Antonin Dvorak

Review: This album of arias will make sopranos realize instantly how neglected these Slavic masterpieces have been. Includes the complete 'Letter Scene' from Evgeny Onegin as well as the once-again-popular 'Rusalka' by Dvorak. Spectacular! Includes an expansive, newly engraved vocal score, printed on high-quality ivory paper; and a CD+G graphics-enabled compact disc with complete versions (with soloist) in digital stereo, followed by digital stereo orchestral accompaniments to each piece, minus the soloist.

Songlist: Evgeny Onegin, Act I, Scene 2, Queen of Spades, Act I, Scene 2, Rusalka - Song To The Moon

Voicing: Soprano
Style: Opera

5105b | Songbook & CD $34.95 | Solo Soprano Voices

Review: The late Robert Shaw, who died in January 1999, had a long and fruitful relationship with Telarc, spanning twenty years and producing 41 recordings, eleven of which have won Grammy Awards. The current recording is the final one to be made by the conductor. Included on the second disc is a spoken interview of Shaw made by National Public Radio's Martin Goldsmith, host of "Performance Today." The interview was made in November 1998, just after the recording sessions for the Dvorak Stabat Mater, and features Shaw discussing his career, this work, and the state of the choral art. Portions of the interview were originally broadcast over NPR on April 2, 1999. The Stabat Mater was written by Dvorak in direct response to personal and private grief when he began the work, in 1876, he and his wife had recently lost a baby daughter, who had lived only two days. Other work intervened requiring the composer to set the Stabat Mater aside, but he soon resumed it in 1877 after losing two more children in quick succession-a baby daughter to accidental poisoning, and his three-year-old son to smallpox. The work was premiered in Prague in 1880, by which time Dvorak had risen from obscurity and poverty to become an internationally known composer. In 1883, the London premiere of the Stabat Mater met with such success that Dvorak was invited to come to England to conduct the work. He did so, conducting an enormous orchestra and chorus in the Royal Albert Hall in 1884.

Songlist: Stabat Mater Dolorosa , Quis est homo, qui non fleret , Eja, Mater, Fons amoris, Fac, ut ardeat cor meum , Tui Nati vulernati , Fac me vere tecum flere , Virgo virginum praeclara , Fac, ut portem Christi mortem , Inflammatus et accensus, Quando corpus morietur , Robert Shaw Discusses Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Martin Goldsmith

2397c | 1 CD $13.95