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Yo-Yo Ma, André Previn, Sylvia McNair, Sandra Church - Previn: From Ordinary Things (Remastered) (2013)

Posted By: tirexiss
Yo-Yo Ma, André Previn, Sylvia McNair, Sandra Church - Previn: From Ordinary Things (Remastered) (2013)

Yo-Yo Ma, André Previn, Sylvia McNair, Sandra Church - Previn: From Ordinary Things (Remastered) (2013)
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 244 MB | MP3 (CBR 320 kbps) - 152 MB | 01:00:05
Genre: Classical | Label: Sony Classical

Previn's Four Songs, using poems by Toni Morrison, continues the US song tradition established by Copland. They may not be strikingly original in style (they owe a debt to 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson), but they are very attractive, idiomatically American and movingly evocative of their texts. The set was written for Sylvia McNair, with a plangent cello obbligato for Yo-Yo Ma. McNair is outstanding here, her voice radiant but warm, soaring but secure.

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo (1991)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo (1991)

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo (1991)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 834 Mb | Total time: 78:02+70:45+61:46 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 431 674-2 | Recorded: 1990

“This is unquestionably the most vital and authentic account of Idomeneo to date on disc. We have here what was given at the work's first performance in Munich plus, in appendices, what Mozart wanted, or was forced, to cut before that premiere and the alternative versions of certain passages, so that various combinations of the piece can be programmed by the listener. Gardiner's direct, dramatic conducting catches ideally the agony of Idomeneo's terrible predicament – forced to sacrifice his son because of an unwise row. This torment of the soul is also entirely conveyed by Anthony Rolfe Johnson in the title role to which Anne Sofie von Otter's moving Idamante is an apt foil. Sylvia McNair is a diaphanous, pure-voiced Ilia, Hillevi Martinpelto a properly fiery, sharp-edged Elettra.

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: La clemenza di Tito (1991)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: La clemenza di Tito (1991)

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: La clemenza di Tito (1991)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 471 Mb | Total time: 58:20+59:44 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 431 806-2 | Recorded: 1990

Listening to this work so soon after hearing Zauberflote one is amazed anew that Mozart could write two such totally contrasted pieces within months of each other. Here, in the composer's last opera seria, we are in another world, one of formality tempered by the deep emotions engendered by love and jealousy. Instead of birdcatchers and Masonic rights we are dealing with historic figures in a supposedly historic context with down-to-earth feelings. For each Mozart finds precisely the appropriate music.

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Claudio Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea (1996)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Claudio Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea (1996)

John Eliot Gardiner, The English Baroque Soloists - Claudio Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea (1996)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 825 Mb | Total time: 71:36+76:11+43:00 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 447 088-2 | Recorded: 1993

The central question was always about how much needs to be added to the surviving notes in order to make Poppea viable on stage. Gardiner and his advisers believe that nothing needs adding and that the 'orchestra' played only when explicitly notated in the score and was a very small group.

Sylvia McNair, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists - Exsultate Jubilate: Works by Handel and Mozart (1993)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sylvia McNair, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists - Exsultate Jubilate: Works by Handel and Mozart (1993)

Sylvia McNair, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Exsultate Jubilate: Works by Handel and Mozart (1993)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 246 Mb | Total time: 59:13 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Philips | # 434 920-2 | Recorded: 1992

This is a quite exceptional record and contains some of the best singing I have heard in years. The matching trills between Sylvia McNair and the orchestra towards the end of the Alleluia from Handel’s Silete venti have to be heard to be believed. As usual, Gardiner conducts the music with stylistic authority, vigour and finesse. It is an excellent combination. The recording was made in All Hallows, Gospel Oak, in London and is in an acoustically broad space, but has all the details of choir and soloist in place.

Neville Marriner, Academy & Chorus of St Martin in the Fields - Handel: Messiah (2003/1992)

Posted By: Vilboa
Neville Marriner, Academy & Chorus of St Martin in the Fields - Handel: Messiah (2003/1992)

Neville Marriner, Academy & Chorus of St Martin in the Fields - Handel: Messiah (2003/1992)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | English | LinearPCM, 2 ch | DTS, 5 ch | 7.94 Gb (DVD9) | 134+22 min
Classical | Philips

Sir Neville Marriner conducts this 250th Anniversary performance. Soloists include Sylvia McNair, Anne Sofie Van Otter. The performance is supported by an informative background film "For Ever and Ever", explaining the circumstances behind the compositi.

Sylvia McNair, Sir Neville Marriner - Fauré: Requiem (1995)

Posted By: tirexiss
Sylvia McNair, Sir Neville Marriner - Fauré: Requiem (1995)

Sylvia McNair, Sir Neville Marriner - Fauré: Requiem (1995)
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 224 MB | MP3 (CBR 320 kbps) - 139 MB | 54:33
Genre: Classical | Label: Philips

If I had to pick only a handful of discs to single out as being of extreme worth to me personally - this would be one of them. There are just some works out there where the composer was inspired to record something truly extraordinary. This is one such work and this recording is the best that I know of. I have also spent a lot of time with the Fournet, Rotterdam recording Fauré: Requiem; Pavane; Pelléas et Mélisande . And while I think that is a fine recording, this ASMF recording with Marriner is a cut above. The playing is sensuous and refined, the tempos are perfect to convey the feeling of the music. This recording has lifted me up at some very low times in my life, and never ceases to convey power, wonder, and awe.

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Mozart: Great Mass in C minor (1987)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Mozart: Great Mass in C minor (1987)

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Mozart: Great Mass in C minor (1987)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 229 Mb | Total time: 53:26 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Philips | # 420 210-2 | Recorded: 1986

Writers on Mozart sometimes take him to task for the alleged mixture of style in the C minor Mass, in particular the use of florid, 'operatic' solo writing amidst all the severe ecclesiastical counterpoint. To object is to misunderstand the nature of Mozart's religion, but it takes a performance as stylistically accomplished as this one to make the point in practice. The usual stumbling-block is the 'Et incarnatus', with its richly embellished solo line and its wind obbligatos. Sung as it is here, by Sylvia McNair, beautifully refined in detail, it's indeed passionate, but passionately devout.

John Nelson, English Chamber Orchertra, Ambrosian Opera Chorus - Handel: Semele (1993)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Nelson, English Chamber Orchertra, Ambrosian Opera Chorus - Handel: Semele (1993)

John Nelson, English Chamber Orchertra, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne - Handel: Semele (1993)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 828 Mb | Total time: 62:08+45:19+67:12 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon ‎| 435 782-2 | Recorded: 1990

This magnificent performance is without a doubt among the top two or three Handel opera recordings in the catalog. John Nelson outdoes even the period instrument competition, conducting with a vitality and freshness that sweeps all before it. Kathleen Battle is a great Semele (if listening to this woman sing "Myself I Will Adore" isn't a classic example of typecasting, then what is?). But the real palm must go to Marilyn Horne as the jealous Juno, who simply stops the show with her two arias (she sings Ino as well). A very great recording.

Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields - Mozart: Il Re Pastore (2006/1989)

Posted By: Vilboa
Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields - Mozart: Il Re Pastore (2006/1989)

Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields - Mozart: Il Re Pastore (2006/1989)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) VBR | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (DTS, 6 ch) | 7.39 Gb (DVD9) | 114 min
Classical | Philips | Sub: English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol, Chinese

Set in classical antiquily, Mozart’s "Il re pastore" tells of the thwarted love of Aminta (the innocent ‘shepherd king’ of the title) for the well-born Elisa, and that of the nobleman Agenore for the deposed tyrant’s daughter Tamiri. No less a figure than Alexander the Great resolves these conflicts of private passion and public status. First performed in Salzburg in 1775, Sir Neville Marriner conducts a top international cast in this 1989 production of the opera from Salzburg’s Landestheater.

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Derek Lee Ragin, Sylvia McNair - Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (2012)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Derek Lee Ragin, Sylvia McNair - Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (2012)

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Derek Lee Ragin, Sylvia McNair - Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 401 Mb | Total time: 88:53 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Decca | # 478 3425 | Recorded: 1991

…Gardiner's account of the Vienna Orfeo ed Euridice is peerless. One soon loses all sense of its being a period-instrument performance at all, so profound, at times overwhelming is its impact - so utterly right. In detail after detail - hauntingly poetic offstage instrumental complement, perfectly positioned in the drama (and perfectly captured by the excellent Philips recording); superbly stirring brass playing, which makes every entry a dramatic event; choral singing extraordinarily light in weight yet rich in emotional substance; exquisitely refined dance movements - and in sustainment of a delicately tenebrous, uniquely Gluckian atmosphere throughout, Gardiner's command of an opera championed since his first London concert performance, 21 years ago, is revealed as simply larger and fuller than almost anyone else's.

Claudio Abbado, Wiener Philharmoniker - Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (2007)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Claudio Abbado, Wiener Philharmoniker - Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (2007)

Claudio Abbado, Wiener Philharmoniker - Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (2007)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 682 Mb | Total time: 64:51+57:57+47:00 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 477 9124 | Recorded: 1994

On this 3-CD album Claudio Abbado brings to Figaro, Mozart's "sublime mixture of wit and melancholy" (Stendhal), "a keen sense of rhythm and texture and a very keen ear for orchestral detail" (Gramophone), with Cecilia Bartoli "ideally cast", an "enchanting" Sylvia McNair, and Cheryl Studer giving a "totally radiant performance"(The Penguin Guide).