saint-saëns celebration gymnopédies gnossiennes

classical music:

3 reviews
Erik Satie, Aldo Ciccolini

EMI Classics, 2000

A Great Introduction to Satie
It takes a very fine sense of balance to play Satie correctly, to avoid ruining the score by being either overly sonorous or overly energetic. Aldo Ciccolini cuts just the right line, picking a well-balanced middle ground. Aside from delivering one of the better performances of 'Trois Gymnopedies', Ciccolini offers both an invigorating version of 'Jack in the Box', as well as a suitably loopy ...

Best Of Saint-Saëns

2 reviews
Robert Cordier, Camille Saint-Saens, ...

EMI Classics, 1990

One of the best CDs I own
SAint-Saens ability to convey certian feelings and emotions through music amazes me. This Cd is one of my personal favorites. I own two of them... one for my car and the other for my house. My particular favorite is Danse Macabre. The use of the violin to convey a "ghost fiddler" boggles my mind. I can almost picture it all happening. Disney should definitly think about putting this in ...

Debussy: Dreams

3 reviews
Claude Debussy, Aldo Ciccolini

EMI Classics, 1998

Claude Debussy - Dreams
WOW! What an amazing cd! Aldo Ciccolini puts forth a great effort in bringing out Debussy's music! The emotion and expression, especially in his Sarabande (Pour le piano) is absolutely tremendous! Other classics, such as his Nocturne, Arabesque and Clair de Lune, make this a cd that everyone should own! Claude Debussy was a dreamer, and his music was his dreams. It is very easy to get ...

Debussy, Ravel: Orchestral Works

6 reviews
Maurice Ravel

EMI Classics, 2002

One stop shopping! Unparalleled Debussy, and excellent Ravel
I've treasured both of these cycles since the 1970s when both appeared in single LP installements, each one eagerly awaited with deserved anticipation. To get them both in outstanding remasterings in a bargain priced box set is almost unthinkable. I'd pay twice the price, even more, if I had to for these recordings. Other recordings of individual works may excel these, like Karajan's La Mer, ...

Satie: Piano Works

13 reviews
Erik Satie, Aldo Ciccolini

EMI Classics, 1992

Picasso in sound
Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Eric Satie were drinking buddies; it shouldn't be surprising that their work, though in different media, should bear striking similarities. This CD set replaces a very badly abused vinyl recording from the 1960s. No one plays Satie like Aldo Ciccolini. I do wish the Parade had been included, Satie wrote the music, Cocteau the libretto and Picasso did the sets and ...

The Best Classical Album in the World... Ever!

10 reviews
Stanley Myers, Antonio Vivaldi, ...

EMI Classics, 1996

Forget what they SAY
Many of these prior reviewers complain that the abundance of operas and vocals degrate this compilation. They don't know what they're talking about. These genres are what made Classical music popular in it's age. In that era the forum for showcasing "classical music" was operas! Hence why most of these works are lost in the shuffle. Most of us know Mozart and Beethoven's compositions by ear ...

The Most Relaxing Piano Album in the World...Ever!

14 reviews
Isaac Albeniz, Johann Sebastian Bach, ...

EMI Classics, 2001

Beautiful piano music!
This is simply an exquisite collection of beautiful piano pieces. I am very satisfied with this purchase. I can read while listening to this music-call it background music...maybe, but even when you're doing something else-the music is there...it does not intrude, but it doesn't get lost either. I am having a hard time explaining this. I wanted music to relax and enjoy. I got just that with this ...

Satie: Piano Works

1 review
Erik Satie, Aldo Ciccolini, ...

EMI Classics, 2003

Ciccolini Knows Satie
Aldo Ciccolini is arguably the greatest interpreter of Erik Satie, and he can also be credited with rescuing the minimalist from certain obscurity with the recordings he made of the composer's music in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For years I have enjoyed selections of those performances and I figured it was time to upgrade to a more complete set. As a result, I recently got this title. ...

Parents: The Lullaby Album

6 reviews
Anonymous, Johann Sebastian Bach, ...

Angel Records, 1993

the perfect lullaby
This CD lulled each of my five babies to sleep every evening. It is not "kiddie classical" music, but gorgeous arrangements of some of the most soothing, beautiful music ever written.

Satie: L'Oeuvre Pour Piano

3 reviews
Erik Satie, Aldo Ciccolini

EMI Classics, 2002

Highly original numbers, outstanding professional performance
The work is one of the few that that merits 10/10, for various aspects. First, the highly original pieces, one after another. Secondly, the simply outstanding professional job, and interpretation made of the original compositions, that, clearly, showed the composer being incredibly ahead of his time, in matters of laying out his music ideas and human expression through it. Third, the ...

Les Inspirations Insolites D'Erik Satie

1 review
Erik Satie, Pierre Dervaux, ...

EMI, 1992

Odd Assortment of Material
One of the dangers of spelunking through the more remote corners of musical genres and composers is that in spite of the best intelligence, sometimes the urge to explore something totally new turns up a dud. Now, I'm not saying Erik Satie is a poor or inconsequential or weak composer. It's just that this particular album does nothing to warm me to his music or encourage me to listen to it again. ...

Debussy: Complete Works For Piano

2 reviews
Aldo Ciccolini

Angel, 2002

Debussy's magical world - with lucidity and elegance
This is a 5-CD set coming at a bargain price from EMI Music France and containing Debussy's complete piano works. Well-known and rightfully acclaimed for his interpretations of French piano music, especially Satie, Aldo Ciccolini gives us, in these beautiful Debussy recordings from 1991, a reading that is masculine and fresh, yet lyrical and full of colour. Compared with renditions by others, ...

Massenet: Complete Works for Solo Piano, Piano Concerto & Complete Works for Piano Duet

1 review
Aldo Ciccolini, Jules Massenet, ...

EMI Classics, 2004

Rare French Musique...
. Nice reissue of some rare French piano music, at a bargan rate. Ciccolini is an adequate pianist who specializes in French art. His readings of Satie are questionable--but Massenet's piano pieces are otherwise unobtainable. Jules Massenet is not widely remembered now--aside from a couple of operas which maintain a toehold in the repetoire. In his heyday during the Second Empire, ...

Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
Manuel de Falla, Maurice Ravel, ...

Angel Records, 1995

Satie: Gymnopédies No1-3; Gnossiennes No1-6

4 reviews
Erik Satie, Aldo Ciccolini, ...

EMI Classics, 2000

Splendid Introduction to Satie's Piano Music
I must confess my ignorance with respect to Satie and his music, so this fine CD was a revelation. Satie clearly falls in the same group of "Impressionist" composers such as Debussy, but still remains an enigmatic figure, in part because of the satirical content of his music, as well as his personality. In Aldo Ciccolini, Satie had one of his foremost champions. This CD is replete with graceful, ...

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 "Organ"; Carnival of the Animals; Poulenc: Les Animaux modèles

4 reviews
Francis Poulenc, Camille Saint-Saens, ...

EMI Classics, 2002

Sumptuous
This is the best version I've ever heard of the Saint-Saens 3rd. I grew up with the Munch/Boston Symphony version, first on LP then on CD. It certainly is very exciting. After hearing Pretre's, however, I think Munch takes the last movement too fast. Pretre's conception is grander and just as exciting. Indeed, Pretre's disc is from the early '60's, when French orchestras still sounded like ...

D'Indy: Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Symphony no. 2
Vincent D'Indy, Serge Baudo, ...

EMI Classics France Int'l, 1993

A Celebration of Defining Moments in Recording History

2 reviews
Jacqueline du Pré, Mstislav Rostropovich, ...

EMI Classics, 2004

Interesting, and so cheap!
In response to the reviewer below, yes, some of the recordings do not have the best sound quality. But that's not what this is about, it's about great recordings of the century. There are two discs, each with about 18 tracks, averaging about 4 minutes each, of excerpts and individual movements of the some of the most famous of the 150 "GROCs." In the booklet it has a few interesting ...

Albéniz: Iberia; Granados: Goyescas

1 review
Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados, ...

EMI Classics, 2006

Clearly the finest Goyescas and Iberia ever recorded
It is a minor miracle (minor by miracle's standards) that this recording has been reissued, because before that date, it had been out of the retail catalog and expensive to obtain for many, many years. It has been back for at least a year, now, and still has no real peer that I have so far been able to locate in the available recordings of these fiendishly difficult works by Enrique Granados and ...

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