Re: music recommendation

"Simon Drew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> You will need to set out some criteria for your CD collection.  You say
you
> prefer a capella to accompanied, but do you want to include (or exclude)
> early music, modern music or ethnic music?  Religious or secular?  Early,
> Classical, Romantic or avant garde and atonal?

Thanks for your response.  I don't want to exclude too much, because I am
new to this area and want to hear as much as possible.  I'd like some sort
of introductory anthology if such a thing exists, or perhaps several of them
which cover different genres.  Though I would deemphasize Classical, since I
have heard a lot of that.  I like early music, modern, and Romantic
definitely.  As far as "classical" music, I like Debussy, Bartok,
Villa-Lobos, Rachmaninov, some Wagner -- I guess it stops a bit short of
avante-garde or atonal.  If there is vocal music with harmony along those
lines, I would love to hear it.  Though I have heard some choral pieces some
of those composers and for some reason nothing totally caught my ear -- I
guess that is why I wanted to hear some a capella stuff.

I like "complex" harmonies but nothing too "obscure", if you know what I
mean.  I don't know how far vocal music goes into that territory.  I do like
ethnic music, but at the moment I am looking for music with harmony, and
most ethnic music AFAIK does not have a lot of harmony, if any.  I am
interested in both religious and secular, though probably more secular.  I
am not just interested in classical music either, any sort of vocal music is
interesting to me, e.g. gospel, barbershop.

I am pretty into intonation by the way, part of the reason I am attracted to
vocal music is because the harmonies are so pure.

> The whole 'gamut' is quite an undertaking, and nobody can claim to have
all
> the answers.  The sound of a choir depends on its size, balance,
repertoire
> and the accoustics used during recording.  Again, personal tastes will
vary
> on all of these things.  A few contrasting examples I can recommend:
>
> Gösta Ohlins Vokalensemble  - a Swedish mixed choir.  "Vind, vind lyckliga
> vind" is one of my favourite CDs, and shows the influence of Eric Ericson,
> the 'Grand Old Man' of choral singing in that country.
> "Le mystere des voix bulgares"  - a female Bulgarian choir who made an
> international reputation with their album of the same name.
> Theatre of Voices made an excellent recording of Arvo Pärt's music on the
> album "De Profundis".

I checked those all out on Amazon, but the first one was not stocked, the
second not listed, and only the third was there.  I listened to some samples
on the third and they sounded interesting.  I guess for now I am looking for
more mainstream stuff, and it helps if I can listen to the sound samples
somewhere.  I have found that that's a great way to buy music.

thanks,
MB