Opera Sauvage [Import] [Limited Edition]

Track Listings

1. Hymne

2. Rêve

3. Enfant

4. Mouettes

5. Chromatique

6. Irlande

7. Flamants Roses

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Limited edition Japanese reissue of the electronic composer's 1979 album, packaged in a miniature LP sleeve, features seven warm & lyrical tracks derived from his music for a French television series. The opening cut, 'Hymn', has been used for a Gallo Wine commercial. Polydor. 2004.

Opera Sauvage,Vangelis,Universal Int'l,Neo-Classical,New Age,Pop,Progressive Electronic,Rock

Tracks:

Hymne
Reve
L'enfant
Mouettes
Chromatique
Irlande
Flamants Roses

Amazon.com

Noted film composer Maurice Jarre scored the soundtrack to The Year of Living Dangerously, but the theme everyone remembers from that film is "L'enfant" by Vangelis. That track originally appeared on Opera Sauvage, a Vangelis album that slipped in under the radar just before he scored Chariots of Fire. The simple pentatonic theme of "L'enfant," with the piano chirping out the sparse melody over a two-note synthesizer ostinato, remains powerfully evocative. The cinematic expressiveness of "L'enfant" can be found on most of the music from Opera Sauvage, including the mournful "Hymne," the tremulous "Mouettes" with its quavering thereminlike lead, and the surprising "Chromatique," one of the few times Vangelis uses an acoustic guitar. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Opera Sauvage is that the entire album wasn't co-opted for soundtrack music. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews:

get this for one song.......2006-11-01

This cd has music that seesaws between pretty and pretty boring...but then you get to the song "Hymn". It is a drop dead, completely gorgeous and jubilant piece of work. As much as the other songs are unimportant, nothing, boring, stereotypcial, new age, synthesizer, schmaltz, "hymn makes the whole purchase totally worthwhile.

The song is that beautiful!

Moody music from Vangelis.......2005-12-16

My first exposure to the music of Greek electronica composer Vangelis was through the science fiction film Bladerunner sometime during the late 1990s and it was not until recently that I snapped this 1979 album up out of a discount bin. Although there are moments that sound a bit new age-ish (as on the short opening track and L'enfant) there are disproportionately more pieces on this album that are moody and simply excellent. In fact, the haunting 12'26 Reve, which is played largely on what sounds like a heavily echoed electric piano stands out as a personal favorite. As to be expected, synthesizers including instruments by Moog, (possibly) Oberheim, and ARP are used prominently on this album, in addition to a host of percussion instruments - the liner notes depict Vangelis playing what appears to be a marimba and is seated in front of a number of gongs. Mouettes is a very short and dreamy piece played entirely on synthesizers, while Chromatique features acoustic/electric guitar, bass guitar, and synths. It is worth noting that Chromatique is a piece that utilizes (you guessed it) a chromatic scale and as such is pretty interesting - I can't say I have heard this before in rock music. Irlande is somewhat gloomy and displays tinges of medieval (English) musical themes while the 11'54" closing piece Flamants Rose is somewhat more varied in terms of timbre and dynamics. In fact Flamants Rose comes quite close to being electronic art music, and alternates deeply reflective moments with flourishes on percussion coupled with blaring, assertive lines played on the synthesizers. As a huge Yes fan I was happy to see that Jon Anderson shows up on this piece (he played harp). All in all, I can highly recommend this album to electronica fans along with Heaven and Hell (1975) (Jon Anderson sings on this album), Albedo 0.39 (1976), and Spiral (1977) - yes, I am on a quest to collect all of the 1970s work by Vangelis.

Opera Sauvage ~ Vangelis.......2005-10-21

Opera Sauvage~ Vangelis is 70's synth music at its best and one does go on a nostalgia trip when one hears the soft and warm sounds of the 70's and I can see in my minds eye Vangelis hard ay work with keyboards of the time like Moog, Oberheim and Rolan to mention a few. I love l'efant, irlande and Hymne. The 70's synths have a sound that is so superior to the keyboards of today and they were true master works and have not been duplicated. I love the synth sound in the begining of the track Irlande, the amazing string sounds. This is as about as complete as an album can get and is one of the best modern synth albums that I have ever listened to.

Forceful Hymn.......2005-10-12

Opera Sauvage exemplifies the melodic beauty of symphony instruments. Hymn is the perfect example of sorrowful musical elegance that is touching and powerful.

Opera Sauvage.......2005-08-03

This is a long time favorite of mine that was on cassette tape. I've been replacing all my vinyl records and cassette tapes as I could find them on CDs. This is an excellent rendition.

Average customer rating:

A tempting treasury, but only a few performances are great
Berlioz with immaginative variety

The Berlioz Experience

Manufacturer: Umvd Labels
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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

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

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Bruckner: The Nine Symphonies; Helgoland

ASIN: B00008RWRJ
Release Date: 2003-10-14

Customer Reviews:

A tempting treasury, but only a few performances are great.......2007-02-03

Ten discs of Berlioz is a sumptuous offering, and temptingly cheap at Amazon Marketplace. DG has used this occasion to repackage some outstanding performances. At the top of the list goes James Levine's electrifying Requiem from Berlin, with playing and singing to match the conductor's inspiration. Also exciting--perhaps surprisingly so--is Abbado's Te Deum, which has rawer edges and sharper focus than Colin Davis's on Philips, long the standard version.

Dropping down a notch in quality, we have an elegantly played Romeo et Juliette by the Boston Symphony, superbly recorded, that has few rivals for refined virtuosity. But after a while Seiji Ozawa's approach seems to lack depth and meaning; he's skating over the surface of the musical drama, however brilliantly. Sharp and brilliant also describes Myung-Whun Chung's contribution, a Symponie fantastique, two overtures, and the Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens, all with his well-trained Bastille Opera orchestra. Chung is to the manner born in Berlioz, but so are greater conductors in these works, including Munch and Markevitch.

At about the same quality level I'd place the Mort de Cleopatre, a dullish early vocal scene sung with plushness by Jessye Norman, and Kiri Te Kanawa's Les Nuits d'Ete, which is ravishing in terms of sheer vocalism but otherwise vacant. Daniel Barenboim's slack conducting does the piece no favors, either, which holds true on a much larger scale for his Damnation of Faust. This is a typical Barenboim product, full of lush sounds, excellent singing, big-scale orchestral work, but leading to a meager artistic payoff. Barenboim's Faust isn't remotely competitive with Markevitch, Chung, Solti, Pretre, and others in this work. It's great to hear Domingo in the title role, but the conducting is so routine that I'm not sure the overall experience is worth it.

We get odds and ends of varying quality: the rarely recorded Tristia done superbly by Boulez, an uneven batch of songs that previously appeared in their own double-CD set (a chore to listen to in its entirety, despite the occasional gem), and a pedestrain Harold in Italy conducted by Lorin Maazel in Berlin, a performance that DG surely could have bettered by looking deeper into their vaults.

In all, I can't see investing in such an uneven collection except at super-budget price. If you do a little searching, all the best things here can be gotten separately, and the lesser recordings pale by comparison with classic Berlioz from Colin Davis, Charles Munch, and Igor Markevitch.

Berlioz with immaginative variety.......2003-10-30

This box makes a nice alternative to the Philips boxes under Colin Davis. Not to take anything away from Davis. His Berlioz cycle certainly ranks up there with the elite for recording achievements. But many will not want to invest in all 3 boxes, so Universal has brought us a great compilation of some of Berlioz' best works from a variety of performers with different styles.
The jewel has to be Ozawa's unsurpassed Romeo and Juliet. This 1976 studio recording had its birth at the Tanglewood Festival and features excellent soloists (Julia Hamari, Jose Van Dam, and Jean Dupouy), a very competent choir, and of course the reliable Boston SO. The recording is of outstanding quality. It seems cleaned up a little from what I remember of the CDs from the mid 80s; much more spacious, less muddy sounding. I especially like the chorus in the hushed night scene.
Barenboim's Damnaton is perdictably Furtwangler-like in tempo, and again features top notch singers in Fischer Dieskau, Jules Bastin, & Placido Domingo; Yvonne Minto is probably not in the same class with the others, but she's more than acceptable.
Levine directs a well recorded and balanced classical-sounding Requiem, and Abbado is more than competent in the Te Deum.
Chung's Fantastique is fun and enjoyable, if not first-class.
The rest of the works are very commendable, if not top-of-the-class.
In short, you can't go wrong for the price, and if you love Berlioz' Romeo, you've got to get this box just for the Ozawa gem.

Average customer rating:

A useful survey of Antheil's piano music - but not always the best readings

George Antheil, Bad Boy of Music

Manufacturer: Albany Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0000049OD
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Tracks:

Airplane Son: As Fast As Possible
Airplane Son: Andante
Son Sauvage: A La Negre, Allegro Vivo
Son Sauvage: Snakes
Son Sauvage: Ivory, Prestissimo
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: I.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: II.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: III.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: IV.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: V.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: VI.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: VII.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: VIII.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: IX.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: X.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XI.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XII.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XIII.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XXIV.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XXV.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XXVI.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XL.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XLIII.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XLIV.
La Femme 100 Tetes After Max Ernst: XLV.
Little Shimmy
Tango From The Opera Transatlantic
Son No. 4: Allegro Giocoso-Ironico
Son No. 4: Andante Cantabile
Son No. 4: Allegro
Valentine Waltzes: I.
Valentine Waltzes: II.
Valentine Waltzes: III.
Valentine Waltzes: IV.
Valentine Waltzes: V.
Valentine Waltzes: VI.
Valentine Waltzes: VII.
Valentine Waltzes: VIII.
Valentine Waltzes: IX.
Valentine Waltzes: X.
Valentine Waltzes: XI.

Amazon.com

George Antheil wrote a fascinating autobiography, Bad Boy of Music, and a lot of "bad boy" music before he settled down to a career as a mainstream film composer. His Ballet mécanique still has a lot of life in it, but most of this piano music is simply dated: nose-thumbing naughty stuff that doesn't convince anymore. Antheil had obviously heard Prokofiev's famous Sonata No. 7 before writing his own Sonata No. 4. You may enjoy the Valentine Waltzes, which find a convincing balance between romance and dissonance. And pianist Marthanne Verbit obviously takes this music more seriously than the rest of us will. --Leslie Gerber

Customer Reviews:

A useful survey of Antheil's piano music - but not always the best readings.......2007-04-05

This well-filled (68:23) CD came out in 1994 and was thus the first in a series that launched a mild but long due revival of interest in the piano music of George Antheil. .

Rather than concentrating on the brash and provocative early Antheil (his piano pieces from the 1920s) like Koehlen (George Antheil: Bad Boy's Piano Music) or Henck (Piano Music by Nancarrow and Antheil), Verbit offers a survey that encompasses his various compositional periods: the earth-conquering modernist is represented by the 1921 "Airplane Sonata", 1922 "Sonata Sauvage" and 1923 "Little Shimmy". Antheil the "post-neo-classic" from the early 30s is featured in the Tango from his opera "Transaltlantic" and, more significantly, in the 20 excerpts out of the 45 short preludes that make up the cycle "La Femme 100 têtes", and the later Antheil is heard in the 1948 4th Sonata and the Valentine Waltzes from 1949.

Verbit is not always interpretively at the top of the competition. In the first movement of the "Airplane Sonata" Antheil instructs to play "as fast as possible" and Verbit isn't quite as fast as Henck and Koehlen, but she is muscular and more cleanly articulated than they are. Her very moderately paced 2nd movement "Andante moderato" lends the music an almost Coplandesque-bluesy character, but almost deprives it of its contour; Henck's more animated tempo seems preferable here. In "Sonata Sauvage" she is muscular, powerful and evocative, but a comparison with Henck and Koehlen shows them in the outer movements to be faster, more electric and hectic, producing more unleashed energy. In the finale despite all the power and din she produces she doesn't quite convey the "xylophonic" impression called for by Antheil, that Koehlen captures. On the other hand her "Little Shimmy" is perfectly judged, at a tempo that's neither too fast nor too slow, sounding like a vaguely nonchalant blues, and she easily scores over the hard-driven Henck and the teutonically heavy Koehlen.

"La Femme 100 têtes" is a wonderfully imaginative cycle of short preludes inspired by a book of engravings by Max Ernst. Its title means literally, in French as in English "The Woman One Hundred Heads" (and not "The Woman with a hundred heads", as Antheil maintains in his autobiography "Bad Boy of Music"), but through a phonetic play on words it can also mean "The Woman without a Head" or "The Woman stubbornly persists". Though in his book Antheil boasts having written 100 of them, he completed apparently only 45. Much of the earlier, hammering Antheil is still present in those short pieces (none is longer than 2 minutes and the shortest zips through in 10 seconds) based on very simple and typically young-Antheil, repetitive melodic/rhythmic cells. Possibly to avoid an impression of monotony Verbit plays only 20, but I find the choice regrettable, as I don't find the cycle monotonous and the pieces that she left aside are as good as those included. Interpretively, Verbit is often atmospheric and she finds fine colors, but she also often favors slow tempos at the expense of some snap and piquancy (as in Nr. 1 "Thoughtfully, not too slow", 3 "Faintly energetic", 7 "Sad") or even of a sense of frenzy (5 "furioso", 12 "Brilliant clean" where her articulation lacks clarity). On the other hand she has plenty of muscle in 8 "Electrical (spiccato)", 10 ("Slightly brutal tempo"), 11 ("Bawdy ferocious tempo"), 25 ("Minuet?"), 26 ("Onward Christian Soldiers") and 44 ("Cruel (Quick)"). Still, it is better to have the complete cycle, and Benedikt Koehlen plays it excellently (see my review of Piano Pictures: Satie Sports & Divertissements / Antheil La Femme 100 têtes).

In the 4th sonata the pounding Antheil is still there but whereas the pounding in the early works was mechanistically devoid of emotion (other than the joy of making such a racket), by 1948 you can feel the anger and bitterness of the composer who failed to live up to his early promises. With its motoric rhythms in the outer movements and bitter-sweet harmonies and terse counterpoint in the middle "Andante Cantabile", the sonata is in fact strikingly reminiscent of Prokofiev's War Sonatas - a feature I had already remarked with the contemporary 4th Violin and Piano Sonata (see my review of George Antheil: Violin Sonatas 1, 2 & 4) - and it is hard to believe that the Toccata-like finale wasn't inspired by the Finale of Prokofiev's 7th. Strange how Antheil went from one Russian to the other - from the Stravinsky quotations of the 1920s to the Prokofiev similitudes of the 1940s. The Sonata's 1st movement also has a secondary motive that is a mock imitation of a trite early Chopin run - Antheil's iconoclastic sense of humor is still there. Verbit is more hectic and energetic than Guy Livingston (George Antheil: The Lost Sonatas) and Eric Parkin (on a 1987 Preamble CD of American Piano Music Vol.1, with works of Barber, Copland, Gershwin, Stevens and Waxman), but also, in the first movement, not as clearly articulated. As a result, for all of Verbit's impressive power, it is Parkin that brings out better the Prokofiev-like march rhythms and kinetic energy and Livingston its neo-classical "stravinskysms".

The intimate Valentine Waltzes weren't destined for publication. Don't expect much: they are walzes, period. Their apparent triteness, wry humor and emotional restraint recalls Satie, a musician Antheil much admired, and I also hear some Brahms in the 4th. It is not the most significant Antheil, but Verbit's is the only recording, so she very much has the field to herself here.

In sum this is a useful overview of Antheil's various compositional styles but not as interesting as Livingston's program. It is also not the disc I would recommend if you have only one CD of the piano music of Antheil: go instead to Koehlen's Col Legno collection of the early pieces, and if you enjoy it as much as I do, complete it with Koehlen's "Femme 100 têtes", then Livingston.

Average customer rating:

Bertolt Brecht: Hommage

Manufacturer: Epm Musique
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000E6TZMY
Release Date: 2006-06-13

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Op de Quat'sous/La Fiancdu Pirate
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M Courage/M Courage
Op de Quat'sous/Surabaya-Johnny
Happy End/Bilbao Song
Op de Quat'sous/Le Chant de Barbara
Grandeur et Ddence de La Ville de Mahogany/Querschnitt Aus der Oper
Grandeur et Ddence de La Ville de Mahogany/Alabama Song
Grandeur et Ddence de La Ville de Mahogany/Denn Wie Man Sich Bettet
Mae Puntila et Son Valet Matti/Das Puntilalied
Mae Puntila et Son Valet Matti/Das Pflaumenlied
Mae Puntila et Son Valet Matti/Die Ballade Vom Fer und der ...
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Ouvertd Moritat (Ouverture et Complainte)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Seeraenny (Jenny des Pirates)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Kanonensong (Le Chant des Canons)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Liebeslied (Chant d'Amour)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Barbarasong (Chant de Barbara)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Erstes Dreigroschen Finale (Finale du ...)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Abscheid (Adieu)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Zuherballade (Ballade du Souteneur)
Der Drei Groschen-Oper/Ballade Vom Angenehmen Leben (Ballade de La Vie
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Album Description

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director and poet in the twentieth century. Here, some of his more popular works are paid homage by greats of the pop tradition: Catherine Sauvage, Marianne Oswald, Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, Florelle and more.

Lully - Rameau: Scenes d'Operas en forme de suites - Michel Alabau, J.E. Isnard Organ (1774), Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume

Average customer rating:

Lully - Rameau: Scenes d'Operas en forme de suites - Michel Alabau, J.E. Isnard Organ (1774), Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume

Manufacturer: Temperaments
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

French | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000AE10
Release Date: 1998-08-11

Tracks:

Gran Jeu in G: Cadmus Et Hermione: Ov
Recit in g: Alcidiane Et Polexandre: Ritournelle
Duo Sur Les Tierces in g: Alcidiane Et Polexandre: Recit Italien
Fond in g: Alcidiane Et Polexandre: Ov
Trio: Et La Basse De Tierce in C: Alcidiane Et Polexandre: Petit Chaconne
Grand Plein Jeu: in a: Alceste: Ov
Fls in a: Alceste: Rondeau
Recit 1 Double, 2 Double in a: Alceste: Air De Cephyse
Grand Dialogue in d: Hippolyte Et Aricie: Ov
Recit: in B flat: Les Fetes D'Hebee-Duo: Le Fleuve Et L'Onde
Cromorne En Taille in g: Les Fetes De HEbee-Air: Revenez Tendre Amant...
Chor in g: Les Fetes D'Hebee-Chor: Revenez Tendre Amant...
Recit in G: L'Impatience-Recitatif: Les Oiseaux D'alentour
Duo in G: L'Impatience-Air: Pourquoi Leur Envier?
Grand Jeu in G: Hippolyte Et Aricie-Marche Et Choeur: Que Ce Rivage Retentisse
Dialogue in d: Thetis-Air: Beaute Qu'Un Sort Heureux
Trio in a: Diane Et Actron-Air: Quand Le Silence Et Le Mystere
Trio in D: Diane Et Acteon-Air: Fuyez, Fuyez Faune Sauvage
Dialogue in g: Cadmus Et Hermione-Chor: Profitons Des Beaux Jours...
Dialogue in G: Cadmus Et Hermione-Menuet: Peut-on Mieux Faire?

Average customer rating:

Opera Sauvage
Vangelis
Manufacturer: Umvd Import
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

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New Age | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000W3P0K
Release Date: 2004-01-13

Tracks:

Hymne
R
Enfant
Mouettes
Chromatique
Irlande
Flamants Roses

Album Description

Limited edition Japanese reissue of the electronic composer's 1979 album, packaged in a miniature LP sleeve, features seven warm & lyrical tracks derived from his music for a French television series. The opening cut, 'Hymn', has been used for a Gallo Wine commercial. Polydor. 2004.

Album Details

Japanese Limited Edition in an LP-STYLE Slipcase.

Pop Music: