Best Classical Grounds
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you just find 8 new recordings in this for your collection, the set will have paid for itself."
"If you are interested in baroque and earlier music, this is the set for you."
"This is an absurd bargain - very high quality stuff (nearly all the recordings are from the 90s) covering an enormous range, and at a low low price."
"The recordings are wonderful performances captured in the highest audiophile quality."
"There are few words that can describe the breath and quality of this wonderful set."
"Although I had some problems receiving the product, Grandmafred answered all my doubts and provided the solutions to all the drawbacks."
"I collected a few of these recordings over the years when they were first released, so when I saw this set come up for sale I ordered immediately."
"I have bought much of this music in individual CD's at many times the price, and so this collection represents a terrific value. The thing has 50 CD's and weighs close to four pounds and is housed in a formal presentation box, and they pathetically wrap it in a paper backed bubble wrap--with absolutely NO BOX--and send it media mail. This set does not use jewel cases--if it had, the plastic shards would have just poured out (as has happened several times in the past with these corner and cost-cutting affiliated sellers). It is terribly frustrating: you have to either do a send-back (and you'll have to find your own shipping box), or accept an expensive item which is in tatters. After this experience with this set (Movie Mars offered me a $5 credit--which I obviously declined), I have decided that in the future I'm just going to spend the extra dollars and buy directly from Amazon."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Wow, you would think that a follow up CD of "La Folia" would be a mere commercial attempt to make more money off the success of the original. "La Folia", in case you don't know, is a chaconne (or repeated pattern of chord progressions) with folk origins in Portugal in the 1400s."
"The implication is that by the mid-17th Century any string musician, aspiring or established, should be able to launch into one of the many versions of this ancient Iberian tune. Jordi Savall, who has already produced a collection of "The Follies" ["La Folia"] including a version by Marais, has assembled a new set of interpretations. That side trip accomplished, Hesperion XXI returns to the Mediterranean to present familiar figures such as Mudarra, Correlli and Vivaldi. The musicians of Hesperion XXI show a shift in emphasis from the group Savall assembled for La Folia in 1998. Assigned the leading string in five of the fifteen pieces rendered here - mostly later composers - Kraemer brings an additional vigour to the renditions."
"Let me just restate the fact that this is a follow-up album to a previous release that compiled a number of variations on the traditional European tune La Folia."
"In this respect, Santiago de Murcia's 'Gallegas' - significantly bearing a strong resemblance in places to Martin y Coll's 'Diferencias Sobra La Gayta' (i.e. NOT 'La Folia'), c.1700 - provides a welcome relief from the prevalent similarity of keys and motifs, and Savall clearly thought so too given that he avoids Murcia's much more faithful representation of the progression, entitled 'Folias Ytalianas' [1732]. The presence of any viol in such a late work would be problematic, but is surely even more so in one with a specific performance note ("...qe cantaron, y baylaron '8' pallas" - 'pallas' signifying the young women who sang and danced in commemoration of the feast of the 'Virgen de la Puerta' which the text concerns) in a collection copiously illustrated with images of the musicians/instruments who performed this music."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Another reviewer commented that this chaconne is the voice of god; although I'm not a believer, I understand what he meant."
"I highly recommend this CD for all who enjoy baroque music."
"This is one of the most exquisite recordings of Chaconnes, the most sublime (in my opinion) musical expression of 17th and 18th century."
"Reinhard Goebel and his orchestra seem to have made it their mission to expose underappreciated early music to modern audiences."
"As an enthusiastic, though amateur, Baroque dancer, it drives me NUTS when so-called early music experts record music written for dancing at tempos that cannot be danced to."
"I originally ordered this from BMG because I like early 18th century music."
"While driving in my car and listening to Public Radio, I heard a selection from this CD and was so overcome by its beauty that I drove straight over to a music store and ordered it."
"I have always enjoyed classical music, but I had never heard of Georg Muffat, or his Chaconne in G major, before."
Best Classical Passacaglias
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you just find 8 new recordings in this for your collection, the set will have paid for itself."
"If you are interested in baroque and earlier music, this is the set for you."
"This is an absurd bargain - very high quality stuff (nearly all the recordings are from the 90s) covering an enormous range, and at a low low price."
"The recordings are wonderful performances captured in the highest audiophile quality."
"There are few words that can describe the breath and quality of this wonderful set."
"Although I had some problems receiving the product, Grandmafred answered all my doubts and provided the solutions to all the drawbacks."
"I collected a few of these recordings over the years when they were first released, so when I saw this set come up for sale I ordered immediately."
"I have bought much of this music in individual CD's at many times the price, and so this collection represents a terrific value. The thing has 50 CD's and weighs close to four pounds and is housed in a formal presentation box, and they pathetically wrap it in a paper backed bubble wrap--with absolutely NO BOX--and send it media mail. This set does not use jewel cases--if it had, the plastic shards would have just poured out (as has happened several times in the past with these corner and cost-cutting affiliated sellers). It is terribly frustrating: you have to either do a send-back (and you'll have to find your own shipping box), or accept an expensive item which is in tatters. After this experience with this set (Movie Mars offered me a $5 credit--which I obviously declined), I have decided that in the future I'm just going to spend the extra dollars and buy directly from Amazon."