Greatest Love Classics | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1984 [1] | |||
Recorded | June 1984 July 1984 August 1984 [2] | |||
Studio | Abbey Road Studios & CBS Studios, London [2] | |||
Genre | Classical | |||
Length | 45:45 | |||
Label | EMI | |||
Producer | Nicky Graham Tony Hiller [2] | |||
Andy Williams chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
Greatest Love Classics is the thirty-eighth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in 1984 by EMI Records. Williams writes in the liner notes: "All through my life I have known and loved the great classic melodies and wished I could sing them. So when Tony Hiller and Nicky Graham contacted me with some of these melodies set to lyrics, they immediately caught my imagination." [2]
Although the album did not make it onto the Billboard 200 chart in the US, it did enter the UK album chart on October 27, 1984, and reached #22 during its 10 weeks there. [4] On November 12, 1984, it was awarded with Silver certification for sales of 60,000 units as well as Gold certification for sales of 100,000 units in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry. [5]
All titles arranged and adapted by Tony Hiller & Nicky Graham; all lyrics by Hiller & Graham; original concept by Hiller. [2]
From the liner notes for the original album: [2]
All tracks feature the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by Raymond Cohen except "Another Winter's Day" featuring Stuart Calvert on piano and "Vino de Amor" featuring Carmelo Luggeri and Terry Taylor on guitars. John McCarthy directed the Ambrosian Opera Chorus on "Words". Also featured on various tracks are:
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from the orchestras he directed.
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Sergiu Celibidache was a Romanian conductor, composer, musical theorist, and teacher. Educated in his native Romania, and later in Paris and Berlin, Celibidache's career in music spanned over five decades, including tenures as principal conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Radio France, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and many other European orchestras such as the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra or the London Symphony Orchestra.
Roméo et Juliette is a seven-movement symphonie dramatique for orchestra and three choruses, with vocal solos, by French composer Hector Berlioz. Émile Deschamps wrote its libretto with Shakespeare's play as his base. The work was completed in 1839 and first performed on 24 November of that year, but it was modified before its first publication, in 1847, and modified again for the 2ème Édition of 1857, today's reference. It bears the catalogue numbers Op. 17 and H. 79. Regarded as one of Berlioz's finest achievements, Roméo et Juliette is also among his most original in form and his most comprehensive and detailed to follow a program. The vocal forces are used in the 1st, 5th and 7th movements.
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was a Soviet pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time.
Romeo and Juliet, TH 42, ČW 39, is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The Tempest and Hamlet as well.
Craig Armstrong, is a Scottish composer of modern orchestral music, electronica and film scores. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1981, and has since written music for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta.
Spartacus is a ballet by Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978). The work follows the exploits of Spartacus, the leader of the slave uprising against the Romans known as the Third Servile War, although the ballet's storyline takes considerable liberties with the historical record. Khachaturian composed Spartacus in 1954, and was awarded a Lenin Prize for the composition that same year. It was first staged in Leningrad on 27 December 1956, as choreographed by Leonid Yakobson, for the Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet, where it stayed in repertory for many years, but only with qualified success since Yakobson abandoned conventional pointe in his choreography. Yakobson restaged his version for the Bolshoi in 1962 and it was part of the Bolshoi's 1962 tour to New York. The ballet received its first staging at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow in 1958, choreographed by Igor Moiseyev; however it was the 1968 production, choreographed by Yury Grigorovich, which achieved the greatest acclaim for the ballet.
Andrei Gavrilov is a Russian-Swiss pianist.
The Tempest, Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18, is a symphonic poem in F minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed in 1873. It was premiered in December 1873, conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein.
Still Got the Blues is the eighth solo studio album by Northern Irish guitarist Gary Moore, released in March 1990. It marked a substantial change in style for Moore, who had been predominantly known for rock and hard rock music with Skid Row, Thin Lizzy, G-Force, Greg Lake and during his own extensive solo career, as well as his jazz fusion work with Colosseum II. As indicated by its title, Still Got the Blues saw him delve into an electric blues style.
"Solitaire" is a ballad written by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody. Cody employs playing the card game of solitaire as a metaphor for a man "who lost his love through his indifference"—"while life goes on around him everywhere he's playing solitaire". The song is perhaps best known via its rendition by Carpenters. Another version by Andy Williams reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart in 1973.
This is a complete list of recordings by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, shown alphabetically by conductor, and then by recording label.
Twenty Greatest is the sixth album released by British pop group Brotherhood of Man and their first compilation. It was released in 1978 and became their biggest selling album, peaking at No.6 in the UK and being certified gold. As the title suggests, it is a collection of twenty songs, including their three number one hits, "Save Your Kisses for Me", "Angelo" and "Figaro" alongside their current single release, "Middle of the Night".
Navah Miriam Perlman is a concert pianist and chamber musician. Her parents are violinists Toby and Itzhak Perlman.
Solitaire is the thirty-first studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the fall of 1973 by Columbia Records and was an attempt to move away from his formulaic series of recent releases that relied heavily on songs that other artists had made popular.
Tragic Lovers is a classical music album by the Oregon Symphony under the artistic direction of James DePreist, released by the record label Delos in 2008. It contains three works inspired by tragic love stories in literature: Richard Wagner's Prelude and "Liebestod" from Tristan and Isolde (1865), Hector Berlioz's "Love Scene" from Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. Amelia Haygood and Carol Rosenberger served as executive producers of the album; the recording producers were Michael Fine and Adam Stern. The album's creation was financially supported by the Gretchen Brooks Recording Fund, which supported two recording sessions per year for each of DePreist's final five years as music director. Tragic Lovers was the orchestra's final recording with DePreist — who left the Oregon Symphony in April 2003 — as conductor and its final contribution to Delos's "Virtual Reality Recording" series.
Hooked on Classics is a classical crossover album recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Louis Clark, released in 1981 by K-tel and distributed by RCA Records, part of the Hooked on Classics series. It was produced by Jeff Jarratt and Don Reedman.
The conductor Bernard Haitink recorded works, especially symphonies and other orchestral works, with different orchestras. He made recordings for several labels, including Philips Records, EMI Classics, Columbia Records, LSO Live, RCO Live, and CSO Resound.
The Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne is a piece for orchestra composed by the British light music composer Ernest Tomlinson in 1976. The original version was written for 16 saxophones. It was orchestrated in 1977 and there were later arrangements made for concert band and for "two pianos and two turnovers".