Passport's Illustrated Travel Guide to Algarve & Southern Portugal

Travel

Cook, Thomas

Staines, Joe

Europe

Passport Books

An all new addition to Passport's Exploring Rural Europe series explores the other Portugal--vast arid plains of the Alentejo; great northern rivers with fertile, green valleys; medieval castles along the Spanish border; and other parts of Portugal mostly untouched by the 20th century. Offers planned tours ranging from one day to a week in length. LS-J

Exploring Rural Portugal

Duarte, Lia

The Rough Guide to Classical Music is the ideal handbook, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to contemporaries such as Thomas Ades and Kaija Saariaho. Both a music buyer's guide and a who's who, the guide includes concise biographical profiles of more than 200 composers and informative summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from chamber works to operatic epics. For novices and experts alike, this fully-updated fifth edition features contemporary composer Helmut Lachenmann and Widor, the 19th century organ composer of "Toccata" wedding fame, as well as dozens more works added for existing composers. You'll find a new "Top 10's" section with accessible introductory listings including the Top 10 operas and the Top 10 symphonies, plus new essays on topics such as "Baroque — a style or a period?" and "The clarinet comes of age." The Rough Guide to Classical Music features fresh and incisive reviews of hundreds of CDs, selecting the very best of the latest recordings and reissues, as well as more than 150 illustrations of composers and performers, including a rare archive of photos.

The Rough Guide to Classical Music

Arts & Photography

Music

Rough Guides

"Travellers Algarve & Southern Portugal" is the perfect guidebook for visitors to a region that offers stunning beaches, dependable sunshine, excellent tourist facilities, and a rich historical and cultural heritage ripe for discovery. It offers expert advice guiding you straight to the best sights and experiences; detailed background on people, geography, culture and history; clear and accurate mapping including suggested walks and tours; suggested walks and tours to somewhere a little different; full colour photography throughout; impartial and dependable sleeping, eating and entertainment listings; and a comprehensive coverage of the region's best, including Faro, Portimao, Loule, Lagos, Olhao, Silves, Estremoz, Beja and Evora.

Thomas Cook Travellers Algarve & Southern Portugal (Travellers Guides)

Symington, Martin

Boulton, Susie

Tellier, Sarah Le

UNKNO

Introduction 
Though few of them make much effort to entice a new audience to their product, the recording companies continue to pour out a flood of classical music. The catalogue of current classical CDs runs to more than two thousand tightly packed pages, and lists nearly three hundred composers before reaching the second letter of the alphabet. An average month sees some four hundred recordings added to the pile. THE ROUGH GUIDE to CLASSICAL MUSIC attempts to make sense of this overwhelming volume of music, giving you the information that's essential whether you're starting from the beginning or have already begun exploring. 
As well as being a buyer's guide to CDs, this book is a who's who of classical music, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen, one of the great figures of twelfth-century European culture, to Michael Torke, born in Milwaukee in 1961. Of course we've had to be selective, both with the composers and with their output - Domenico Scarlatti, for example, was a fascinating musician, but no book of this scope could do justice to each of his five hundred keyboard sonatas. Gaetano Donizetti wrote more than seventy operas, but you wouldn't want to listen to all of them. We've gone for what we think are the best works by the most interesting composers, mixing some underrated people with the big names, and highlighting some we think you should keep an eye on. 
When it comes to CDs the situation requires even greater ruthlessness. Beethoven may have written only nine symphonies, but there are more than one hundred versions of the fifth in the catalogue, and scores of recordings of all the others. Several of these CDs should never have been issued - they are there simply because any up-and-coming conductor has to make a Beethoven recording as a kind of calling card, regardless of any aptitude for the music. However, a fair proportion of the Beethoven CDs are worth listening to, because a piece of music as complex as a Beethoven symphony will bear as many different readings as a Shakespeare play. 
Although there are recordings that stand head and shoulders above the competition, no performance can be described as definitive, which is one reason why we have often recommended more than one account of a work. Whereas all our first-choice CDs make persuasive cases for the music, some of the additional recommendations are included because they make provocative counter-arguments. Where price is a consideration, we've also listed a lower-cost alternative whenever appropriate - thus we might suggest a mid-price boxed set of symphonies as an alternative to buying them as full-price individual CDs. Finally, in many instances we've picked an outstanding pre-stereo performance as a complement to a modern recording. 
These "historic" reissues are the one reliable growth area in the classical music industry, and their success is not due to mere nostalgia. There are some great musicians around today, but there's also a lot of hype in the business, with many soloists owing their success more to the way they look than to the way they play - and, conversely, many superlative musicians who remain obscure because they don't project the requisite glamour. It's in the area of orchestral music and opera that the situation is especially bad, notwithstanding the technically immaculate quality of many digital recordings. Orchestral musicians are now trained to a very high standard, but only a few of the top-class orchestras enjoy the sort of long-term relationship with an individual conductor that can mould a distinctive identity. The same goes for opera companies, which used to have a stable core of singers and musicians working under the same conductor for years. Now there's a system based on jet-setting stars, who might be performing in London one night, New York the next, then in the recording studio for a few days to record something with people they hadn't met until the day the session started. You don't necessarily get a good football team by paying millions for a miscellaneous batch of top-flight players, and you don't build a good musical team that way either. 
Musically, then, new is not always best. And don't assume that a recording made more than thirty years ago will sound terrible. Sound quality won't match that of digital CDs, but you'll be surprised at how good it can be - indeed, many people prefer the warmth of the old analogue sound to the often chilly precision produced by modern studios. (We've warned you if surface noise or tinny quality might be a hindrance to enjoyment.) In short, you'll be missing a lot if you insist on hi-tech - few recent releases can match Vladimir Horowitz's 1940 account of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, for instance, or Josef Hofmann's versions of the Chopin piano concertos from the 1930s.

Lists and describes one hundred of the best classical music compact discs, from Hildegard of Bingen's "Canticles of Ecstasy" to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"

The Rough Guide to Classical Music: 100 Essential CDs, 1st Edition

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