The album opens with a violin version of the soprano aria "O Mio Babbino Caro" from Puccini's opera, "Gianni Schicchi." It's highly suited for a violin, since a violin is a instrumental soprano. The soprano female voice and the sound of the violin seem to match perfectly in pitch and tone, while also capable of flexible shifts and leaps, remaining silvery and resonant in the lower registers and glowing at the top. This album uses other soprano arias from opera, including "Casta Diva" from Bellini's Norma. This aria is considered virtuosic, spiritually tender as well as dramatic and only a few tessitura sopranos could handle both the long flowing vocal line as well as the heavy dramatic vocal crescendo. On the violin, the aria sounds heavenly.

Debussy's "The Girl With The Flaxen Hair" sounds soulful and even melancholic, appropriately Impressionistic and subtle as Debussy was famous for. The same goes for the violin version of Gluck's "Dance Of The Blessed Spirits" from the opera "Orpheus and Eurydice." A real treat is Mozart's Piano Concerto 21 Andante. This music was featured in the romantically tragic foreign film "Elvira Madigan". The adagio was originally written for piano and string orchestra but as a a violin solo it's divinely romantic and beautiful to listen to. It's like Mozart himself would have approved of the change. Under Joshua Bell's bow, the music is extraordinary. Saint Saen's The Swan is lyric and gorgeous as well and the rest of the compilation has great tunes. So get yourself this cd, put it on and get ready to take a romantic trip with the violin.


The real "Red Violin"   November 1, 2003
 36 out of 41 found this review helpful

This CD is recorded on an exceptional Stradivarius violin.
The CD was made to show off the wonderful sound of this Strad. Bell had played it once, & fallen in love with it, but it was not for sale. Subsequently he was able to purchase this violin
"for $3-4 million" by "trading up" from the Strad which he already owned, which he had acquired by trading up from his
first Strad. This famous violin has exceptionally lush sound which cuts through the accompanying orchestra. It has a melodramatic history, having been stolen and recovered, then cleaned very carefully because the man who stole it -- and then played it in nightclubs -- disguised it. The varnish was not disturbed in the cleaning process and the violin emerged with its famously seductive tone intact. This CD is well worth having.
Pat McKnight.Tucson


Beautiful, Romantic Music   November 20, 2003
 29 out of 31 found this review helpful

I will preface this review by saying that I am not an expert about classical music. I love the violin and I enjoy romantic music. I know what I like.

I have Joshua Bell's Kreisler album and have enjoyed it very much for years. This new CD is absolutely one of the most beautiful collections of music I have ever heard. The sound is rich beyond belief and the melodies are very romantic. I can't stop listening to this. Bell must have played from his soul. Every single piece is a winner. The violin has a way of capturing the bittersweet essence of life and Bell has extraordinary skill.


Beautiful album   May 23, 2004
 21 out of 21 found this review helpful

It's demanding a lot, but if you take a leap of faith and look past the frankly dubious cover picture and title, Joshua Bell's latest offering is just as innovative and refreshing as his earlier works like The Kreisler Album and The Red Violin soundtrack.

It takes guts to pick some of the best-loved pieces of classical music and opera from the last five centuries and to arrange them for the violin, but that's exactly what Bell and producer Craig Leon have done.

Rich yet tremulous, a lush arrangement of Puccini's O Mio Babbino Caro opens the album, followed by two standards for the piano: Debussy's The Girl With The Flaxen Hair and a rendition of Chopin's Nocturne In C-Sharp Minor. The latter starts off almost baroque in feel, but when Bell's violin kicks in with its haunting and mournful refrain, it almost hurts to be confronted with such an exquisite melody.

Originally a cello piece, Saint-Saen's The Swan has been transported by the violin's brighter, higher tones into a relatively insubstantial, blink-or-you'll-miss-it flight of fancy. Schubert's Serenade is equally joyous, and in lieu of the original vocals, Bell's violin meets the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in a pleasing rendezvous.

Skipping forward several decades to the Romantic period, Songs My Mother Taught Me is appropriately dreamy and nostalgic but it isn't as good as the final track, a lilting and fluid version of Schumann's Traeumerai.

Bell's 290-year-old Strad imbues each note with tantalising hints of untold depths: it sings, it screams and at times it seems to have a voice and soul of its own. Bell may merely be the 'translator', but he interprets each note from the heart and it shows.