Once Upon a Time in England [Import]

Once Upon a Time in England [Import]

Track Listings

1. The Pleasure Of Hope

2. Insomnia

3. Armageddon

4. Dawn Of Vienna

5. The Pleasure Of Hope(Piano/Vocal Version)

6. Catch Me If You Can

7. Melody

8. Dead Stop

9. Deja Vue

10. Dream Of Tomorrow

11. Stan And Ollie(Live)

12. Loving The Stranger

13. Eye For An Eye

14. Is This Life?

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
14 track collection of rarities from 1978-1988 by the British prog rock group, including two versions of 'The Pleasure Of Hope'. 1999 release.

Tracks:

The Pleasure Of Hope
Insomnia
Armageddon
Dawn Of Vienna
The Pleasure Of Hope(Piano/Vocal Version)
Catch Me If You Can
Melody
Dead Stop
Deja Vue
Dream Of Tomorrow
Stan And Ollie(Live)
Loving The Stranger
Eye For An Eye
Is This Life?

Album Description

14 track collection of rarities from 1978-1988 by the British prog rock group, including two versions of 'The Pleasure Of Hope'. 1999 release.

Album Details

Compilation of Material that Includes Some of their Early Demos and Rarites from 1978 Onwards. The Twenty Page Booklet Comes Complete with Pendragon Story and Many Photos.

Customer Reviews:

Good for completists and die-hard fans only........2000-07-19

If you are looking into the music of Pendragon for the first time, then this is the wrong album to start with! Anyone new to the band should start with the bands most recent studio albums "The Masquerade Overture", "The Window of Life", or perhaps if you prefer live albums try "Live in Krakow". Any of those aforementioned albums show Pendragon in all their emotional prog-rock glory! However, "Once Upon a Time In England" is a collection of early demos, rare tracks, and some assorted live recordings from the bands humble beginnings. Long-standing band-members Clive Nolan and Fudge Smith were not around yet when most of these recordings were made. This two volume set is something that will appeal to those die-hard fans who already have every other Pendragon album firmly in their collection, but will do little to promote a great first impression for the uninitiated! The live tracks are the best here, with some well-recorded concert versions of familiar songs like "The Black Knight" and "Victims of Life", as well as a great little live rarity called "Stan and Ollie". (This one should be worth the price of admission for the true fanatics) However, some of the earliest studio tracks suffer from poor sound quality, and under-production. Some of the better studio pieces include alternate "demo" versions of songs from their 1987 album "Kowtow", and some atmosphereic instrumentals which show off Nick Barrett's guitar work. All in all, not a bad "rarities" package for the die-hard collector, but the poor sound quality on some tracks may spoil it for newcomers.

Average customer rating:

Western Film Music

Manufacturer: Proper (England)
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | International | Styles | Music

Movie Scores | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

Movie Soundtracks | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00005MEQE
Release Date: 2001-09-04

Tracks:

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
For A Few Dollars More
Once Upon A Time In America
Once Upon A Time In America: Cockeye's Song
Once Upon A Time In The West: The Man With The Harmonica
El Mercenario
My Name Is Nobody
Once Upon A Time In The West
Il Etait Une Fois La Revolution
A Fistful Of Dollars (1 Theme)
A Fistful Of Dollars (2 Theme)
Once Upon A Time In The West: Square Dance
Once Upon A Time In The West: Apres L'Explosion
For A Few Dollars More: Sixty - Seconds To What
A Fistful Of Dynamite
Alibi: La Libertad
For A Few Dollars More: Bye Bye Colonel
A Gun For Ringo

Tracks:

The Magnificent 7
Gunfight At The O.K. Corral
High Noon
Deguello
Johnny G uitar
Bonanza
The Man From The Lost Valley
How The West Was Won
Shane
The 3:10 To Yuma
Rio Bravo
River of No Return
Vera Cruz
The Virginian
Grenn Leaves Of Summer
Riders In The Sky
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
Proud Ones

Album Details

Two CD Collection featuring Tracks from a Variety of Western Films.

Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks

Average customer rating:

An American sampler
Hanson's MLP Gems Are Back!

Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks

Manufacturer: Philips
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Bartok: Orchestral Works; Bluebeard's Castle
Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 1-6
Antal Dorati Conducts
Rafael Kubelik conducts Dvorák, Smetana, Mussorgsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Schoenberg
Paul Paray Conducts French Orchestral Music

ASIN: B00035VV82
Release Date: 2004-11-09

Customer Reviews:

An American sampler.......2006-06-21

My wife and I often eat at a local restaurant that offers what it calls an "American sampler" of shishkabob, Hawaiian chicken and Louisiana Gulf shrimp. I liken that plate to this collection by the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra and longtime conductor-director Howard Hanson. Based on the quality of much of this music, I think the title could more readily have been "Howard Handson Conducts An American Sampler" rather than American masterworks, for the quality of some of this music is arguable in that respect.

Hanson was not only a composer and conductor, he was a great champion of American music in the 1950s, when its profile and exposure were much less than today. Many of the compositions included in this anthology have since been recorded in DDD in the Maxos American music series. Others have been recorded on other labels in newer, sometimes better, recordings. This does nothing to diminish these recordings or to dampen the memory of Hanson and his band.

However, many of the more well known recordings in this set have been re-done either more artistically and/or in better sound since these recordings first appeared the better part of 50 years ago. In particular, Barber's Capricorn Concerto and Medea suite, Ives's Third Symphony & Three Places in New England, Piston's Incredible Flutist and Schuman's New England Triptych have all been recorded many times in the intervening years. The recordings here sometimes magnify the thin and wiry sound coming from the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra. Some are simply not very well played, either.

That said, there are still five decade old gems to be located here. Among my favorites are William Bergsma's "Gold and Senor Commandante" ballet suite, a delightful nine-movement ballet suite that is clearly meant for the concert hall and not the stage. I also enjoy Morton Gould's "Sprituals" and George Whitfield Chadwick's "Symphonic Sketches" that merges British stoicism with American melody-making.

Best for me is the performance of Peter Mennin's Symphony No. 5. This 1962 recording was probably the first of a Mennin symphony and it still stands up well to competition. The dramatic three movement edifice is completely engaging. Its syncopated rhythm on an ostimato E-F-G-F sharp-A-E theme in the closing movement is catchy and stays long in memory.

Another important and rarely recorded piece is Johann Friedrich Peter's "Sinfonia in G". Peter was an early American composer from the Classical period; he was born 1746 and died 1813. The sinfonia mimics the CPE Bach crossover from Baroque to Classical early symphony with modular thematic development in each of its four movements.

There are other memorable chunks of Americana on this collection and everything sound wonderful, captured in ultra-clear and well-defined three channel tapes (produced here in stereo and not SACD) from the 1950s and early 1960s. The notes are very helpful and the bookelt details the origin of each recording. There is a very high level of nostalgia evident in this grouping that adds much to its appeal.

I think this collection is best suited to people that want to recapture the nostalgia of these great old recordings. Today's DDD technology has nothing on these fine sounding CDs even though Mercury missed an opportunity to release these as three channel SACDs. Perhaps that is coming in the future?

Another group of listeners that will most appreciate this collection are people that want exposure to many American composers and don't want to pay a lot to get it. The modest list price for this five CD collection is usually reduced by 40-50 percent when purchasing used from an Amazon vendor. I bought mine for about $20, the cost of less than three new Naxos CDs. This set is certainly worth more than that. Even veteran collectors (who didn't buy the original LPs or individual CDs) will probably find something new and different here.

Hanson's MLP Gems Are Back!.......2005-06-09

Those familiar with my reviews on Amazon know of my great love for the Mercury Living Presence series. Equally great is my disgust that so many of these brilliant recordings have been deleted in the last few years! Thankfully, some of these legendary performances are resurfacing as SACD hybrids. However, they are unfortunately now being sold at full-price, despite a competing Living Stereo hybrid series on RCA/BMG being available at midline. In spite of the added expense, I hope this MLP reissue trend will continue, and maybe we'll even see a few items receiving their CD debut in this series.

These performances of American Masterwoks by Howard Hanson are in most cases definitive accounts of rarely recorded pieces by many of our country's too often neglected composers -- Barber, Chadwick, Piston, Moore, Carpenter, Rogers, MacDowell, etc. While three of these recordings continue to be available in their original CD incarnations, the remaining two discs featuring Ives and Gould have been out-of-print for some time. Now with this box set they are deservedly restored to the catalog. Even better is the fact that the 5CD box sets being reissued have been reasonably priced because they are not SACD Hybrids. This set and three others (see my reviews) have a total cost cheaper than the original single issue CDs! Once again, Mercury Living Presence lives!