I Confess [CD-single]

1. I Confess [Album Version]

2. I Confess [Album Instrumental w/Hook]

3. 3 the Hard Way [Radio Version]

4. 3 the Hard Way [Street Version]

5. 3 the Hard Way [Album Instrumental]

Tracks:

Overture
Vain, Fluctuating State Of Human Empire!
Thou, God Most High, And Thou Alone
The Fate Of Babylon, I Fear, Is Nigh
Lament Not Thus, Oh Queen, In Vain!
Behold, By Persia's Hero Made
Well May They Laugh/Oh Memory! Still Bitter To My Soul
Opprest With Never-Ceasing Grief
Dry Thoes Unavailing Tears
Be Comforted: Safe Though The Tyrant Seem/Methought, As On The Bank Of Deep Euphrates
Now, Tell Me, Gobrias
Behold The Monstrous Human Beast
Can You Then Think It Strange
Great God! Who, Yet But Darkly Known
My Friends, Be Confident
All Empires Upon God Depend
Oh Sacred Oracles Of Truth!
Rejoyce, My Countrymen
Sing, Oh Ye Heav'ns!

Tracks:

Let Festal Joy Triumphant Reign!
For You, My Friends
The Leafy Honours Of The Field
It Is The Custom, I May Say, The Law
Recall, Oh King! Thy Rash Command
They Tell You True
Oh Dearer Than My Life, Forebear!
By Slow Degrees The Wrath Of God
See, From His Post Euphrates Flies!
You See, My Friends, A Path
Amaz'd To Find The Foe So Near
To Arms, To Arms! No More Delay!
Ye Tutelar Gods Of Our Empire
Let The Deep Bowl Thy Praise Confess
Where Is The God Of Judah's Boasted Pow'r?
Call All My Wise Men

Tracks:

A Singony (Allegro Postillions)
Ye Sages! Welcome Always To Your King/Alas! Too Hard A Task The King Imposes
Oh Misery! - Oh Terror! - Hopeless Grief!
Oh King, Live For Ever!
No! To Thyself Thy Trifles Be
Yet, To Obey His Dread Command
Oh Sentence To Severe!
Oh God Of Truth! Oh Faithful Guide!
You, Gobrias, Lead Directly To The Palace
Oh Glorious Prince!
Alternate Hopes And Fears
Fain Would I Hope
Can The Black Aethiop Change His Skin?
My Hopes Revive
Bel Boweth Down!
I Thank, Thee, Sesach
A Martial Symphony
To Pow'e Immortal My First Thanks
Be It Thy Care, Good Gobrias
Great Victor, At Your Feet I Bow
Say, Venerable Prophet
Tell It Out Among The Heathen
Yes, I Will Build Thy City
I Will Magnify Thee

Customer Reviews:

ISSUE RESOLVED ON THE EUPHRATES.......2005-06-19

One question I might find among the more difficult in my life would be - which is my favourite Handel oratorio? I suspect that my answer would generally be 'the one I heard most recently', and that, as I write this, is Belshazzar. It is a magnificent thing, a heavenly thing. It has taken me longer than it should have to come to an appreciation of what makes Handel the phenomenon - as a genius, as an artist, as a craftsman - that he is, but I am comforted to reflect that no less a genius than Haydn, at the age of nearly 70 gaining a more thorough knowledge of Handel in performance, was driven to say that he felt a mere apprentice. In his sense of how to pace a dramatic narrative, in his instinct for how to use the human voice in song and above all in chorus, in the matchless flexibility and adroitness he displays at word-setting and in the audacity of his melodic and harmonic effects I can think of nobody who can approach Handel on his own terms.

Belshazzar was not a great success at the box-office, although this may have had more to do with difficulties in the casting than because it was deemed insufficiently biblical for oratorio, which seems to have been the fate of Hercules. It seems to me to be perfectly well described as oratorio in other ways too, with (for one thing) the extensive use of the chorus that we find in, say, Samson but not in Hercules. The one passage that cries out for visual effects is of course the apparition of the moving finger itself. Even here the composer can go a long way with sheer power of suggestion, by the strange unaccompanied violin figure creeping upwards and the frightened brevity of the vocal numbers. Otherwise for me Belshazzar is as much an oratorio as Samson is. It has the same librettist too, the crusty and formidable Jennens, who had also collaborated with Handel on Saul and on Messiah itself. Jennens' full text is not provided, but I think if you read the synopsis first and then follow the work from the headlines to each number you will have no difficulty in catching the words, so clear is the enunciation by soloists and chorus alike. As usual, Handel was driven to make alterations to the score for practical reasons. He had been a little concerned about its length, roughly 2 hours and 50 minutes in this performance, but where he wishes to be expansive he gives us full measure - two arias in Act I scene 4 take well over 7 minutes each. The liner-essay (a good one, by Anthony Hicks) goes into the issue of the version of the score used here, and I personally have no problem with it.

I have no faults to find with the performance in any way. Pinnock is an established specialist, the instruments are period instruments and vocal cadenzas at the end of the arias are kept minimal. Anthony Rolfe Johnson, James Bowman and David Wilson-Johnson are tried and trusted Handel singers and at their best here, and Nicolas Robertson and Richard Wistreich in the smaller parts are every bit as good. The part of Cyrus is a soprano part, taken by Catherine Robbin, and when I thought I heard just one touch of strain in `Destructive War' in the final scene she makes up for it instantly in her superb duet with Arleen Auger in the following number. Auger as Nitocris the mother of Belshazzar has the biggest part, and she covers herself with glory all the way through.

The recording is perfect, and when I saw an aria entitled `Destructive War, thy limits know' near the end I felt a sharp sense of irony in the year 2005. Cyrus, Handel, Jennens, you should all have been living at this hour.

Enjoiyable, but lacking, too........2004-08-16

This 3CD set of George Frederic Handel's (1685-1759) "Belshazzar", from Archiv Production, a division of Universal Music, is proof again that transfer from vinyl to tape to disc brings with it improvements in listening that make the purchase a worthwhile addition to anyone's listening library. Written in 1744, "Belshazzar" is an oratorio in the operatic style that is wonderful oratorio, but lacking the true depth one expects to hear in an opera. London opera audiences of Handel's day agreed, as both "Belshazzar" and Handel's other offering of the period in the same style, "Hercules", were not terribly successful. Instead of the scheduled 24 performances only 16 were given and Handel never offered a full season of oratorio again. The Libretto by Charles Jennens (1700-1773) is, as the production notes say, meant "not only to show the fall of Babylon but to show it as a fulfillment of divine prediction and to confirm the biblical testimony by reference to classical history." There's only one problem, as good a quality as the CDs are, it is not possible to follow the full libretto and the accompanying booklet includes no text, which is a shame. I think the listening experience would have been increased immeasurably if one was able to follow the text of what is being sung. Nonetheless the dramatic narrative is fluid and even, and the English Concert and Choir provide nice balance to the less full vocal passages, as in Disc 3s "Oh Glorious prince", cut 10. There is enough of this throughout to keep one's interest, but disappointing if what one expects is another ""Messiah".

Average customer rating:

Sweet Love hath climbed its mountain peak
O sweet disc
Montreal Countertenor Shines
Loved this disc
Beautiful Byrd

O Sweet Love: Songs by Dowland & Byrd

Manufacturer: Atma Classique
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00005B677
Release Date: 2001-04-10

Tracks:

Ye Sacred Muses! - Daniel Taylor
A Fancy - Stephen Stubbs
Shall I Strive With Words To Move? - Daniel Taylor/Stephen Stubbs
Fortune - Les Voix Humaines
Blame I Confess - Daniel Taylor
Go From My Window - Stephen Stubbs
Say, Love, If Ever Though Didst Find - Daniel Taylor/Stephen Stubbs
My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home - Stephen Stubbs
Come To Me Grief For Ever - Daniel Taylor/Stephen Stubbs
The Bells - Les Voix Humaines
Ah Silly Soul - Daniel Taylor
The Carman's Whistle - Les Voix Humaines
Lady Hunsdon's Puffe - Stephen Stubbs
Come Again - Daniel Taylor/Stephen Stubbs
Tregian's Ground - Les Voix Humaines

Customer Reviews:

Sweet Love hath climbed its mountain peak.......2006-05-11

There are some performers whose recordings are instantly slotted into the "must have" section of a collector's mind. The sweet-as-mead voice and high intelligence of Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor make him one of these performers.

Daniel Taylor's voice is like a map that is elegantly and sensitively written, expressive and colourful, its lines and lineaments portraying to the highest degree the geography of music itself. This is no accident - it is an achievement which less intellectually gifted singers can rarely attain (and even then, only by following to the nth degree the careful and minute work of someone who DOES have this particular approach to the music). And when it is a unique interpretation, fresh every time and yet containing similar elements every time, the listener can but sigh with pleasure and bliss, thanking God in His kindness that He has given such a singer to grace the earth.

Dowland's and Byrd's songs are among my favourite in the entire oeuvre. I adore performing them; I adore listening to them. I do demand more when I listen than a pretty tone. Pretty tones are easily come by. I want... I want to hear the poetry of the words in the music. I want to hear each word given a pearl-like placing in the phrase. I want to hear the phrases caress like silk the very texture of the air.

This recording performs exactly that. It is deeply satisfying, very beautiful, and demonstrative of Daniel Taylor's most excellent technique. (I cannot fathom the criticism in one of the previous reviews, in which the reviewer complains of Mr Taylor's technique, speaking of flaws which I have not heard. Either I am peculiarly insensitive to these flaws, or - more likely, since I'm a critical (in the best sense of the word!) listener of music as well as being both a performer and teacher of singing - these flaws exist with as little validity as the oft-vaunted single-footed monsters drawn on Renaissance maps. In other words... they do not exist.)

Beautiful, beautiful singing. Very highly recommended indeed.

O sweet disc.......2004-05-10

I feel that is a beautifully planned disc of stunning performances.

Montreal Countertenor Shines.......2003-04-05

You have got to...
You need to...
You must...
You will never be the same after you...
FIND THIS DISC.

His performance of "Shall I strive with words to move" sums it
all up. TOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL.

Loved this disc.......2003-04-02

What fortune to find this first-rate disc by a singer I was, until yesterday, unfamiliar with. I adored this program and especially the magical intertwining of Taylor's voice with the gambas. Dowland never sounded more sorrowful and Byrd never more
cared for. Do not walk......run and buy this disc.

Beautiful Byrd.......2003-03-29

Here is a disc that must be included in any serious early-music
collector's library. Young Daniel Taylor's pure, angelic voice is sensitively supported by the gamba duo and Stephen Stubbs. Taylor's perfect intonation and thoughtful word-painting are a gift to us all.

Average customer rating:

The best ever version
The Golden Cast of D'Oyly Carte!
The Definitive Recording

Gilbert & Sullivan: Patience
Philip Potter , Kenneth Sandford , Mary Sansom , Jennifer Toye , and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Operettas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000041VE
Release Date: 1989-07-21

Tracks:

Overture
Act One: Twenty love-sick maidens we
Act One: Still brooding on their mad infatuation
Act One: I cannot tell what this love may be
Act One: Twenty love-sick maidens we
Act One: The soldiers of our Queen
Act One: If you want a receipt for that popular mystery
Act One: In a doleful train two & two we walk all day
Act One: Twenty love-sick maidens we
Act One: When I first put this uniform on
Act One: Am I alone & unobserved?
Act One: If you're anxious for to shine
Act One: Long years ago-fourteen, maybe
Act One: Prithee, pretty maiden-prithee
Act One: Though to marry you
Act One: Let the merry cymbals sound
Act One: Now tell us, we pray you
Act One: Heart broken at my Patience's barbarity
Act One: Stay, we implore you, before our hopes are blighted
Act One: Your maidens hearts, ah, do steel

Tracks:

Act One: Come, walk up, and purchase with avidity
Act One: We've been thrown over, we're aware
Act One: And are you going a ticket to buy?
Act One: Hold! Stay your hand!
Act One: True love must single-hearted be
Act One: I hear the soft note of the echoing voice
Act One: But who is this, whose god-like grace
Act One: List Reginald, whilst I confess a love
Act Two: On such eyes as maidens cherish
Act Two: Sad is a woman's lot who, year by year
Act Two: Silvered is the raven hair
Act Two: Turn, oh turn in this direction
Act Two: A magnet hung in a hardware shop
Act Two: Love is a plaintive song
Act Two: So go to him & say to him
Act Two: It's clear that the mediaeval art
Act Two: If Saphir I choose to marry
Act Two: When I go out of the door
Act Two: I'm a Waterloo House young man
Act Two: After much debate internal, I on Lady Jane decide

Customer Reviews:

The best ever version.......2002-06-07

The wonderful cast transports you to the realms of Gilbert and Sullivan, to make you feel that you are experiencing a first night in 1881! John Reed, as Bunthorne, an aesthetic poet is superb, camp, subversive and a complete fraud. If anyone is not aware, the story of the opera is based upon the idiosyncracies of the Aesthetic movement in England of the 1880's and Gilbert used the public parodies of his friend Oscar Wilde as his major source. The rest of the cast, chorus and orchestra , under the long experienced 'Goddie' are superlative and make for one of the finest line-ups in D'Oyly Carte history. Revel and enjoy, for this is quite the best.

The Golden Cast of D'Oyly Carte!.......1999-04-13

My wish had always been to see John Reed and the D'Oyly Carte Company in a performance of Patience. My mother had done so, remarking that, 'You'd need patience to watch it', she was coloured in her opinion, since she wanted to see 'The Mikado', but had gotten the wrong tickets! The recording, made in 1961, is superb in every detail. You are with the cast, on stage, in the auditorium, it is such a 'live' performance. The dialogue is delivered exquisitely, whilst the singing is uniformerly of the highest standard. I recently portrayed 'Bunthorne' and throughout my performances, I felt that I was continuing the legacy of Gilbert and Sullivan. All the past history of performers were there. I feel that Patience is a magical Savoy Opera. Do not miss the opportunity to own such a definitive performance. Maybe the subject of the 'Art Nouveau' periodof Victorian England is dated, but as one critic has already stated, every generation 'throws up' its poseures, to be knocked. 'Ah, me! lack aday!' BUY IT!

The Definitive Recording.......1998-12-09

For those who prefer the traditional Savoyard renderings of the G&S canon, this is far and away the best recording of this parody of the cult of celebrity. John Reed leads the cast as a delightful Bunthorne, and the recording contains all of the opera's dialogue. "HMS Pinafore," "The Mikado," and "The Pirates of Penzance" may be better known, but "Patience" is deserving of a wider audience.

Move Now with Measured Sound: Music by Thomas Campion

Average customer rating:

a voice teacher and early music fan

Move Now with Measured Sound: Music by Thomas Campion
Robin Blaze , and Elizabeth Kenny
Manufacturer: Hyperion UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

British Folk | Traditional British & Celtic Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00005RT4I
Release Date: 2001-12-11

Customer Reviews:

a voice teacher and early music fan.......2006-01-19

This is a good representation of Campions' songs considering that he wrote so many of them. It is likely that Campion,not himself a professional performing musician, thought it the role of the performer to fashion their own lute parts:'For the notes and Tablature, if they satisfie the most, we have our desire; but let expert masters please themselves with better'. This seems to support the notion that Campion wished his own texts to be respected and not overshadowed by music. Far from being a foursquare musical Mr. Average, he shows himself to be a musical revolutionary. While the florid vocal writing of the Italians was an innovation to which his poetry was not suited, his sense of harmony and the responsibility given to the performer in 'creating' the music from a tune and a bass was new. One has to remember that his life was quite exciting living in the "fast lane" so to speak. I mention this fact because the emotional investment on the part of the singer must be great encompassing all sorts of tone color and vocal nuances. All of the singing is "pretty" but except for a couple of the songs such as "I Care Not For These Ladies" and "Fain Would I Wed" which showed some measure of drama, I didn't feel anything with the rest of them. Blaze has an excellent voice, but unfortunately the emotion is not always there. I think he comes across best in sacred music..Just my opinion.There are 23 songs on this disc. Many have been frequently recorded by other singers, particularly countertenors. Some of the most familiar are:'It Fell on a Summer's day'-'I care not for these Ladies'-Fire! Fire!'-'The cypress-curtain of the night'-'Fain Would I Wed'- and 2 sacred songs:'Author of Light' and 'Never Weather-beaten sail'.

My Thing Is My Own: Bawdy Songs of Thomas D'Urfey

Average customer rating:

Good songs but the vocals?
music to smirk and smile by

My Thing Is My Own: Bawdy Songs of Thomas D'Urfey

Manufacturer: Koch Int'l Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Marches | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Classic Big Band | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Bawdy Ballads of Old England: The City Waites
Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy: Lewd Songs and Low Ballads from the 18th Century
Penny Merriments: Street Songs of 17th Century England
The Art of the Bawdy Song
The Mad Buckgoat - Ancient Music of Ireland

ASIN: B00005A8F6
Release Date: 2001-05-22

Tracks:

The Surprised Nympth
Off she Goes
My Thing Is My Own
De'il Take The War
British Grenadiers March
Robin In The Rushes
I've Vowed To Die A Maid
Twangdillo
Oh, Mother
Scotch Cap
A Little Of One With T'Other
The Mousetrap
Madison's Whim-Confess-Half Hannekin
I Never Knew Ye Loved Me
Jenny My Blithest Maid
The Tunbridge Doctors
Packington's Pound
The Old Fumbler
Tom Tinker
The Courtier And The Country Maid
Would Ye Have A Young Virgin
The Lusty Young Smith

Customer Reviews:

Good songs but the vocals?.......2001-12-17

I found the musicians on the recording to be quite good and the lyrics to the songs are extremely funny. However, the singer seems someone more accustomed to opera or madrigals then to bawdy songs. She is a wonderful singer, but seems ill-suited to this type of music. I find the combination of her voice with these lyrics to be un unpleasant one. I am unable to listen to more the 2 or 3 songs at a time unless I am putting it on as purely background music and ignore the lyrics completely, and since the purpose of a CD of "bawdy" songs is usually the humorous lyrics, I found this recording to be a bit of a waste.

music to smirk and smile by.......2001-06-05

This disc of bawdy songs of Thomas D'Urfey is truly charming and thought provoking. Soprano Rosa Lamoreaux creates unique characters for each piece, one a frightened inexperienced young girl, another a dejected lady upset her man would rather go to war than bed her. In the title track she portrays a woman proud to have maintained her virginity, while other women have sacrificed theirs. The instrumental tracks display the virtuosity of the rest of the ensemble - Tina Chancey, Scott Reiss and Grant Herried - in fun, expansive and sometimes explosive dances and suites. Highly recommended to lovers of all sorts of music, not just classical.

Average customer rating:

I Confess

Manufacturer: Bombshell
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Holly Palmer

ASIN: B000CA404K
Release Date: 2004-08-17

Stanford: Sacred Choral Music, Vol. 1 "The Cambridge Years"

Average customer rating:

Good repertoire but some too fast tempi

Stanford: Sacred Choral Music, Vol. 1 "The Cambridge Years"

Manufacturer: Hyperion UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Magnificats | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Masses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Motets | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Oratorios | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Te Deum | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General | Sacred & Religious | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Stanford: Sacred Choral Music, Vol. 3 "The Georgian Years"
Stanford: The Edwardian Years
Praise to the Lord - Hymns From St. Paul's Cathedral

ASIN: B000002ZZQ
Release Date: 1997-12-09

Tracks:

The Cambridge Years: Magnificant In B Flat
The Cambridge Years: Nunc Dimittis In B Flat
The Cambridge Years: The Lord Is My Shepherd
The Cambridge Years: Justorum Animae
The Cambridge Years: Coelos Ascendit Hodie
The Cambridge Years: Beati Quorum via
The Cambridge Years: Magnificant In A
The Cambridge Years: Nunc Dimittis In A
The Cambridge Years: If Thou Shalt Confess With Thy Mouth
The Cambridge Years: Magnificant In F
The Cambridge Years: Nunc Dimittis In F
The Cambridge Years: And I Saw Another Angel
The Cambridge Years: Pater Noster
The Cambridge Years: Magnificant In E Flat
The Cambridge Years: Nunc Dimittis In E Flat
The Cambridge Years: Jubilate In B Flat
The Cambridge Years: Te Deum In B Flat

Customer Reviews:

Good repertoire but some too fast tempi.......2004-10-07

Stanford wrote some great church music, but the tempos are too rushed in places on this CD. For example, I felt that the beauty and magnificence of the Magnificant of "Stanford in B-flat" were lost because of the fast tempo. To me the tempo felt much too modern.

Byrd - With lilies white (Consort Songs & Music for viols) / Lesne, Ensemble Orlando Gibbons

Average customer rating:

Byrd - With lilies white (Consort Songs & Music for viols) / Lesne, Ensemble Orlando Gibbons
William Byrd , Gérard Lesne , Wieland Kuijken , Ensemble Orlando Gibbons , Anne-Marie Lasla , Jérôme Hantaï , and Kaori Uemura
Manufacturer: EMI Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Solo Instrumental | New Age | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00000F1V1
Release Date: 2002-12-23

Tracks: