Customer Reviews

Bach Favorites

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I would recommend this as an excellent introduction to classical music for those looking for an entry point. The pieces are familiar to most everyone, and are quite beautifully orchestrated. I have purchased better than 5 copies and given them as gifts to neophytes, with good results. I really love the "Preludium in E Major," and "Sleepers, Awake" will melt anyone's heart. And you can't beat the price!

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra bring out so much beauty in these masterpieces. No words of mine can adequately describe the perfection and mystery of these glorious masterpieces, and no praise of mine can adequately describe the beautiful sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ormandy's incomparable conducting.

The Toccata and Fugue arranged for orchestra sounds even better than it does on organ, and A Mighty Fortress is Our God sounds so glorious, words fail to describe its power and majesty. Sleepers Awake feels so spiritual...so moving...

Of course, these performances are on modern instruments, and many of them are arranged or transcribed, but with such fine performances it doesn't matter. I have witnessed people who never appreciated Bach before fall in love with his music after listening to this album. Kiri Te Kanawa's Ave Maria album has a really great Bist du bei mir, but the arrangement here sounds very, very moving also. The entire performance of the beautiful "Little Suite" from the Anna Magdalena notebook by Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra may be found on the "Baroque Masterpieces" CD from Sony Classical. Please also consider buying recordings of Bach's cantatas, since many of the pieces here were actually meant for both chorus and orchestra.

If you love these Bach pieces and would enjoy hearing excerpts beautifully played by one the best sounding modern orchestras, this disc is for you. Excellent value.

This CD is a collection of recordings made with Eugene Ormandy, originally on the Columbia Masterworks label. Sony's engineers have done a fine job bringing out the warmth of the original recoring. The performance is flawless by the Philadelphia Orchestra and this is simply a nice recording to add to the Ormandy/Philadelphia legacy.