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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a "quiet time" favorite, March 7, 2002
This review is from: Albinoni's Adagios (Audio CD)
This compilation is a perfect work/study/contemplation CD, when you want to reduce the hum and din of modern life. It's wonderfully played, and has 23 tracks for a total of 72:45 minutes of melodic, serene music. The famous Adagio in G minor, so often heard in films, etc., is here given a lovely rendition. Played a little faster than most other versions, with the individual instruments (especially the harpsichord) being heard clearly. It's not as lush and smooth as some recordings, but crisper, and to my ears, absolutely delightful. It's hard to pick favorites among the other selections...each piece is a baroque beauty that flows well from one track to the next. I'm sure this CD will please most people who like 18th century music.
The recordings were done in 1970, '74, and '81, the sound is very good, and it's a great addition to my "quiet time" CDs.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Adagio's Albinoni, March 1, 2000
This review is from: Albinoni's Adagios (Audio CD)
I was glad to purchase this CD because it is now very difficult to find any recordings of Albinoni's string symphonies. There used to be a recording by Erato with all 3 movements of the 3 string symphonies, but then they wouldn't be all adagios for people who want their classical music slow and soft. This disc has a lot of very well played tracks. I actually found the Adagio for Organ and Strings a little fast for my taste, but I prefer slower tempos generally to allow a composer's music to breathe. This CD was pleasing overall due to the fact that most of the Albinoni recordings I have heard tend to sound like the strings are slightly out of tune or warped in the adagio passages. Not the case with this nicely packaged CD and the adagios of the concertos and especially the string symphonies at the end are patiently and hauntingly rendered. Remember what Mahler said about life and art: "If my life flowed as calmly and peacefully as a stream, I would cease to compose any music altogether."
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful From Start to Finish, May 15, 2000
This review is from: Albinoni's Adagios (Audio CD)
I am certainly no authority on classical music, but I wanted to add my voice since this CD has garnered so very few reviews. From my point of view the decision to make a series of CDs composed only of slow movements is a brilliant stroke. By moving seamlessly from one slow-tempo piece to another, one is truly allowed to relax while listening to this CD. While the classical purist might object to these pieces being extracted from their original settings, the lover of 'restful classical music' will rejoice. Even better, this CD by its very nature avoids serving up a series of pieces we've all heard before (a pitfall, I find, in many so-called 'relaxation' classical music CDs). What we get instead is just one 'popular favorite' (the first track, which is of course fully deserving of its popularity) followed by more than twenty pieces most listeners have probably never heard before (but are in fact fully deserving of much greater exposure). If you like quiet classical music, haunting classical music, simply gorgeous classical music, this is the CD for you.
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