The Sleeping Beauty
|
List Price: Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $2.99 (17%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $7.49 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for The Sleeping Beauty
Free Music Review: Delightful Ballet Music
Hit: 4 Stars
This was purchased so we could have a musical CD of this favorite from the Ballet Music corpus. We were not disappointed: it alternates between our vehicles and our home.Free Music Review: BEAUTIFUL.
Hit: 5 Stars
It's the only word.
The Sleeping Beauty is the best of Tchaikovsky's works. Antal Dorati really knew how it had to be played.
The music is royal, noble, rococo, (the introduction, the march of the prologue, the introduction and the dances of the second act for example) but also enchanting, heavenly, and even frivolous (the "Danse des Demoiselles d'Honneur et des Pages", the "Danse des Marquises", the "Variations de la Princesse Florine et de l'Oiseau Bleu" or the "Colin-Maillard").
I fell in love with the music.
Free Music Review: Dorati at his best, which is pretty good
Hit: 4 Stars
Dorati was a veteran ballet conductor, and it shows in the light-footed, bouncy rhythms he prefers. But Sleeping Beauty is the most searching music Tchiakovsky ever wrote for the dance, and Dorati doesn't quite have it in him to find that extra depth and poignant melancholy. The main reason that his set remains competitive derives from the lovely, warm recording (better than Gergiev's with the Kirov, also on Philips) and gorgeous orchestral playing from the Royal Concertgebouw (also better than on Gergiev's set, where the ensemble can be unexpectedly rough at times.)
Critics admire the music of this ballet above Swan Lake, but the pubic doesn't -- thre are six or seven competitive versios of the earlier score while among complete recordings of Sleeping Beauty it basically comes down to either Dorati or Gergiev, with the classic Ansermet out of print. (Previn has a rather sleepy version that for me is out of the running.) I own both, depending on whether I want to hear the gorgeousness of the music or a bit more depth of interpretation. I also listen to Mogrelia on Naxos, despite his second-rate orchestra, because he is such a talented condcutor--often better than his two renowned rivals. We are still waiting for the great conductor who will plumb this score to its depths.
Free Music Review: Very good, but.....
Hit: 3 Stars
At a bargain price, this is a very good version of this spectacular score for beginners. Nobody mentioned this in their reviews, so I would like to pose this question: why do the cellos play IN THE WRONG CLEF during the march!? Listen to any other recording and you know something is dreadfully wrong here.
Thankfully -- or not -- the torture lasts for only 16 bars, and the rest of the recording is fine. But in the words of the late Yul Brynner: "Is a puzzlement!"
Free Music Review: The Dorati Legend Continues Spectacularly
Hit: 5 Stars
After purchasing Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, also conducted by Antal Dorati, I was VERY excited to buy this album. He didn't let me down. This is the most emotoinal and personal musical account of the Sleeping Beauty I have heard. Period. The Lilac fairy themes struck me as being expecially lovely and deep. If one listens to the background in the No. 9 Final the moment the Lilac fairy come it is truly awe inspiring.
One or two of the tempi could have been faster (in the No. 21 Marche, for example), but otherwise this is truly the ultimate goal for the Tchaikovsky lover (like me).
If you buy this wonderful album, I suggest going right to the No. 30 Finale, probably the most unmatched recording on either of the two disks. Listen to it, Love it, Enjoy it.