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Essential Encores / Various on CD

The most exciting part of many concerts and recitals is the section at the end when the performer rewards the applause of the audience with one or more additional pieces. This album contains a number of favourite encores for solo instruments, as well as orchestral works and vocal pieces, performed at the end of many such concerts. The first disc opens with the excitingRonde des lutins by Bazzini, played with dazzling virtuosity by the violinist Maxim Vengerov, and continues with favourite violin encores by Paganini, Kreisler and Massenet. These are followed by popular piano encores by Chopin, Liszt and Debussy and the CD ends with encore pieces for a range of other instruments including the cello, the trumpet and the guitar, and comes to a rousing conclusion with the Widor 'Toccata' played on the organ of Coventry Cathedral by Wayne Marshall. CD 2 begins with orchestral encores then goes on to songs typically given at the end of vocal recitals performed by such eminent singers as Barbara Hendricks, Dame Janet Baker and Ian Bostridge. The last tracks four come from various live recordings where the enthusiastic applause of the audience adds enormously to the atmosphere. The singers include Victoria de los Angeles, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu, and listeners will find it hard to resist joining Plácido Domingo and Cheryl Studer in the Brindisi from La traviata at the end.