Today the countdown to 2012 begins as we reveal the top 10 albums (by sales) of 2011! This will be a two-part post starting at #10 and finishing with the #1 Delos Album of the Year!
#10 – American Mystic: Music of Alan Hovhaness – Centennial Collection
AMERICAN MYSTIC
MUSIC OF ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-2000) ▪ CENTENNIAL COLLECTION
“My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people; music which is beautiful and healing – to attempt what old Chinese painters called ‘spirit resonance’ in melody and sound.” — Alan Hovhaness
Featuring:
Prayer of St. Gregory, Op.62b
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, Op.308
4 Bagatelles, Op.30 Nos.1-4
Symphony No.2, Op.132, Mysterious Mountain
String Quartet No.2, Op.147, Gamelan in Sosi Style
String Quartet No.2, Op.147, Spirit Murmur
The Flowering Peach, Op.125
And God Created Great Whales, Op.229, No.1
#9 – For Thy Pleasure: J.S. Bach and other Baroque Masters (Los Angeles Guitar Quartet)
J.S. Bach and other Baroque Masters
An all-baroque program, arranged and performed by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Highlights include Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, music from Handel, Monteverdi, Purcell, and a very unusual version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. A pleasure for all music lovers!
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
Bach: Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, III, Allegro
Handel: The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
Bach: Fugue No. 3
Purcell: Rondeau Monteverdiana
Purcell: Fantasia upon one Note
Bach: Little Fugu
Telemann: Concerto for Four Violins
~ The musicians will now take a 20-second break ~
The Pachelbel “Loose” Canon
#8 – Debussy: Complete Chamber Music (3 Discs)
Chamber Music of Claude Debussy, complete on three discs.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
It would be hard to find a more eloquent appraisal by one composer of another than the one by Virgil Thomson of Claude Debussy. “Historically viewed,” Thomson wrote in 1950, “Debussy is the summit toward which, during the two centuries since Rameau’s death, French music has risen and from which, at least for the present, it seems to decline. Internationally viewed… he is to the musicians of our century everywhere what Beethoven was to those of the nineteenth, our blinding light, our sun, our central luminary.” The pianist E. Robert Schmidt (1889-1949), who studied with Debussy at the Conservatoire and knew him well, gives a vivid glimpse of the composer’s complex personality: “He was often anxious and possessed by a curious sense of guilt… He was habitually silent, solitary, taciturn and tormented.” The poet Henri de Regnier described him as “passionate and turned in upon himself, with something feline and something of the gypsy about him.” Yet another friend wrote of his “ironic and sensual [nature], melancholy and voluptuous…. In his reclusion there was something feline…” The works on this three-disc set are drawn from virtually the entire span of Debussy’s composing life, starting with the 1880 Piano Trio, written at the age of 18, and ending with his last work, the Violin Sonata of 1917, which was the final piece he performed in public.
Claude Debussy:
Premiere Rapsodie (8:30)
Petite Piece (1:24)
Sonata for Cello and Piano (11:07)
Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (16:39)
Syrinx (2:14)
Sonata for Violin and Piano (13:01)
String Quartet (24:39)
Piano Trio (22:54)
Nocturne et Scherzo (6:16)
Six epigraphes antiques (16:30)
En Blanc et Noir (15:33)
Lindaraja (6:07)
Marche Ecossaise (6:35)
Petite Suite (13:13)
#7 – Kodaly: Unaccompanied Cello, Duo/Starker
Janos Starker, cello
Josef Gingold, violin
“The one outstanding twentieth-century chamber disc is of Kodaly’s Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, superbly played by Janos Starker.” – Ovation
“Perhaps the one that impressed me most is a magisterial account by Janos Starker of the magnificent Sonata for solo cello by Kodaly, coupled with an equally fine performance of Kodaly’s Duo for violin and cello, in which Starker is joined by the legendary Joseph Gingold.” – Robin Golding, Gramophone
“Ever since I can remember, the famous Solo Cello Sonata, Op. 8 of Kodaly, the only work in this genre comparable with the Cello Suites of Bach (and I am not forgetting Britten), has been synonymous with the name of Janos Starker, who has recorded it more than once (his most recent version is available here), and with the composer’s accolade.” – Ivan March, Gramophone
Program:
Bottermund-Starker: Variations on a Theme by Paganini
Kodaly: Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, Op. 8; Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
#6 – Pushkin Romances
PUSHKIN ROMANCES
Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone
Ivari Ilja, piano
DE 3392
Operatic superstar Dmitri Hvorostovsky has become the supreme interpreter of the Russian Romance, with its rich resource of music and poetry.
“The sheer beauty of Hvorostovsky’s voice approaches legendary status” San Francisco Examiner • “…some of the most beautiful and eloquent sounds that can currently be heard from any human throat… His voice is redolent of luxury: beautiful tone, pinpoint intonation, elegant, and impassioned delivery.” The New York Times
This album offers seventeen songs, or “romances,” all composed to texts from works of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s greatest poet. The composers represented here have helped define the true meaning of the Russian Romance, and have created some of the world’s greatest song literature. Choosing only romances inspired by Pushkin texts, Hvorostovsky has upped the ante to make a musical statement no other singer has attempted.
GLINKA: I Recall a Wonderful Moment Ja pomnu chudnoe mgnovenie… • Declaration Priznanie • The Fire of Longing Burns in My Heart V krovi gorit ogon zhelania • The Night Zephyr Nochnoi Zefir • DARGOMYZHSKIY: The Youth and the Maiden Yunosha i deva • BORODIN: For the Shores of Thy Far Native Land Dla beregov otchizny dalnei • RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: The Clouds Begin to Scatter Redeet oblakov, Op. 42 No. 3 • On the Hills of Georgia Na kholmax Gruzii lezhit nochnaja mgla, Op. 3, No. 4 • CUI: The Statue at Tsarskoye Selo Carskosel’skaja statuja, Op. 57 No. 17 • I loved you Ya vas ljubil • MEDTNER: Gone Are my Heart’s Desires Ya perezhil svoi zhelania, Op. 3, No. 2 • Winter Evening (The Snowstorm Covers the Sky with Darkness) Zimnii vecher (Buria Mglou nebo kroet), Op. 13, No. 1 • To a Dreamer Mechtatelu • VLASOV: To the Fountain of Bakhchisarai Palace Fontanu Bakhchisarajsogo dvortsa • TCHAIKOVSKY: Nightingale Solovei, Op. 60, No. 4 • RACHMANINOV: Don’t Sing To Me, Fair Maiden Ne poi, krasavitsa, pri mne, Op. 4 No. 4 • SVIRIDOV: The Crimson Forest Sheds its Attire Roniayet les bagrianiy svoi ubor
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