Thomas’s opera Hamlet contains one of the most famous of all ‘mad scenes’ for the soprano, something of which Joan Sutherland made a speciality. In 1983, she recorded the opera in what was to be one of her final recordings of complete operas. The set is adorned with Michael Stennett’s beautiful portrait of Sutherland as […]

Few more radiant expressions of choral singing exist than the opening of Poulenc’s Stabat Mater with Dutoit’s fine recording here restored to circulation and coupled with Lopez-Cobos conducting the energetic Gloria, also famous for its soprano solo. The coupling appears for the first time on CD: Bizet’s Te Deum, the original LP coupling for the […]

Karl Münchinger recorded all the major orchestral and choral pieces by Bach for Decca, and over a period of some 30 years (from the Mono to the Digital eras), five of the Cantatas. All boast remarkable soloists from their eras. Suzanne Danco sings the two solo cantatas, BWV 51 and 202, recorded in 1953 and […]