Mstation Classical Reviews

Age of the Diva Albinoni Almost Christmas Arias, Hampson, Harnoncourt Bach Keyboard Concertos Bach Viola Bach, Barenboim Bach, Cantatas Bach, Concertos Bach, JS, Keyboard Works Bach, Mass in B Minor Bach, Mutter Bach, trio-sonatas Baroque Christmas Album Baroque Trumpet Bartok, Concertos Bartoli Bartoli, Opera Proibita Bax, Baroque Beethoven Piano Beethoven String Quartets Beethoven and Brahms Beethoven, piano Bella Donna: Courtly Love Belle Epoque Melodies Berlioz, Les Troyens Binchois, Dufay Boccherini, Cello Concertos Boxed Baroque Boyce, Eight Symphonies British Light Classics British Piano Concertos Brubeck, The Gates of Justice Bruch, Violin Concerto Callas Canteloube, Chants d'Auvergne Carols Chanticleer, Sound in Spirit Charpentier Charpentier, Lebegue Christmas 04 Christmas Vespers Contemporary and Medieval Copland Delius Der Rosenkavalier Dukachev - Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rachminov Elgar Elgar, Marches Elgar, The Enigma Variations Faure songs French Medieval Songs Fux Gounod, Faust Graham: Causon, Ravel, Debussy Great Ballets Grieg, Franck Handel Arias Handel, Deborah Handel, Messiah Handel, The Triumph ... Handel, Water Music DVD Hapsburg Music Haydn Haydn, Handel DVD's Herz Piano Jane Austen's Songbook Josefowicz Recital King's Singers La Fille Mal Gardee Lang Lang and Yo Yo Ma: Farewell Isabella and Chinese things Lauridsen Llibre Vermell Luci, Bartoli, and a dead diva Lully, Comedies-ballets, Phaeton Maerzmusik sampler Mahler Symphony No 7 Mahler, Berg Mantovani Matsudaira Medieval French Songs Mendelssohn Sacred Mendelssohn, Dvorak Messa di Gloria Michael Haydn Miles Davis ... sorta Monterverdi, Orfeo Monteverdi Vespers Monteverdi, Poppea Monteverdi, The Sacred Music 3 Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handel Montiverdi Vespers Morricone Mozart Symphonies Mozart, Cosi fan tutte Mozart, Exsultate Jubilate Mozart, Mass in C Minor Mozart, symphonies 40, 41 Mozart: Die Zauberflote Mozart: the string quartets Mozrt Requiem Mutter Mozart New English Hymnal New RSS system and Feeds Nikolay Roslavets Peerson, Latin Motets Penguins March Pergolesi, La Serva Padrona Philip Glass, Symphonies 2 and 3 Poulenc concerto Proms Purcell - Dido and Aeneas Purcell Sonatas Purcell: Dido and Aeneas Rachmaninov, Piano Ramallah - Beethoven No. 5 Rameau, Les Paladins Reger, Bach and Telemann Variations Renaissance Organ Music Romantic Cello Concertos Romantic Violin Russian Album -Anna Netrebko Rutter Mass Sanctuary, the heart has its reasons Scarlatti, The complete Keyboard Sonatas Schubert and Mozart piano Schubert Ð Death and the Maiden Shostakovich Shostakovich and Schnittke, Cello Shostakovich/Josefowicz Sibelius String Quartets Sixteen: Ikon South American Baroque Stainer, The Crucifiction Sting does Dowland Strauss tone poem Takemitsu Tallis Tchaikovsky, Symphony No 5, Verdi, Sibelius The Kirov celebrates Nijinsky Toshiro Mayazumi Vaughan Williams Verdi View from a dark tunnel Virginal -Susann van Soldt Vivaldi Cello Vivaldi, Motezuma Vivaldi, Sacred Music Vivaldi: Dixit Dominus Von Otter Wagner, Das Rheingold Wagner, Gotterdammerung DVD Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks Weir, Gillian Weiss / Lindberg Lute Whitacre, Cloudburst Williams, Bingham: Mass von Weber, Chamber Music

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 Monteverdi, Poppea Claudio Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea Deneder Ladse Opera Les Talons Lyriques recorded for TV, Amsterdam, 1994 2 DVD's, Opus Arte In what way is Monteverdi like Wagner? Not many actually, but this prologue and three acts covers most of 2 DVD's so occasional huge length is a similiarity. In this opera Monteverdi explores the sheer nastiness of Poppea from the days of the Emperor Nero with some grit. There are no happy endings and the good do not triumph. You can, of course, completely miss all that by just taking the music as it comes. Some idea of the background to Monteverdi's thoughts can be judged from reading Jacob Burckhardt's famous book called The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy. In it you will learn that the warring city-states that made up Italy were mostly ruled by tyranical despots who killed off each other and their subjects with glee and regularity -- nice arts, an uncertain foundation for the concept of individualism, and thoroughly nasty everything else. I was talking to my colleague, Peter Wells, about this, and it turns out theat he may have seen a performance from this series in Amsterdam. He commented on the effective, though modern, staging and the quality of the performance. All this is evident on these DVD's. The staging is striking and the performances are excellent although, as usual, I quibble with what happens with compression and the high registers of voice. Not that's it's horrible -- it just subtracts a little. (Count K) [] permanent link