Theatre
| best play ever written |
Oedipus the King (Sophocles, ca 430 BC) |
| Canadian plays |
Colours in the dark (James Reaney, 1969)
Two pianos, four hands (Dykstra and Greenblat) |
| Shakespeare |
King Richard II, Cymbeline, Merchant of Venice |
| contemporary English |
The Norman Conquests trilogy (Alan Ayckbourn, 1973)
No man's land (Harold Pinter)
Democracy, Copenhagen (Michael Frayn)
On the Razzle (Tom Stoppard) - delightful slapstick
Humble Boy (Charlotte Jones, 2001)
|
| American |
You can't take it with you (Hart, Kaufmann, 1936)
Death of a salesman (Arthur Miller, 1949)
Wit (Margaret Edson, 1999) |
| international |
The Government inspector (Nikoli Gogol, 1836)
Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett, 1953) (see this spoof!)
Peer Gynt (Henrik Ibsen)
The Visit (Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1956
|
Music
The following reside in my internal "desert island":
| Jazz artists |
Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie, Ornette Coleman
Avishai Cohen |
| Ethnic |
Afro-Cuban, Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrihim Ferrer
Kiran Ahluwalia (Punjabi Ghazals)
Geoffrey Oryema
Klezmer and Sephardic music
Fado, Flamenco |
| Folk/Bluegrass |
Be Good Tanyas - Canadian group with soulful arrangements
Carolyn Hester: I want Jesus to walk with me - seductive innocence
John Reischman and the Jaybirds
|
| Orchestral |
Barber: School for Scandal Overture
Debussy: Nuages (from Three Nocturnes)
Alan Hovhaness: Symphony #2 (Mysterious Mountain)
Howard Hanson: Symphony #2 ("Romantic")
Ottorino Respighi:
Pini di Roma, Botticelli Triptych
Stravinsky: Firebird Suite
Tschaikowsky: Symphonies #1 and 4
Vaughan-Williams: London and Pastoral Symphonies, Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
|
| Chamber |
Bach: Musical offering on a theme of Frederick the Great
Brahms: the Piano Trios, Quintette for clarinet, piano and strings
Debussy: Quartet in G
Arthur Foote (under-rated 19th C American)
Haydn: String quartets
John Blackwood McEwen: String quartets (early 20th C Scottish-romantic)
Michael Nyman: String quartets (engaging and frenetic!)
Ravel: Quartet in F
Shostakovich: Piano Trio #1 (sparse beauty of despair) |
| Choral |
[anon] Laudario 91 de Cortone
Bach: St. Matthew Passion
Bach: Cantata #78 (Jesu der du meine Seele); other cantatas
Berlioz: l'enfance du Christ, Damnation of Faust
DuBois: Seven last words of Christ
Faure: Requiem
Schütz: Kleine geistlishe Konzerte, Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi
Tinctoris: Missa Trium Vocum |
| Organ |
Hindemith: Organ Sonata #1
Louis Vierne: Berceuse |
| Vocal |
Berlioz: la Nuites d'ete
Barber: Knoxville: summer of 1914
François Couperin: Trois Leçons de ténèbres
George Crumb: Ancient Voices of Children
Schoenberg: Pierrot lunaire
Schubert: die Winterreise
R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
Vaughan-Williams: Songs of Travel |
| Opera |
John Adams: The Death of Klinghoffer. Nixon in Chine, Doctor Atomic
Philip Glass: Satyagraha, Einstein on the Beach
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
Puccini: Turandot
Poulenc: Dialogue des Carmélites |
| Chamber opera |
Monteverdi: l'Orfeo, Coronation of Poppea, Return of Ulysses
Robert Moran: Desert of Roses
Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts
Astor Piazzolla: Maria de Buenos Aires
Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
|
| Piano |
Bach: Well-tempered clavier (bk 2, #9), English Suites
Beethoven: Sonatas - Hammerklavier, Moonlight; Piano Concerto #3
François Couperin: Pièces de Clavecin
Rachmaninov Etudes Tableux
Schumann: Carneval
Tschaikowsky: The Seasons |
| Other instruments |
Kodaly: Sonata for unaccompanied cello |
| CD collections |
Cançons de la Catalunya mil-lenària (traditional Catalan music)
The Sea (songs by diverse composers, Handel to Ives) |
