NightMoods: Twilight Hour

Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer), Antonio Vivaldi (Composer), Camille Saint-Saens (Composer), Erik Satie (Composer), Ralph Vaughan Williams (Composer), Gustav Holst (Composer), Georges Bizet (Composer), Gabriel Faure (Composer), Edward Elgar (Composer), Jean Sibelius (Composer), Maurice Ravel (Composer), Herbert von Karajan (Conductor), Paul Kuentz (Conductor), Semyon Bychkov (Conductor), Daniel Barenboim (Conductor), James Levine (Conductor), Myung-Whun Chung (Conductor), Giuseppe Sinopoli (Conductor), Neeme Järvi (Conductor), Pierre Boulez (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Herbert von Karajan, Paul Kuentz, Semyon Bychkov, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, et al.
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Camille Saint-Saens, Erik Satie, Ralph Vaughan Williams, et al.
• Audio CD (April 14, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• ASIN: B00000613Q
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,455 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D BWV1068: Air

2. Concerto for 4 Guitars in D RV93: Largo

3. Carnival of the Animals

4. Gymnopédie No. 3

5. Gymnopédie No. 1

6. The Lark Ascending

7. The Planets Op. 32: Venus, The Bringer of Peace

8. Carmen - Suite: Intermezzo

9. Pavane Op. 50

10. Enigma Variations Op. 36: Nimrod

11. 11 Andante Festivo for String Orchestra

12. Ma Mère l'Oye: Fifth Tableau and Apotheose

13. Andante Festivo, for string orchestra (arranged from string quartet version)

14. Ma mère l'oye, ballet for orchestra: 5th Tableau and Apotheose

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twilight Hour, September 14, 2006

By 

Night Music - See all my reviews

This review is from: NightMoods: Twilight Hour (Audio CD)

This cd is for easy listening. Great music to listen to before going to bed. Opens the mind and relaxes the body. I also highly recommend Moonlight and Night Wanderer as an addition to this cd.

5.0 out of 5 stars Contains a rare gem of a performance., October 7, 2011

By 

Kelvin Brown (Ashburn, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NightMoods: Twilight Hour (Audio CD)

The CD is one of the best "relaxation" compilations of quiet classics ever released by Deutsche Grammophone. Lush, sweet, and whether your thing is port wine or warm milk, every single selection on this disc is great performance of each repective work by various composers. But what makes this an absolute STEAL and somewhat of a collector's item is the Lark Ascending. Composer is Ralph Vaughan Williams. There are many recorded versions available with performances by a variety of fine English Ensembles. But none of those other performances come close to the magic of The English Chamber, Pinchas Zukerman on violin, with Daniel Barenboim conducting. Unless you can get hold of the original vinyl release in 1975, on a CD complitation album entitled Greensleeves, it is hard to get a read on exactly when this track was recorded or any information on the original sessions. But to my ears, this version of the Lark Ascending is the most beautiful piece of music ever recorded. Period. Lark is a tone poem for solo violin, and with Zukerman's violin playing the lark, you feel the quiet beauty, the serenity, almost as if the lark is a musical analogy of the soul transcending the confines of earth and reaching for the divine. Vaughan Williams only came close to achieving this effect in one other piece - the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for string orchestra.

Get this CD, and if you can, the original album is available from another retailer as a CD-ROM. Not ideal, but hearing this piece in it's original DG context will just blow you away.

With the other recordings on this set, you can't pass the one up. Highly recommend.

PS. The listings for the samples are out of order, and titles do not match the actual sound samples. To hear Lark click on the link one above. And the composer obviously isn't Bach on every track.