The Classical Collection part 1

De browser ondersteunt geen in line frames of is momenteel zodanig geconfigureerd dat in line frames niet kunnen worden weergegeven.

The Classical Collection part1

A review on Vanessa-Mae's 3cd box re-release of her early albums

Contents of this review: Track listing - General impression - The art work - Description (Russian album, Viennese album, Virtuoso album)

Track listing

disc 1 Russian album
1-3 Kabalevsky - Violin Concerto
4 Tchaikovsky - Russian Dance
5-7 Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D op. 35

disc 2 Viennese album
1 Kreisler - Schon Rosmarin
2 Kreisler - Liebesleid
3 Kreisler - Liebesfreud
4-6 Marius Casadesus - 'Adelaide Concerto' (in the style of Mozart)
7-9 Beethoven - Violin Concerto in D op. 61

disc 3 Virtuoso album
... inspired by the classics
1 Salut d'Amor (Elgar) - 2 Lullaby (Brahms) - 3 Air on A G String (Bach) -
... inspired by cinema
4 My Favourite Thing - 5 The Pink Panther - 6 Les Parapluies De Cherbourg -
... Inspired by pop culture
7 One Moment In Time - 8 Yellow Submarine -
... Inspired by folk culture
9 Frere Jacques - 10 La Campanella (Paganini) -
11 Chinese Folk Tune - 12 Tambourin Chinois (Kreisler) -
... Inspired by opera
13 Figaro (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 14 Summertime -
16 Carmen Fantasy (Pablo de Sarasate) - 17 Faust Fantasy (Wieniawski) -

General impression
The worldwide re-release as a luxurious 3cd-box by EMI, in a special license from the Nicholson family, of Vanessa-Mae's early albums - the so-called 'kiddy' cd's as they are often affectionately referred to by fans - in October 2000 came after continuous requests from fans and music lovers. Since the original 3 cd's were hardly available anymore, this re-release was welcomed with applause among Vanessa-Mae's loyal fan base that had grown all over the globe since her unprecedented successes with the release of 5 albums since she emerged as professional musician in 1994-1995. It is without any overstatement that we can mention this re-release as an enormous tribute by EMI to Vanessa-Mae as being one of their most successful artists in their catalogue in general, but especially in the field of classical music and as pioneer in the cross-over between pop and traditional classics. In order to maintain the original character of the early work, Vanessa-Mae and EMI decided to limit re-mastering and editing of the existing tapes to an absolute minimum. This all means for those who do not possess the original cd's, nor have ever be able to listen to them, is that they now have the opportunity to learn and judge how Vanessa-Mae developed as violinist from an early age till today. However, Vanessa-Mae and EMI decided to modify the track listing thoroughly in a way to reorganise it thematically: one disc was formed by music by Russian composers - The Russian album, one disc was formed with music by German and Australian composers - The Viennese album, and the third disc containing music that was inspired and based on classics, opera, pop and folk tunes - The virtuoso album. In this way, the 3cd box adds to the original 3 cd's, yet maintaining the original characters of the 3 individual early albums, making this collection box to a valuable item for collectors and fans to have in addition to the possession of the original three cd. The original 3 cd's remain of course the absolute 'must haves' for true and loyal fans. Reviews to the original albums are available on this VMSPOS website and can be found at Violin - debut, Kids Classics, and the Tchaikovsky and Beethoven violin concertos. Full descriptions of the music and Vanessa-Mae's renditions can be found at these reviews. Here, we limit ourselves to general impression of the individual discs of the 3cd box.

The art work
Scans of the cover and back side of the box as well as scans of all pages inside the booklet, and of the 3 disc are depicted below. The texts inside consists of personal words by Vanessa-Mae and general descriptions of the music on all three discs. Because all the texts are provided triple-lingual, in English, German and French, the booklet has become quite comprehensive with a total number of pages inside of 22. The cover photo is a artistic and stylish close-up of Vanessa-Mae done in colours red, blue, purple, black and white, is well-considered. The red of Vanessa-Mae's lips, the black and blue fading of colours and shadows around her eyes and the strong black defined lines of her eye brows, make it clear that Vanessa-Mae's face was heavily made up for the photo shoot to create the displayed effects of lines and shadows in her visage, which resulted in an exceptionally nice cover. Beside all the texts, four fine photos of Vanessa-Mae, at a young age and during early stages of her career, and one at an open air performance are shown. Moreover, the last page displays small images of the covers of her albums that were released on the EMI label so far.


front	back	page 1	page 2	page 3	page 4	page5

page 6	page 7	page 8	page 9	page 10	page 11	page 12

page 13	page 14	page 15	page 16	page 17	page 18	page 19

page 20	page 21	page 22	disc 1	disc 2	disc 3

Description
A brief description of the three disc of this collection box follows. A full description of all music can be read in the reviews of the original cd's that are available via the links presented in the General impression above.

Russian album
The disc starts with the wonderful violin concerto by Kabalevsky and ends with an unrivalled masterpiece, the violin concerto of Tchaikovsky. Both these 2 outstanding and demanding compositions for violin accompanied by full symphony orchestra consist of 3 movements and are wonderfully played by Vanessa-Mae who showcased her exceptional talents and lyrical power and outstanding technique to full extent. Tchaikovsky's composition Russian Dance forms a pleasant interlude between the long violin concertos. In one word a great disc. The Kabalevsky concerto originally was on Vanessa-Mae's debut recording Violin; The Russian Dance was on Kids Classics, and the Tchaikovsky violin concerto on her 3rd recording Tchaikovsky and Beethoven violin concertos.

Viennese album
disc 2 forms also an interesting compilation of music. The disc opens with 3 short pieces by Kreisler that originally were on Vanessa-Mae's debut recording Violin and these provide pleasant listening. The 2nd piece is a violin concerto in the style of Mozart that was composed by Marius Casadesus - Casadesus claimed to have discovered an unknown violin concerto by Mozart, but in fact he had composed it himself in the well-recognisable style. As a result, for a long time this violin concerto was falsely attributed to Mozart and it was credited as such on Vanessa-Mae's debut recording Violin. During the 90-s, the truth about the origin of this composition became known and on it is on this 3cd-box collection rightly credited as composed by Casadesus. The Viennese album ends with the violin concerto of Beethoven, as well know piece a great lyrical power.

Virtuoso album
The 3rd disc consists mostly of music that was originally on Vanessa-Mae's Kids Classics together with some of her debut recording Violin. On this disc we recognised the mixing and crossover between styles of music for which Vanessa-Mae would became famous for and for which she would become a leading and pioneering icon with the release of her debit pop album The Violin player. The disc consists of violin transcription inspired by pop, folk, cinema, opera and classical tunes.