Classical CD Reviews

"Zirkus" is the new album by pianist Cary Chow, playing two major works by Robert Schumann: "Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana":

• Zirkus meaning "Circus" is an excellent introduction to Schumann's piano music and showcases the talents of pianist Cary Chow playing "Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana"

"Browns in Blue" is the latest album from "The 5 Browns", a group of 5 brothers and sisters who are all exceptionally talented pianists:

• Browns in Blue features an eclectic selection of Classical and Jazz tracks performed by the 5 Browns and guests

The idea of "Classical Baby" is to give parents two musical tools to help with their child's development: CD1 to provide "Baby Brain Food" and CD2 to "Soothe and Calm":

• Classical Baby has a total of 44 tracks by various classical and film composers

This Woody Allen film, though with a modern setting, has a soundtrack of opera standards many of which are recordings of the great tenor Enrico Caruso:

• Match Point with songs from operas by Giuseppe Verdi and others

Trained at the Yehudi Menuhin School, 17 year old Nicola Benedetti releases her first album with the work which won her the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2004:

• Nicola Benedetti plays Szymanowski's 1st Violin Concerto and a number of other works for violin and orchestra.

The following double album is a collection of the most exciting music from the classical repertoire:

• The Power of Music - a double album of powerful, uplifting classics

The soundtrack to the following film is almost unique in its use of classical music throughout:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey including the opening of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss, the Adagio from "Gayane" by Aram Khachaturian and a number of works by Gyorgy Ligeti.

Experience some complete Tone Poems by Richard Strauss including the one whose opening section provides the main title music for "2001: A Space Odyssey":

• Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel and Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils conducted by Herbert von Karajan.

Gustav Mahler has been a featured composer on this site since its initial launch in May 2000. Here is our review of a budget CD collection of all Mahler's symphonies:

• Complete symphonies, conducted by Klaus Tennstedt.

Highly influenced by Mahler we also review a double CD album featuring two acclaimed symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich :

• Symphonies 4 and 5, conducted by Andre Previn.

Classical Performances

We cover any interesting performances within mfiles, but particularly we focus on concerts of classical or film music. Of course there is sometimes a fine line between the two, but here are a couple of classical performances and other film music performances are listed in the Performance Reviews section.

• Alexander Nevsky (in film and concert versions) by Sergei Prokofiev NEW!



• Northern Sounds...Islands a new orchestral work by Craig Armstrong



• All 15 symphonies of composer Dmitri Shostakovich conducted by Alexander Lazarev