Friday/Monday recording

Prima Donna: Great Soprano Arias from Purcell to Barber - Leontyne Price: well this was a nice kick in the pants after Friday's lesson. According to Wikipedia she recorded five "Prima Donna" albums. This is the first one. Way back in college I sang the Hermit Songs for my senior recital so I grew pretty familiar with her recording of it with the composer, Samuel Barber and if I had to guess I would have said it was recorded later than this album. and I would be wrong. her voice sounds so much lighter and smoother on this recording but maybe it's just because of the difference in style, I don't know. The album closes out with Do Not Utter a Word from Barber's Vanessa. But before that we hear Depuis le jour and Io son l'umile ancella. I'll definitely be on the lookout for the other four albums. (I know, the whole thing is available on cd for.... sixty bucks!? and that's not new... it must be out of print. I paid three dollars for this record)

Cocktail Piano Time - Record 1 and 2: there's six albums in this set and if the first two are anything to go by I'm going to love them! so far it's a good mix of small ensembles with piano and piano with orchestra, ten pianists in all and a few vocalists as well. So many standards, As Time Goes By, Misty, The Girl from Ipanema, Snowfall. Anway the guy that I keep going, "who's playing that?" is Frank Horrox, which the record 1 jacket describes as having a "ringing brand of today-sounding jazz and a vital, textury sound". "today" being 1970? doesn't strike me as 70's-ish, but oh well. He has that nice crispy sound I like whether it's with orchestra or "his Quartet".