Dark Hope: Renée Fleming Sings Pop In Pop Style

"Singing in the lowest part of my voice was key to making this work."

The tracklist of the new release from the accomplished soprano Renée Fleming is full of surprises. Check out the Amazon page for detailed information and an interesting interview. Personally I like her approach in this recording, you know it could be a train wreck like her Perfect Day at the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution... Singing pop songs in operatic style usually sounds terrible, especially those truly great pop songs. To me pop singing is all about seeking the the perfection of imperfection, songs like Perfect Day should be sung in Lou Reed's talking-into-a-walkie-talkie style, and Frank Sinatra is a master because he knows which notes are better to be left out. And what do you think a great tenor like Ian Bostridge would learn from Bob Dylan, a man condemned as "can't sing" by many music fans? "Just the way he uses his voice is spectacularly subtle." Full audio interview is here. 

Here's the Spotify playlist: Dark Hope (19 tracks, 1 hour). I put the original recordings at the end. To keep it simple I only goes for the original artists, though Ms. Fleming might have the Jeff Buckley version in mind when she did Hallelujah. She did it well, but this live performance from k.d.lang remains my favourite.

EMI & Virgin Classics: May Highlights On Spotify

Click the images below to open the albums in Spotify. Check out more information at the official page on the EMI site.

Gustav Mahler - the Complete Works 150th Anniversary Edition

(Spotify Links: 16CDs Set, 2-CD Set of Adagios)

Mahler: Sympony No.2 "Resurrection"

(Spotify Link)

Brahms: Piano Concerto No.2, Klavierstücke Op.76

（Spotify Link)

Shhh! Nigel Kennedy Quintet feat. Boy George

(Spotify Link)

Classical Legends - In their own words

(Spotify Link)

100 Best Verdi

(Spotify Link)

And "Robert Schumann - 200th Anniversary 4 themed collections comprising Schumann's greatest works." Spotify links: Lieder, Piano Music, Chamber Music, and Orchestral Works. I promise you that I'm going to post my own Schumann playlist on his 200th birthday next month.

Thank you EMI, for getting your new releases on Spotify so soon:)

Brahms: WoOs, Transcriptions and Four-Hand Piano Arrangements

Brahms transcribed most of his orchestral and chamber music into four-hand piano arrangements, a form in which most people got to hear and play those music during Brahms' lifetime. It is very interesting, and often revealing, to hear his texturally dense orchestral works in the striped down piano version, The first piano was actually planned as a sonata for pianos. No.15 of the Op. 39 Waltzes for piano four-hand is one of the most lovely tunes that Brahms, or any composer ever written. There are many gems in the WoOs and transcriptions in other forms too. Check out the previous playlists of Brahms' works with opus numbers if you missed them.

Here's the Spotify playlist:

Brahms: WoOs and Transcriptions (228 tracks, 12 hours)

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music (167 tracks, 13 hours)

KZ Musik: Music Composed In Nazi Camps

"KZ MUSIK is the most up-to-date and complete CD encyclopedia of musical works composed by musicians imprisoned in the Nazi camps between 1933 and 1945.  The composers were imprisoned, deported, murdered – some even survived – but all were of different national, social and religious backgrounds."

The official site: http://www.kz-musik.de/Intro_E.html

The Spotify playlist: KZ Musik (142 tracks, 7 hours) I added in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at the end.

Also check out Entartete Musik: Music Banned By The Third Reich if you missed it. Peace.

Pavarotti and His Pop Star Friends

Pavarotti did many charity concerts with pop artists, and some of the collaborations are excellent. Though I'd rather see him get some kicks from Caravan with Van Morrison, or support the old and husky Joni Mitchell in a soulful Both Sides Now, other than listen to him doing O Sole Mio with a unequal Bryan Adams.

Since one of the albums is made for Cambodia and Tibet, please allow me for some political rant here. I am native Chinese and have never been to Tibet, but I know that Tibet was not always part of China, and I respect Tibetans' culture and their own choices. One thing I don't understand is: for all the pro-Tibet activists, why just say "Free Tibet" but not "Free China"? How could it be possible for the Tibetan to freely express their opinions and vote when all the other PRC citizens still can't? Why don't they dare to admit the real problem of Tibet is that China is not a democracy? Wouldn't it be ridiculous if America was under the totalitarian regime and the Europeans just claim for the rights of native Americans in Alaska? I cannot help but to think that, in some foreigners' minds, the image of the Tibetans are overly romantic: a highly spiritual race living in the roof of the world, communicate with Buddhas and fighting the evil Communists invaders. The truth is, Tibetans suffer from the current status of China as much as every other Chinese people does, and the only peaceful way to free Tibet is to stop the CCP dictating and brings religions liberty and the right to vote to all Chinese people.

Rant over. Here's the Spotify playlist: Pavarotti & Friends (82 tracks, 5 hours) I don't understand why the best song, It's A Man's World with James Brown, is not include in the CD release. Do check out the gorgeous video below.

The Poet Speaks: Poetry and Speeches on Spotify

Spotify is not only the best online music collection, it also offers many great recordings of historical speeches, audiobooks and poetry read by the poets. You can hear Dylan Thomas reads The Speech Of Oedipus At Colonus, T. S. Eliot reads The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, W.B. Yeats reads Lake Isle of Innisfree, and many more, includes Anna Livia Plurabelle from Finnegans Wake  read by James Joyce himself and remixed by DJ Spooky.  And beware, Oscar Wilde has an old witch's voice... For the speeches playlist, I also put in the classic radio shows from the young, hungry, pre-"Citizen Kane" Orsen Welles, who was then still eager to make his mark on the world.

Here's the Spotify playlists: The Poet Speaks (497 tracks, 23 hours) and Historic Voices & Great Speeches (728 tracks, 3 days). 

The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 500 Greatest Works

Another epic guest playlist, from Jorge in Sweden. Jorge says:

"I have this book, written by Phil G. Goulding, called Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works. I don't know whether you know this book, but it's an excellent introduction to classical music. Here's the Amazon link for it.

Anyway, I made a playlist in Spotify based on his recommendations for each and one of the 50 composers listed. It's comprised of 10 major works. Some are missing, like complete operas from Verdi, Wagner and Puccini, reason being that I'm very well acquainted with them. Some other complete operas are there, though.

Initially, I also went after his specific recommendations regarding the recording itself, the conductor and orchestra and all that, but soon i gave that up. Just laziness, I guess. ;)"

Coincidentally, the Chinese translation of Goulding's book was one of the very first books I've read on classical music, and I think it's a good introduction too. If not for Jorge we would not be able to get this wonderful playlist that put the core repertoire of Western classical music in one place. Thanks Jorge.

Here's Jorge's Spotify playlist: Phil G. Goulding Classical Music (4685 tracks, 2 weeks) 10 major works each from 50 most important composers according to Goulding, a relatively conservative but very decent list, you will need to know these works well before you go beyond them. As The Dalai Lama says: "Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively."

And these are links to mreddington, piaf123456, jahart and bonving who have generously contributed guest playlists before, you can find lots of interesting playlists in their public profiles.

Sergei Prokofiev: Op. 1-135

Today is Sergei Prokofiev's 119th birthday,I made a playlist of his complete works with opus number to celebrate the most popular composer of 20th century classical music. But since Chandos Records was mostly removed from Spotify for unknown reasons, this playlist is kind of broken. Please uncheck "Hide unplayable tracks" in Spotify's preference, otherwise you will only see some 700 tracks. Here's the list of works on wikipedia.

And here's the Spotify playlist: Sergei Prokofiev: Op. 1-135 (928 tracks, 2.6 days) Sorted by opus numbers. The picture above is the last known photo of the composer, taken in 1952. He died on March 5th, 1953, the very same day as Joseph Stalin.

Please leave a comment if you find substitutions for the removed Chandos albums or any works that I forgot to put in this playlist, thanks.

Arvo Pärt: A Chronological Playlist

I received a Arvo Pärt playlist from Yan in France, but some albums are only available to Spotify's French users, so I modified and expanded his playlist a little bit. The works are arranged chronologically as Yan did. Thank you Yan, it's really fascinating to go through Pärt's oeuvre of the past 50 years that way. The elevation from his early, severe neo-classical style into a much more mature holy minimalism must be one of the most interesting musical development in history.

Here's the chronological Spotify playlist: Arvo Pärt (136 tracks, 14.9 hours)

Made In America: Naxos American Classics On Spotify

Before I go for the annual company trip tomorrow, I want to post the longest playlist I created so far. It consists of all recordings from Naxos' American Classics series available on Spotify, 271 of them in total.

"Our highly-acclaimed American Classics series boasts a unique catalogue of both well-known and rarely recorded masterpieces. This landmark series features the greatest American composers both familiar and unfamiliar: Romantics like Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Edward MacDowell; visionary modernists such as Charles Ives and John Cage; buoyant spirits like Sousa, Joplin, Ferde Grofé; figures at today's cutting edge such as John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Paul Moravec, William Bolcom and Michael Torke."

The recordings are arranged by composers alphabetically, the same as Naxos' official page, which also provides back covers, composer biographies, album details, and even librettos of the operas. I put the American Classics Sampler at the beginning and the 2-CD set The Story Of American Classical Music at the end.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Naxos: American Classics (3665 tracks, 1.7 weeks) And here's an interesting discussion on this series: Third Rate Music? Personally I like many American composers' works, and feel that they are vastly underrated and underappreciated. On Youtube there's no Rorem symphony, no Zwilich violin concerto, even no decent performance of Barber's wonderful piano concerto. Thanks to Naxos and Spotify we can explore so many new music at ease.