto In A Major (Rondo)
- But That's Not The Instrument Mozart Wrote It For; This Is:
- Clarinet Concerto In A Major (Rondo)
- Introduction To The Saxophone
- Hary Janos Suite (Mvt 4)
- The Soprano Saxophone Has Quite A Different Feel To It.
- L'Arlesienne Suite No.1 (Minuet)
- The Little Sopranino Sax Goes Even Higher.
- Bolero
- The Most Famous Use Of The Saxophone Is In An Orchestration By Ravel.
- Pictures At An Exhibition (The Old Castle)
- The Saxophone Can Be Quite Contagiously Good-Humoured.
- Sax-O-Phun
- The Puffa-Puffa Image Of The Bassoon
- Peter And The Wolf (Grandfather)
- The Bachian Bassoon, In Accompanimental Mode
- Cantata 'Weichet Nur, Betrubte Schatten' ('Wedding Cantata'), BWV 202 (Aria No.1)
- Bizet Leaves The Puffa-Puffa Image Out, Allowing The Bassoon To Sing./Carmen Suite No.1 (Les Dragons D'Alcala)
- And Ravel, Also In Spanish Mode, Does Likewise.
- Bolero
- The Bassoon As A Voice Of High Seriousness, Indeed Desolate Loneliness
- Symphony No.3 (Opening)
- The Eerie Bassoon In Its Highest Register
- The Rite Of Spring (Opening)
- Stravinsky Now Draws On Its Lowest Register, Lonely And Melancholy.
- The Firebird Suite (1919, Berceuse)
- The Bassoon As Concerto Soloist, Avoiding All Exaggeration
- Bassoon Concerto In G Minor (Finale)
- The Deep-Voiced Contra-Bassoon, As A Fairy-Tale Beast
- Ma Mere L'Oye - Mother Goose (Beauty And The Beast)
- The French Horn Under Its Woodwind Hat
- Wind Quintet, Op.43 (Last Mvt)
- Now A More Prominent Role, In A Woodwind Quintet From An Earlier Era
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Op.100 No.5 (Mvt 2)
- The Horn In Harmonious Blend With Strings In Another Quintet
- Horn Quintet, K.407 (Finale)
Tracks:
- The Trumpet As Virtuoso Soloist
- Brandenburg Concerto No.2 (Last Mvt)
- The Special Brillance Of Paired Trumpets
- Concerto In C For Two Trumpets, RV537 (Mvt 1)
- The Ceremonial Trumpet
- Fanfare For The Common Man
- Trumpets And Drums - An Incomparable Alliance
- Messiah (The Trumpet Shall Sound)
- The Versatility Of The Trumpet, From The Most Public To The Most Lonely
- Piano Concerto In F (Slow Mvt)
- The Trumpet As The Voice Of The City/An American In Paris/The Trumpet As Recruitment Officer/The Soldier's Tale (The March)/The Trumpet As Swaggerer
- Carmen Suite No.2 (Habanera)
- The Trumpet As The Voice Of Strength And Courage
- Carmet Suite No.2 (Toreador's Song)
- The Trumpet Muted/Petrushka (No.4: The Blackamoor)/Lieutenant Kije Suite (Opening)/The Trumpet As The Voice Of Weariness
- Billy The Kid
- The Trumpet As Character Actor
- Pictures At An Exhibition (No.6)
- The Trumpet As The Voice Of God
- Mass In B Minor ('Et Exspecto')
- The Birth Of The Trombone
- Aenmerckt Nu Hier
- The Birth Of The Brass As A Family
- Canzon 12 In Double Echo
- The Trombone In The Eighteenth Century
- Trombone Concerto In B Flat Major (Finale)
- The Tone Of The Tenor Trombone/Romance For Trombone And Organ/The Memorable Voice Of The Bass Trombone/Requiem (Mvt 2)/But The Bass Trombone Is More Than An Instrumental Bullfrog.
- Hosannah
- The Trombones Become Part Of The Orchestra.
- Symphony No.5 (Finale)
- The Wagnerian Trombone:/Overture To 'Tannhauser'
- The Trombone As Caricaturist
- Pulcinella (No.19: Vivo)
- The Trombone As Raspberry/Concerto For Orchestra (Intermezzo)
- The Horn And The Hunt
- Horn Concerto No.4 In E Flat, K.495 (Finale)
- The Challenging Horn Of The Baroque
- Abaris Ou Les Boreades (Menuet)
- The Scarcity Of First-Rate Players In Handel's Time
- Walter Music (Minuet 1)
- The Horn As Magician/The Firebird Suite (1919, Finale)
- Horns And The Sound Of Nobility
- Overture To 'Tannhauser' (Opening)
- The Special Sound Of The Horn In Its Higher Register
- Mass In B Minor ('Quoniam Tu Solus Sanctus')
- The Trumpet-Like Sound Of Massed Horns
- Symphony No.3 (Mvt 1, Opening)
- The Tuba - Unfairly Maligned?
- Symphony No.6 (Mvt 3)
- The Tuba Perfectly Cast By Ravel
- Pictures At An Exhibition (Bydlo)
Tracks:
- Introduction. And We Begin With A Bang.
- Fanfare For The Common Man/The Bass Drum On The Battlefields/Wellington's Victory, Op.91 (Opening)
- At The Opposite Extreme Is The Triangle.
- Piano Concerto No.1 In E Flat (Scherzo)
- Categories Of Percussion: Tuned And Untuned. The Side Drum
- Overture To 'La Gazza Ladra' - The Thieving Magpie (Opening)
- The Side Drum In An Effective But Unexpected Role/Clarinet Concerto (Mvt 1)
- The Tambourine. One Of The Oldest Instruments In The World
- Den Hoboecken Dans
- Even Older Is The Originally Oriental Gong.
- Ma Mere L'Oye - Mother Goose (Laideronette)
- No Single Instrument Can Match The Gong In Evoking The Breaking Of Waves./Passacaglia, Op.33b From 'Peter Grimes'/But Gongs Don't Have To Be Struck To Be Effective.
- Gymnopedie No.2
- The Cymbals Are Generally Discovered Early In Life./The Sanguine Fan/And They Do More Than Clash Together Loudly. They Can Be Clashed Together Softly./Studio Example: But They Needn't Be Clashed Together At All/Studio Example: They Can Be Lightly...
- Other Untuned Percussion Instruments Include The Whip.: Piano Concerto In G Major (Opening)/And Here Are No Fewer Than Twenty, Cracked By Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Act I, Scene 5)
- More Versatile Than The Whip Are The Wood Blocks.../Studio Example/...Which Crop Up All Over The Place In Twentieth-Century American Music.
- Rodeo (Hoe-Down)
- Related To The Wood Blocks, By Sound, Are The Castanets./Jota Aragonesa/But The Castanets Were Also Used By Monteverdi Back In The Seventeenth Century.
- Scherzi Musicali (Damigella Tutta Belle)
- A Still Earlier Example From Fifteenth-Century Spain
- Yo M'Enamori D'Un Aire
- The Birth Of The Bongo
- Symphonic Dances From 'West Side Story'
- From The Streets Of New York To The Blacksmith's Shop/Il Trovatore ('Anvil Chorus')
- Desert-Island Decibels: Grand Canyon Suite (On The Trail)/Arcana
- From One Vegetable To Another: The Humble Squash, Or Marrow/Huapango
- Onwards To The Tuned Percussion. First, The Timpani
- Also Sprach Zarathustra (Introduction)
- But The Drum Roll Can Be More Effectively Frightening Than The Big Bang.: Symphony No.2 'Resurrection' (Mvt 3)
- Not One Drum Roll, But Many/Grand Canyon Suite (Sunrise)/Symphonie Fantastique (Last Mvt)
- Taking Advantage Of Tunability
- Music For Strings, Percussion And Celeste (Mvt 2)
- The Russian Composer Rodion Shchedrin Takes A Downward Turn./Carmen Suite (Changing Of The Guard)/Tuned, Yes; But For The Truly Melodic We Must Look Elsewhere.
- Introducing The Glockenspiel/Carmen Suite (Carmen's Entrance And Habanera)
- Saint-Saens And The Xylophone
- The Carnival Of The Animals (Fossils)
- Ravel And The Xylophone
- Ma Mere L'Oye - Mother Goose (Laideronette)
- Introducing The Marimba/Carmen Suite (First Intermezzo)
- Introducing The Vibraphone
- The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (Narange Dolce)
- The Vibraphone Goes Russian.../Carmen Suite (Carmen's Entrance And Habanera)/...And Is Joined By The Marimba./Carmen Suite (Carmen's Entrance And Habanera)
- Introducing The Hungarian Cimbalom
- Folk Dances
- The Cimbalom And The Symphony Orchestra
- Hary Janos Suite (Mvt 3)
- Introducing The Tubular Bells
- Hary Janos Suite (Viennese Musical Clock)
- A More 'Up-Front' Approach From Rodion Shchedrin
- Carmen Suite (Introduction)
- But The Bells Can Also Make The Sinister Even More Sinister./Symphony No.7 'Sinfonia Antartica' (Mvt 1)
- Introducing The Celeste
- The Nutcracker (Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy)
- Magic, In The Use Of Collective Percussion
- Miroirs (La Vallee Des Cloches)
- Plucked Instruments: The 'Undercover Percussion'/Carmen Suite (Scene)
- A Prime Case In Point Is The Harp, Irresistible To The Romantics./The Nutcracker (Act II, No.1: Scene)/The Non-Solo Harp As An Integral Part Of The Orchestra/Hungarian Rhapsody No.1
- The Traditionally Subservient Role Of The Harpsichord In The Baroque Orchestra
- Brandenburg Concerto No.2 (Slow Mvt)
- The Piano: King Of The Tuned Percussion/Symphony No.3 'Organ' (Mvt 3)/And A Quarter Of A Century After That:
- Petrushka (Russian Dance)
- The Anti-Romantic Piano As An Integral Part Of The Orchestra
- Music For Strings, Percussion And Celeste (Last Mvt)
Tracks:
- Keyboard Instruments In The Orchestra - The Most Powerful Of Them All:
- Symphony No.3 'Organ' (Finale)
- But Things In Handel's Day Were Very Different.
- Organ Concerto In B Flat, Op.4 No.3 (Last Mvt)
- The Organ Is Difficult To Classify.
- An Unexpected, Organ-related Guest
- Concerto Pour Zampogna (Last Mvt)
- Peasant-Fancying... And A Touch Of The Roaming Cowboy
- Les Miserables (Drink With Me)
- Outside Artefacts And The Power Of Association
- Mahler's Sleighbells
- Symphony No.4 (Opening)
- A Roll-Call Of Some Unusual Guests/The Typewriter/Parade
- Chains, And More/Integrales/An American In Paris/Sandpaper Ballet
- Purpose-Built Oddities: Wind Machines/Symphony No.7 'Sinfonia Antartica' (Opening)
- Don Quixote (Variation VIII)
- National Calling Cards: The Guitar For Spain/Concierto De Aranjuez (Finale)
- And The Guitar's Poor American Relative, The Banjo/Washington Breakdown
- And Poorer Still, The Mouth Organ/The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (Packing Up)
- The Balalaika For Russia/Romeo And Juliet (Act II: No.14)
- The Maracas For Mexico/The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (El Desayuno)
- The Bongos And Congas And A Whole Wealth Of Other Drums For Africa And Central America/Studio Example
- The Sitar Of India/Evening Raga: Bhapoli
- The Accordion For France (Especially Paris)/Paris Canaille
- The Zither For Vienna/The Third Man (Theme)
- The Cimbalom For Hungary/Folk Dances
- The Guitar As An Integral Part Of The Orchestra/Rondena
- There Are Whole Orchestras Of Balalaikas./Sveit Mesiats
- The Effect Of The Wordless Human Voice, Used Purely As An Instrument/Symphony No.7 'Sinfonia Antartica' (Mvt 1)
- Nocturnes
- Instruments And the Imitation Of Nature. The Clarinet As Cuckoo
- The Carnival Of The Animals (The Cuckoo)
- The Flute As An All-purpose Aviary
- The Carnival Of The Animals (The Aviary)
- The Oboe As Duck
- Peter And The Wolf (The Duck)
- The Recording Of Reality. Does It Work As Well?
- The Pines Of Rome (The Pines Of The Janiculum)
- The Recording Of Reality Electronically Reborn In New Guises
- Cantus Articus - Concerto For Birds And Orchesra (Mvt 2)
- Beethoven Turns Avian: Cuckoo, Nightingale, And Quail
- Symphony No.6 'Pastoral' (Andante Molto Mosso)
- Some Improbable Casting: The Violin As Braying Donkey
- The Carnival Of The Animals (Persons With Long Ears)
- A Truly Orchestral Hee-haw To Be Reckoned With
- Overture To 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
- A Thunderstorm In A Million
- Symphony No.6 'Pastoral (Allegro-Allegretto)
- the Instrumental Depiction Of A Silent World
- The Carnival Of The Animals (The Aquarium)
- Saint-Saens' Menagerie Takes A Curtain Call.
- The Carnival Of The Animals (Finale)
Tracks:
- The Grouping Of Instrumental Families. An Additive Approach. First, Two Violins
- Forty-Four Duos (No.4)
- A Great Contrast, Of Both Pitch And Character: Violin And Viola
- Duo For Violin And Viola In B Flat Major, K.424 (Finale, Vars 1 & 2)/Studio Example
- Arrival Of The Standard String Trio: Violin, Viola, And Cello
- String Trio In B Flat (Menuetto)
- The String Quartet: Two Violins, Viola, And Cello
- String Quartet In F, Op.18 No.1 (Mvt 3)
- The String Quintet - When The Extra Instrument Is A Second Viola
- String Quartet No.5 In D, K.593 (Adagio)
- The String Quintet - When The Extra Instrument Is A Second Cello
- String Quintet In C (Mvt 3)
- The String Sextet: Two Violins, Two Violas, And Two Cellos
- String Sextet In B Flat (Mvt 2)
- The String Octet: The Standard String Quaret Times Two
- Octet In E Flat, Op.20 (Mvt 1)
- Double The String Octet: A Fully Fledged String Orchestra
- String Symphony No.2 (Finale)
- The Massed Strings Of A Symphony Orchestra
- Fantasia On A Theme Of Thomas Tallis
- Contrasts Of Pitch And Instrumental 'Colour' In The Woodwind Section
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Op.100 No.5 (Theme)
- In The First Variation It's The Horn That Gets The Lion's Share.
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 1
- In Variation Two The Torch Is Handed To The Bassoon.
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 2
- In Variation Three The Oboe Leads.
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 3
- Variation Four: Conversation Before Returning To A Solo-dominated Texture
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 4
- And Variation Five is Dominated By The Clarinet.
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 5
- The Next To Be Featured Is The Virtuoso Flute.
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 6
- Individual Farewells And A Closing Chorus
- Wind Quintet In A Minor, Variation 7
- A Mixed Group: Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, String Quartet, And Double-Bass
- Octet In F (Mvt 3)
- The Early Classical Symphony Orchestra Of Haydn And Mozart
- Symphony No.29 In A, K.201 (Finale)
- Strings, Wind, But No Brass. What Haydn And Mozart Never Knew
- Canzon 28
- Beethoven's Fifth: Two Horns, Two Trumpets, And Three Trombones Join The Team.
- Symphony No.5 (Finale)
- From Beethoven To The Massive Orchestras Of Berlioz, Wagner, And Mahler
- Beethoven Changed The Face Of The Symphony And The Orchestra Forever
- Symphoy No.6 'Tragic' (Mvt 1)
- The Cult Of Orchestral Elephantiasis Reaches Its Peak.
- Symphony No.1 'Gothic' (VI: Te Ergo Quaesumus)
- When Large Doesn't Necessarily Mean Loud: Debussy
- Images (Gigues)
- A Crisis Of Confidence; The Orchestra's Survival Hangs In The Balance, But It Still Develops. The Ondes Martenot:
- Turangalila Symphony (Chant D'amour 1)
- The Advent Of The 'Early Music' Movement Brings A New Vitality And Freshness.
- Balle De Xerxes (Gavotte En Rondeau)
- Computer And Synthesiser: Friends Or Foes?
- Concerto In D Minor For Two Violins (Largo)
- A Speculative Look Ahead/Mass In B Minor ('Dona Nobis Pacem')
Customer Reviews:
Instruments of the Orchestra - Great Reference Material!.......2007-04-04
This set lends itself to greatly enhancing one's knowledge of the orchestra, instruments in it, and their usage. I am a huge music buff, and I still picked up a great deal I previously did not know. I highly recommend this for all who wish to understand the origin of music, as well as the processes that are employed to create music!
Beginner or Expert.......2007-03-12
This CD is excellent for the beginner or expert! To be able to haear the instrumets separately and then together really provides a good education. and/or refresher. The book thaty comes with the CD is alomost worth the price by itself!
Very Informative and Enjoyable.......2006-11-20
Whether you're a music novice or pro, "The instruments of the Orchestra" is a very worthwhile purchase. The 7 CDs, with a total of 8 hours, are expertly narrated by Jeremy Siepmann. He's a great speaker, very much like the late Leonard Bernstein was. Mr. Siepmann takes you on an unforgetable musical journey covering the origins and use of the various orchestral instruments throughout musical history. The balance between his narration and a wealth of musical examples, which range from snippets to entire movements, is superb. The comprehensive enclosed booklet is excellent and faithfully follows the 7 CDs in content. Even with my 40+ years of music training I still learned new things from this wonderful collection. Considering the excellence of the content, and a cost that translates to about $5 per disc, this collection is a great value. Grab it, you won't regret that you did. Five solid stars!
Frank's view.......2006-08-19
This boxed set of CD's with booklet achieved all I had hoped that it would. There are good samples of individual instruments and well done commentary on each. The only drawback was that some of the samples were too brief and could have been longer, hoiwever I guess this fits in with time constraints of the medium. It has given me a lot of clues as to future purchases of CD's for listening to individual instruments. Altogeth a satisfactory purchase and a welcome addition to my collection.
Excellent Intro for Those Not Familiar with the Orchestra.......2003-11-08
I've listened to classical music for years and am interested in composition. I bought this CD set to learn how an orchestra and its instruments work. I thought the CDs would be a nice but boring lecture. They aren't! Not only are they FUN but they are informative as well. I learned a huge amount from each CD and couldn't wait to listen to the next one.
The narrator and writer is a great speaker and holds your attention well. He is definitely knowledgeable. He provides musical examples for each point he makes, so you get to "hear" what he just talked about. I'd say the CDs are about 65% music and 35% narration. You'll learn about the range of instruments, some history, different ways to play them, how they sound, and how they are used in the orchestra. This CD set was a great learning experience and is sold at such a low price!
I recommend this CD for those who want to learn about classical music and those who know about it but are interested in learning more about the inner workings of an orchestra. You'll learn much useful information. For instance, the Rite of Spring (with that eerie start) is written for bassoon! I never knew a bassoon could sound like that but now I do.
The one complaint I have is the last CD. This deals with the orchestra. I wanted more of a tour of how the orchestra has been used through history up to the present. Instead, it was a tour of how different groups of instruments sound. I thought it could have been better. The other 6 CDs are excellent.
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Strange Form of Life
Bonnie Prince Billy
Manufacturer: Drag City
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B000N3SSWG
Release Date: 2007-04-03 |
Tracks:
- Strange Form Of Life
- New Partner
- The Sun Highlights The Lack In Each
- The Seedling
Average customer rating:
- Magnificent music from the Bartok of jazz
- Lost jazz treasure found
- Recovered work of a master
|
Strange City
The Herbie Nichols Project
Manufacturer: Palmetto Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B00005OW70
Release Date: 2001-10-02 |
Tracks:
- Moments Magical
- Enrapture
- Delights
- Blue Shout
- Strange City
- Karna Kangi
- The Happenings
- Change Of Season
- Some Wandering Bushmen
- Shuffle Montgomery
Amazon.com
Repertory jazz can be a bad thing, rife with second-rate musicians cashing in on the reputation of one of the greats. The Herbie Nichols Project, however, is different. A notable and talented septet led by bassist Ben Allison, pianist Frank Kimbrough, and trumpeter Ron Horton, the group dedicates itself to the tragically overlooked pianist and composer Herbie Nichols, who died in 1963 of complications from leukemia. Only 44 when he died, Nichols recorded three albums for Blue Note and one for Bethlehem; however, Strange City, the Nichols Project's third album, features 10 unrecorded Nichols compositions. The group maintains the composer's angular bop style while freshening it up with the players' own unique perspectives as talented modern-day improvisers. The four horns in particular are a nice touch, fleshing out Nichols's written melodies with complex harmonic arrangements that Nichols's regular trio would never be able to do. Truly a labor of love, Strange City is the heady sound of good intentions well fulfilled. --Tad Hendrickson
Customer Reviews:
Magnificent music from the Bartok of jazz.......2003-11-21
The late critic Ralph Berton used to refer to Thelonious Monk as "the Stravinsky of jazz" because of his masterful displacement of rhythms, and his ability to build an entire piece on a few rhythmic cells. Had he been more familiar with this music of Herbie Nichols which has since come to light, I'm sure he would have called him the Bartok of jazz.
Like Bartok, Nichols used simple folk rhythms (blues and Southern swing) as an underlying structure for wild and colorful harmonic-melodic fantasies. Though his own piano trio recordings for Blue Note only give a hint as to his real intentions (which was to score the music for a small band playing interwoven and disparate lines, as they do here), you can still hear his creativity in creating lines that developed not in a linear progression but, rather, sideways: of coming at the listener from a few different perspectives at the same time, thus building a complex structure out of rather simple motivic cells. Unlike Bartok, however, Nichols' music had humor as well. His only real predecessors in this type of framework were some of the small-group recordings made in the 1920s by Red Nichols (no relation, of course) and in the 1930s by Red Norvo.
Like all truly creative music, however, Nichols' ouvre does not appeal to the average jazz listener. The surrealistic, overlapping lines and occasional lack of a "steady rhythm" bring it more in line with the most creative work of Mingus, Dolphy, Coleman and David Murray. Its appeal is more that of a mosaic than that of a completed picture: the listener is challenged to fill in the connecting lines via his or her imagination and familiarity with both jazz and classical forms.
This is not to say that this music is foreboding, only that it is not "easy listening." In point of fact, the first album of arranged Nichols music was "Blue Chopsticks" by bassist Buell Neidlinger, who knew and worked with Herbie. In that album, Neidlinger used a drummerless quintet, purposely to give more "space" to the playful rhythms and emphasize the interwoven lines. The Herbie Nichols Project uses a drummer, but he does not play a steady rhythm; rather, he fills and punctuates as needed, thus reinforcing the inherent "spaciness" of this music. The effect is simply stunning.
If your jazz listening includes the composer-performers mentioned above, as well as the Brubeck Quartet in their "Time Out" period and some of the more adventurous music of Chick Corea, this album is for you. Herbie Nichols was not merely ahead of his time; he was a displacement of time.
Lost jazz treasure found.......2002-03-20
Herbie Nichols had, by all accounts, a tragic life. Not only was he overlooked and misunderstood, he was reduced to playing gigs in the most modest of venues. He died at 44 from leukemia, as if being misunderstood, underutilized and ahead of his time wasn't enough. As Bleeding Gums Murphy of the Simpsons says "I had enough pain in my life."
Thank heavens that jazz artists like the septet Herbie Nichols Project have seen fit to re-record Nichols' marvelous jazz. Listen to "Strange City" and though you will hear definite 50's be-bop, beatnik styling in the composition, it is way beyond be-bop and well into the modern jazz of today.
If you love jazz, you will love this CD.
Recovered work of a master.......2002-01-09
This is the 3rd Herbie Nichols Project album; the 7-piece collective is co-led by the pianist Frank Kimbrough & the bassist Ben Allison (& the trumpeter Ron Horton, who is the most prominent horn on this disc, is also a key member). The other players are Wycliffe Gordon on trombone (otherwise best known for his role in Wynton Marsalis's bands); Ted Nash & Michael Blake on saxophone; & Matt Wilson on drums. The repertoire on this disc is 10 Nichols tunes, of which 9 were never commercially recorded by Nichols. The album nicely demonstrates the individuality of Nichols' vision: on the one hand, the blues are very much in evidence here; on the other, an extremely sophisticated structural & harmonic sense that is given fullest rein on bittersweet ballads like "Strange City". Nichols' music is at once genial, wryly comic & bittersweet. -- The performances here are mostly by smaller subsets of the ensemble, each player getting his own feature. Gordon is especially good on his bravura display of freakish trombone on "Blue Shout"; there's also a gorgeous a cappella rendition of the opening "Moments Magical" by all four horn players. The one slight misgiving I have here is about the pianist Frank Kimbrough, who is quite competent but a little nondescript. Mostly his playing hews a line somewhere in the vicinity of Bill Evans & Herbie Hancock; when he dips into a Monk/Nichols bag on "Karna Kangi" it sounds rather too close to pastiche.
A very good disc of modern jazz, which should be enjoyable even by those with no former acquaintance with Nichols' music.
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Dagen Är Kommen
Manufacturer: Naxos
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Cornelius, Peter
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- Duets: An American Classic
ASIN: B0000014FV
Release Date: 2000-10-06 |
Tracks:
- Dagen Ar Kimmen
- Nar Juldagsmorgon Glimmar
- Det Ar En Ros Utsprungen
- Betlehems Stjarna (Glans Over Sjo Och Strand) - Niklas Westlund
- Ding, Dong, Merrily On High
- Nu Tandas Tusen Jeleljus - Richard Rindevret
- Stilla Natt - Olle Persson
- Gladelig Vi Sjunge Dig
- Forunderligt och Markligt
- Vid Betlehem
- Tre Kungar - Olle Persson
- Harlig Ar Jorden
- O Helga Natt (Adams Julsang) - Olle Persson
- I Saw Three Ships
- Jungfru Maria
- Och Det Hande Vid Den Tiden - Niklas Westlund
- Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul
- Ave Maria - Olle Persson
- Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
- Lyss Till Anglassangens Ord
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The World's Greatest Tenors
Manufacturer: Eagle
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ASIN: B000001YBQ
Release Date: 1996-04-23 |
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- MARK TEPPO's igloomag.com REVIEW ::
|
Empty City
Tor Lundvall
Manufacturer: Strange Fortune
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B000FAY9UW
Release Date: 2006-05-02 |
Tracks:
- Scrap Yard
- Platform #3
- Running Late
- Night Work
- Early Hours
- Grey Water
- Buildings and Rain
- Wires
- Empty City
- Open Window
- 2: 00 Am
- Clearing Sky
Product Description
In 2005, New York based painter & musician Tor Lundvall (ex-World Serpent UK) unveiled Last Light, his latest album of curiously listenable, ghostly ambient music, and his first to feature proper "songs" with vocals. Last Light proved to be Tor's best seller, and has accumulated critical praise from e/i to Gothic Beauty to Terrorizer.
Strange Fortune now opens the gates to what we believe to be the first essential release of 2006, Tor Lundvall's Empty City.
Every Tor Lundvall release is distinct, and while Empty City may in some ways be considered a companion to Last Light, sharing its deep resonating sonic character, in other ways it's an opposite release. Where Last Light was about looking inward, Empty City ventures out to a fantastic, frightening new world, a decayed urban setting much different than anything Tor ever explored in the past. Where Last Light was centered around words, on Empty City the music takes over once again. There are vocals but used exclusively in an instrumental manner, no lyrics needed this time.
While countless electronic music makers regularly deliver new recordings to fit in the ambient music category, with Tor Lundvall what you get is a new category to discover. The subtle underlying melodic structure of this music means it may be the most listenable "ambient" music you've ever heard, while it's all drenched in a singularly moody, haunted atmosphere that is Tor's real trademark. We believe what Tor is doing is the best and most exciting thing happening in the ambient electronic music world. File under: "ghost ambient."
Customer Reviews:
MARK TEPPO's igloomag.com REVIEW :: .......2006-05-18
MARK TEPPO's igloomag.com REVIEW ::
(05.17.06) There's a progression of events that lead to Tor Lundvall's Empty City. First, we build cities and railways and roads and factories; then, we vanish from them, disappearing into the night. Lundvall, riding the train through these empty landscapes, is struck by their ephemeral nature -- the way they are built and seemingly abandoned. He carries home these images and paints landscapes. These landscapes, rich with lambent skies and intense palettes of grey and charcoal, became the inspiration for the ghostly ambience of Empty City.
There's enough metropolitan drift floating through this record that a comparison to Mark Nelson's work as Pan*American is a starting landmark. But, I think Lundvall's paintings are a filter on the spectral nature of the abandoned -- sorry, "empty"; this distinction is, I think, key to Lundvall's interpretation -- cityscapes. While the music is imbued with phantasmal swirls of melody and the sepulchral echo of mechanical percussion, there is an indelible fingerprint of color and heat still captive within these ghostly sounds. Voices -- acting as instruments sans language -- exhale with moist humanity behind them. "Night Work" reverberates with the steel pulse of a train yard while vents of warm steam jet up into a slate sky. There is work being done beneath the ground, human work.
"Early Hours" ticks with the metronomic pulse of street sweepers smoothing the grit from the gutters, the long tone hush that descends upon the still city and the echoing chord of rarefied sound that seems like the echo of a party that got out an hour ago and is still quietly draining away. It is the sound of that attenuated exhaustion which rides home with the nightlife, whispering that fading echo of the final flush of last call, last kiss, in your ears. A repetitive drip of rainwater provides the rhythm for "Buildings and Rain" while anguished melodies twist into awkward spirals in the puddles running beneath the eaves. Sounds like ravens expiring are stretched across rain-damp skies. "Wires" vibrates with electrical urgency, a organ hymn raised from power lines and transformer stations; while "Empty City" approaches the closet thing to a trip-hop tune, as a torch singer who has lost her words but not her voice lets her lamentation drift across the empty boulevards and still avenues.
Tragically short, Empty City is like a town glimpsed through a break in the mist. Populated by ghosts and rife with echoes, you barely get a chance to hear the whispered litany of the city's hidden inhabitants before the song vanishes. Rhythms you think you understand decay into nothingness just as they worm their way into your brain and melodies are simply phantoms of the daylight hours when the sun stirs up the wind and the voices. It is the closest we city-dwellers get to silence; it is the purest and most uncluttered music we can hear. Lundvall captures this rich tapestry of evocative ambience beautifully with Empty City.
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Hey! Tuskegee
B-Legend
Manufacturer: Tyger Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B000CA9JTG
Release Date: 2005-10-25 |
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Fungicide: Music Inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris Stories
Manufacturer: Quail Note Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B000BVCTOI
Release Date: 2003-10-31 |
Tracks:
- Albumuth Boulevard
- The Exchange
- The Transformation of Martin Lake
- Uzumaki I
- Dradin, In Love (Part I)
- Festival of the Squid
- Dradin, In Love (Part II)
- Flooded Streets
- Uzumaki II
- The Cage
- The Man Who Had No Eyes
- The Exchange (Reading by Jeff VanderMeer)
Product Description
Fungicide is a collection of music to accompany City of Saints & Madmen, by Jeff VanderMeer, However, the music can be enjoyed even if you are not familiar with his work. The CD is a gatefold package with 20 pages of notes, artwork and an excerpt from Jeff VanderMeer's upcoming novel, Shriek: An Afterword.
Customer Reviews:
Soundtrack to Ambergris?.......2006-11-09
Robert Devereux is a one-man band, playing all the instruments on his album inspired by Jeff Vandermeer's lush, doom-filled, fungus-infested fantasy city of Ambergris (from Vandermeer's books City of Saints & Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword). Devereux also composed most of the music, though he gives an improbable folk origin for the music for Ambergris's Festival of the Freshwater Squid. He is eclectic as all get-out, processing flutes, piano, guitar, and even Tuvan throat-singing electronically to match sounds to moods.
Devereux's avowed intention to create a soundtrack to Ambergris, however, worked too well to interest me. I'm not a fan of most soundtrack music, with their melodies designed to create and enhance mood subtly while our attention is on the story. While it might be fine in the background, often it is incomplete without something in the foreground for it to reflect and enhance. Added to its apparently limited production budget, this made much of the album sound to me like those amateurish synthesizer soundtracks one sometimes hears on low-budget BBC miniseries or Sci-Fi channel one-offs.
Also, some of Devereux's musical experiments are ill-advised and unsuccessful, like his attempts in Uzumaki and The Man Who Had No Eyes to translate visual stimuli into music (in Uzumaki by taking sheet music and warping it, then playing the results; in No Eyes by translating the numbers corresponding to letters in the text of a Vandermeer short story directly into sound).
Still, there are points of interest here. The tracks titled Albumuth Boulevard and Dradin, In Love both achieve a rough approximation of the mood I got from Vandermeer's works, though, as I said, in a low-budget kind of way. The album's greatest success is The Transformation of Martin Lake, in which the weakness of the music as a foreground attraction is eliminated because Devereux introduces vocals: readings from Vandermeer's story of the same title. Vandermeer's evocative language is fascinating, and Devereux's music enhances the eerie mood.
The album also features Vandermeer's words in a reading of his short story The Exchange to close out the disk, and a sample chapter of Vandermeer's Shriek: An Afterword in the inventively designed CD case.
Tracks:
- Our Summer Romance
- Hummingbird
- I Ain't Got You
- I Kissed a Queen
- Pair of Scissors (And a Pot of Glue) [Take 18]
- Donna Donna [#]
- Female Hercules
- You by My Side (La Novia) [English][#]
- Annabelle
- Search
- Don't Let Her Go
- Once Again
- I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know
- Novia (You by My Side) [Spanish]
- Pistolero
- I'll Be There [#]
- No Wonder
- Pair of Scissors (And a Pot of Glue) [Take 17]
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The Carnival (Quicksilva)
Manufacturer: Asv Living Era
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
Polkas
| Ballets & Dances
| Classical
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All Works by Berlioz
| Berlioz, Hector
| ( B )
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| Classical
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All Works by Brahms
| Brahms, Johannes
| ( B )
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| Classical
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General
| Dvorák, Antonín
| ( D )
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| Classical
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General
| Saint-Saëns, Camille
| ( S )
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| Classical
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All Works by Stravinsky
| Stravinsky, Igor
| ( S )
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| Classical
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All Works by Turina
| Turina, Joaquin
| ( T )
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| Classical
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All Works by Wolf-Ferrari
| Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno
| ( W )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
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General
| Concertos
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Overtures
| Theatrical, Incidental & Program Music
| Forms & Genres
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General Modern
| Modern, 20th, & 21st Century
| Historical Periods
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Piano
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Clarinet
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| Instruments
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General
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General
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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
| ( R )
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General
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General
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Romantic (c.1820-1910)
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Italian
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General
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ASIN: B000001HOB
Release Date: 1994-11-29 |
Tracks:
- Carnival Overture - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Academic Festival Overture - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
- Roman Carnival Overture - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- 1. Sosenuto - Andante Calmo/2. Tema (Moderato)/3. Variationi/4. Sostenuto/5. I Tempo/6. Finale - Emma Johnson
- Festa Popolare - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- La Procesion Del Rocio - Enrique Batiz
- Circus Polka (For A Baby Elephant) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Introduction/Royal March Of The Lion
- Cocks And Hens
- Wild Asses
- Tortoises
- Elephants
- Kangaroos
- The Aquarium
- Personages With Long Ears
- The Cuckoo In The Wood
- The Avairy
- Pianists
- Fossils
- The Swan
- Finale
Jazz Music:
- Summertime
- Teach Me Tonight [Import]
- Tenor Reference
- That Elegant Sound: 1935-1953
- The Million Dollar Legs [Import]
- The Singles [Import]
- Tijuana Moods [Original recording remastered]
- Tomorrow Is the Question
- Triangulo [Hybrid SACD]
- Trio City 2
Jazz Music
Jazz Music