Various Artists
40 Most Beautiful Summer Classics [Warner Classics, two discs]
★★★½
I recently kvetched about Warner’s “40 Most Beautiful Love Themes,” which I felt treated the music with disrespect. But this collection is a winner. It seldom cuts the selections off, and whoever put it together had fun.
There’s “Summer” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” but also from Glazunov’s “The Four Seasons,” and Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons.” (What, no Haydn? Just kidding.) You get the gallant voice of Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau singing a sensuous Schumann song, and Dawn Upshaw gloriously soaring in the beautiful “Bailero” from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne.” Curiousities include “Summer Days,” a song by Alban Berg,” and “The Last Rose of Summer,” in a touching arrangement by Beethoven. And I’ve developed a strange fondness for Eric Coates’ “By the Sleepy Lagoon.”
Lots to love here, and it all goes great with a beer.
— M. K. G.
Classical
