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Berceuse - Classical Favourites for Relaxing and Dreaming

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Berceuse - Classical Favourites for Relaxing and Dreaming

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BERCEUSE is the French word for a cradle-song, and in this album we recapture those moments of tranquillity and dreams fashioned by those memorable melodies...

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BERCEUSE is the French word for a cradle-song, and in this album we recapture those moments of tranquillity and dreams fashioned by those memorable melodies from the world of classical music. Thirteen tracks have been selected from the extensive Naxos catalogue of compact discs...

�Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky brings to life that magical world of fantasy in his ballet, The Sleeping Beauty. It is the well-known story of the Princess put to sleep by the evil witch until the handsome Prince comes to wake her with a kiss. The graceful Adagio forms part of the happy and colourful third act, perfectly picturing the grace of the ballerinas.

The year 1802 was a turbulent one in the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. He was thirty-two and had fallen in love with the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi who was just seventeen. Sadly it was a one-sided love, and the following year her hand was placed in marriage elsewhere. His mixed emotions surfaced in the Piano Sonatas he was composing at the time. The tenderness of the 'Moonlight' sonata contrasts with the stormy eruptions of 'The Tempest' sonata. Yet in the eye of the storm comes a moment of quiet resignation in the Adagio.

The music of the 17th century Italian composer, Antonio Vivaldi, has entered the world of 'pop' classics with his atmospheric The Four Seasons.

In his later life he directed music at a school for orphaned and abandoned girls, and musicians travelled from afar to hear the wonderful orchestra and soloists from Piet�. Many of his concertos were written to demonstrate their brilliance, while the central slow movements pictured a feminine lyricism.

A century later Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the celebrated prodigy, writing music of value by the age of five. Central to his vast catalogue of works was the imposing series of symphonies. The Thirty-fifth, the 'Haffner', was completed in 1782, having started out life as a Serenade commissioned by the Haffner family in Salzburg.

He later condensed the six movements to four, with a particularly warm-toned Adagio. Mozart also wrote concertos for almost every instrument, including twenty-seven keyboard concertos. The Fourteenth was written in 1784 for his pupil, Barbara Ployer, and has a most innocent a restful Andante

central movement.

It looked as if Louis Spohr

was following in Mozart's footsteps, composing and playing the violin to a professional standard at the age of eight. As a virtuoso violinist, conductor and composer, he was to become one of the highest paid musicians of his day. He was eventually placed in charge of the finest orchestra and opera house in Germany, and that provided the stimulus for a series of operas and major orchestral works. Today he is largely remembered by his chamber music, though his series of violin concertos are acclaimed as outstanding examples of music from that period. The Seventh dates from 1814, and contains an elegant Adagio as the second movement.

Fryderyk Chopin

appears to have had no love for his native Poland, and from 1830 enjoyed the adulation of his audiences in Paris, where he remained until his death at the age of thirty-nine. In 1838 he completed his set of Twenty-four Preludes,

the second was to become the best known.

Throughout his early life Gabriel Faure composed only in the summer holidays, the rest of his time was spent as teacher and church organist. His life was to change in his late forties when a number of unexpected appointments led to the post of Director of the Paris Conservatoire. His subsequent influence on French music in the early 20th century cannot be overstated. For his own part he was always seeking to write large-scale works, but he was a miniaturist and elegant composer. The Berceuse, an early work dating from 1880, became a particular favourite of the composer.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 and was to become the greatest German composer of his time. Among his massive output are the Four Orchestral Suites, written in an elegant French style, the crisp Overture

coming from the second suite composed around 1737.

Joseph Haydn was one of life's late starters, his major compositions coming after his fortieth birthday. But he soon made up for lost time, and in the last thirty-seven years of his life produced a flood of music. In 1787 he received a commission to supply a work in seven sections to punctuate the sermon for Good Friday in the Cathedral at Cadiz.

He found the task of writing seven successive slow movements taxing, but the finished work was outstanding. First written for string orchestra, Haydn later made a string quartet version, and it is in this format that the Seven Last Words of Christ have become known.

George Frederic Handel made such an impact on the musical world, that royal courts were vying for his services. In 1710 he went to London

and received such adulation, that two years later he settled there, and became a naturalised English citizen. He served the Royal Court with distinction, and the appetite for his music was overwhelming. Among his works from 1739 are the Twelve Concerti Grossi, the slow movement from the eighth being of particularly graceful repose.

Torn between his love of his music and the naval traditions of his family, the Russian composer, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, enlisted as a naval cadet, and spent his younger years on board boat. It was that famous trio of composers, Balakirev, Mussorgsky and Cui, who persuaded him to join them, and when he returned from his next voyage he had with him his first symphony.

Though fame came through his three orchestral works, Sheherazade, Capriccio Espagnol and the Russian Easter Festival Overture, he wanted to be an opera composer, a decidedly bad career move. Of his fifteen operas only The Golden Cockerel and Sadko have proved a success. Here the haunting Hindu Song

from Sadko

is transcribed for violin and piano by the legendary violinist, Fritz Kreisler.

At the age of twelve the young Claude Debussy made his debut with Chopin's Second Piano Concerto, yet four years later, in 1878, he failed the Paris Conservatoire piano examination. All thoughts of being a top concert pianist evaporated, and he turned his attention to composition. Much of his output was for solo piano, including a series of Twenty-four Preludes. They were composed in two volumes, and the second book has the beguiling melody, La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, performed here in an orchestral transcription.

Disc 1

The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66

(more info)

Performed by: Dallas Symphony Orchestra Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra CSSR State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Russian Philharmonia
Composed by: Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky Richard Hayman
Conducted by: Klaus-Peter Hahn Ondrej Lenard Andrew Mogrelia Constantine Orbelian Andrew Litton Don Jackson
Recording date: 18-23 March (CD 1) and 13-25 May (CDs 2-3)

Adagio "Pas d'action" - 5:27

Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "Tempest"

(more info)

Composed by: Ludwig van Beethoven Fazil Say
Gerhard Oppitz, piano
Mari Kodama, piano
Walter Gieseking, piano
Wilhelm Backhaus, piano
Artur Schnabel, piano
Ethella Chuprik, piano
Jeno Jando, piano
Louis Lortie, piano
Michael Korstick, piano
Anton Kuerti, piano
Christian Leotta, piano
Timothy Ehlen, piano
Recording date: 21-23 April and 20-21 June 1987

Adagio - 8:16

Chamber Concerto in D major, RV 93

(more info)

Performed by: Dall'Arco Chamber Orchestra Parley of Instruments, The Camerata Cassovia Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Antonio Vivaldi
Conducted by: Istvan Parkanyi Peter Holman Richard Edlinger Johannes Wildner
Gergely Sarkoezi, lute
Rolf Lislevand, lute
Dagoberto Linhares, guitar
Paul O'Dette, lute

Largo - 5:54

Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, "Haffner"

(more info)

Performed by: Symphony Nova Scotia Budapest Symphony Orchestra Capella Istropolitana London Philharmonic Orchestra NBC Symphony Orchestra South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra Vienna Mozart Orchestra New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra Concerto Koln
Composed by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Arturo Toscanini Thomas Beecham
Conducted by: Ferdinand Leitner Wolfgang Sawallisch Konrad Leitner Tamas Pal Georg Tintner Iona Brown Roger Norrington Barry Wordsworth Werner Erhardt
Recording date: 30th March and 4th-5th April, 1929

Andante - 4:31

Violin Concerto No. 7 in E minor, Op. 38

(more info)

Performed by: Bratislava Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Capella Istropolitana
Composed by: Louis Spohr
Conducted by: Libor Pesek
Takako Nishizaki, violin
Recording date: December 1985

Adagio - 8:16

24 Preludes, Op. 28

(more info)

Composed by: Alain Lefevre Ferruccio Busoni Fryderyk Chopin
Janusz Olejniczak, piano
Alfred Cortot, piano
Jakob Gimpel, piano
Leticia Gomez-Tagle, piano
Helene Tysman, piano
Rudolf Kerer, piano
Benno Moiseiwitsch, piano
Janina Fialkowska, piano
Eva Sukova, piano
Josef Lhevinne, piano
Ignaz Friedman, narrator
Mischa Levitzki, piano
Catherine Perrin, prepared piano
Louis Lortie, piano
Robert Lortat,
Jean-Francois Latour,
Peter Nagy, piano
Idil Biret, piano
Carol Rosenberger, piano
Edna Stern, piano
Stanislav Bunin, piano
Ivo Pogorelich, piano
Irina Zaritzkaya, piano
Eduard Stan, piano
Grigory Sokolov, piano
Martin Souter, piano
Recording date: 1987-1988

Prelude Op. 28, No. 2 In A Minor - 2:38

Berceuse, Op. 16 (version for orchestra)

(more info)

Performed by: RTE Sinfonietta Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Orchestra CSSR State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Gabriel Faure
Conducted by: Keith Clark John Georgiadis Andre Vandernoot
Pascal Devoyon, piano
Marc Grauwels, flute
Joris van den Hauwe, oboe
Michael Healy, violin
Dong-Suk Kang, violin

Berceuse, Op. 16 - 5:23

Overture (Suite) No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067

(more info)

Performed by: European Union Baroque Orchestra Cologne Chamber Orchestra Concertgebouw Orchestra Capella Istropolitana Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra Leopold Stokowski Symphony Orchestra Academy for Ancient Music Berlin
Composed by: Johann Sebastian Bach
Conducted by: Leopold Stokowski Willem Mengelberg Roy Goodman Jaroslav Dvorak Richard Edlinger Helmut Muller-Bruhl Helmuth Rilling Barthold Kuijken Gunar Letzbor
Anthony Newman,
Julius Baker, flute
Claire Guimond, flute
Eugenia Zukerman, flute
Christian Gurtner, flute
Milan Brunner, flute
Recording date: 2 June 1931

Overture - 7:34

Die 7 letzten Worte unseres Erlosers am Kreuze (The 7 Last Words), Op. 51, Hob.III:50-56 (version for string quartet)

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Joseph Haydn

Grave - 8:03

Piano Concerto No. 14 in E flat major, K. 449

(more info)

Performed by: London Mozart Players Concentus Hungaricus Brno Chamber Orchestra Mozart-Haydn Festival Orchestra South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden
Composed by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conducted by: Hans Rosbaud Andras Ligeti Jiri Mottl Carlos Miguel Prieto
Jeno Jando, piano
Howard Shelley, piano
Michiko Otaki, piano
Friedrich Gulda, piano
Jorge Federico Osorio, piano
Recording date: 10-12 June 1989

Andante - 6:42

Concerto Grosso in C minor, Op. 6, No. 8, HWV 326

(more info)

Performed by: Capella Istropolitana Collegium Musicum 90 Musici de Montreal, I Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra
Composed by: George Frideric Handel
Conducted by: Jozef Kopelman Iona Brown
Simon Standage, violin
Yuli Turovsky, cello
Recording date: May 1988

Grave - 2:05

Sadko (arr. for violin and piano)

(more info)

Composed by: Anonymous Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov
Wolf Harden, piano
Takako Nishizaki, violin

Hindu Song - 3:39

24 Preludes (arr. for orchestra)

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Claude Debussy
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune - 3:41

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