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The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection
Release Date: 1999-06-01
Sales rank: 7057
Another Compilation of Stage Favourites - Some Tracks Are Hard to Find Elsewhere.Sarah Brightman's career was launched by her success in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, so it's no surprise to hear the soprano paying homage to the composer on this disc. Really a Brightman best-of, the album includes the Phantom theme (a duet with Michael Crawford), the light-opera fare of "Chanson D'enfance" from Aspects of Love, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Evita, and numerous other Lloyd Webber classics. Throughout, Brightman's diminutive voice lends a fragility to these musical theater tunes that you'll either love or despise. On Evita's "Another Suitcase, Another Hall" and Cats' "Memory," she literally chirps through the vocal lines. No matter. The growing legion of Brightman fans wouldn't have it any other way. --Jason Verlinde |
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Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies
Release Date: 2002-03-05
Sales rank: 2193
GENERAL FEATURES: Beethoven's Wig Sing Along Symphonies are zany stick-in-your-head lyrics set to the greatest hits of classical music. Filled with fact and fancy about the world's most notable composers and their masterpieces, each Sing Along Symphony opens the door to "serious music" in a way that's fun. As a bonus, the orchestral performance of each classical piece is included without lyrics. Educational entertainment for all ages.Inspired and wildly imaginative, Beethoven's Wig is one of the best introductions to classical music you could give to your children. Featuring snippets of 11 classical music staples--Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, et al.--the disc and its creators, Richard Perlmutter and friends, pour on the silly lyrics the first time around to familiarize young ears to the old masters. Then in the last half of the record, the orchestra plays the same "serious" music pieces instrumentally. You might cheerfully recall Alan Sherman's popular spoofs of old classical works in Wig and you'll again chuckle at pieces like "Drip, Drip, Drip," which adapts Delibes's "Pizzicato from Sylvia." You'll also marvel at the expertise throughout the CD, with all the pieces well played yet thoroughly fun. Beethoven's Wig is an orchestral treasure with a sense of humor as old or as new as its listeners (and the fun questions that run throughout the CD's liner notes are almost as entertaining as the zany musical interludes). Highly recommended. --Martin Keller |
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Words of the Angel
Release Date: 2002-01-29
Sales rank: 19659
The 14th century "Tournai" Mass, consisting of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est, is the first known complete polyphonic mass to come down to us. Its sections were probably written by different composers, and it's a stunning, fascinating look into early polyphony. This performance is combined with other pieces from the same period, as well as a five-minute piece by contemporary composer Ivan Moody, which--though clearly from six centuries later--blends to make this a gorgeous whole. If you like Anonymous 4, you're in for a real treat here. The three Scandinavian women who make up Trio Mediaeval have astonishingly beautiful voices, with individual timbres that nonetheless mingle seamlessly, whether in simple, chantlike moments or in the high-flying Moody piece. And they sing with feeling, depth, and, well, soul. This is a magnificent disc, not to be missed. --Robert Levine |
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Chant II
Release Date: 1995-10-17
Sales rank: 2054
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Angels: Christmas with the Great Sopranos
Release Date: 2008-10-14
Sales rank: 9498
Celebrate Christmas with some of the most beautiful melodies written for the holidays and sung by the most gorgeous voices. With opera stars both past and present, from Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland to Renée Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu, this generously filled CD includes everyone's favorite songs, including "O Holy Night," "Silent Night," "Hark! The herald Angels Sing" and much more. |
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The Mystery Of Santo Domingo De Silos Gregorian Chant From Spain
Release Date: 1994-05-10
Sales rank: 3032
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On Yoolis Night: Medieval Carols & Motets
Release Date: 1993-09-01
Sales rank: 14965
This follow-up to Anonymous 4's debut "hit," An English Ladymass, is even better. From the choice of repertoire to the proficiency of the singing to the recorded sound, this is a standard-setting production. The 23 works--plainchants, carols, songs, and motets--invoke various aspects of the Christmas story: the visitation of the angel Gabriel, tributes to the Virgin Mary, gifts of the Magi, and hymns of praise for the birth of Christ. The sound is stunning: resonant yet intimate, warm yet vibrant. And while you can hear the individual character of each voice, together these four women make a sound of uncommon purity and beauty. The technical facility is evident with each closing phrase, each perfect unison. Critics are advised to jealously reserve such words as outstanding, excellent, and superior. But this is one of those recordings that deserve all those descriptions. --David Vernier |
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Mozart - Requiem / Augér, Bartoli, Cole, Pape, Wiener Phil., Solti
Release Date: 1992-03-10
Sales rank: 7269
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La Luna
Release Date: 2000-08-29
Sales rank: 2406
Sarah Brightman Photos More from Sarah Brightman
Time to Say Goodbye | 
Diva: The Singles Collection | 
Eden | 
Diva: The Video Collection | 
Harem | 
La Luna (Live in Concert) | Superstar crossover vocalist Sarah Brightman greets the new millennium with an even surer, bolder sense of her unique musical niche than that evident from 1999's Eden. Like Eden, La Luna is a concept album only in a vaguely free-associative sense. The selection of material here touches on images of the moon that reinforce its ambiguity as a force known to draw together "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" (Brightman's photo shoots for the album do seem to suggest a sort of Titania-like figure out of a New Age Midsummer Night's Dream). And it's a stylistic as well as thematic voyage, coursing from such contemporary sounds as synth pop (on "This Love") through vintage jazz standards (Billie Holiday's atmospheric and haunting "Gloomy Sunday") to high opera for the title track (a version of the sublime "Song of the Moon" from Dvorák's fairy-tale opera Rusalka), and drawing elsewhere on the gorgeously sinuous melodies of Bach, Handel, and Rachmaninov--one song, "Figlio Perduto," even adapts the slow movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Throughout, producer Frank Peterson swathes Brightman's shiny small voice in luxuriant fabrics of sound. Detractors will lament the resulting sameness of tone--no matter what the style involved--but Brightman's focus on spinning an ethereal spell never gets eclipsed. This domestic release includes three tracks not available on the import version and has a special treat hidden in the final track as a bonus. --Thomas May |
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Sacred Songs
Release Date: 2005-09-27
Sales rank: 9939
This lovely CD features Renée Fleming singing religious music in an unaffected, lovely manner. Many favorites are here: both the Bach/Gounod and Schubert versions of "Ave Maria," each offered with long breaths and soft tone; "Rejoice Greatly" from Messiah, delivered with virtuosity and gleaming sound, and "He Shall Feed His Flock," also from Messiah, sung in a smooth, laid-back manner. Bits of the Fauré Requiem and Poulenc Gloria are welcome, as is the gorgeous "L'Adieu des Bergers" from L'Enfance du Christ. In the prayer from Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, Fleming is joined by the splendid Susan Graham, and a version of "Amazing Grace" features Mark O'Connor on violin. Two excerpts from Mozart's Mass in C Minor, pieces by Reger and Franck, and a few surprises round out this devotional CD. --Robert Levine |
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