A collection of all of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies and ballet suites from the rich archives of Deutsche Grammophon. All the performances have been justifiably critically appraised. This volume includes First, Second and Fourth Symphonies, the latter two with Abbado, and the First in Michael Tilson Thomas’s suave, fairy-lights recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. ‘Michael Tilson […]

‘This is the one piece I would like to conduct when I am old,’ reads Claudio Abbado’s entry in his diary, aged eight. He was speaking of Debussy’s ‘Nocturnes’. He recorded it in 1970 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, at whose Tanglewood Festival in 1958 he had won the Koussevitzky Prize. It was around 1970 […]

This CD, originally issued on the newly-relaunched Argo label in the 1990s, now reappears on Australian Eloquence. As a demonstration disc of orchestral music, it is supreme. But it’s also interesting for its breadth of repertoire and its inclusion of many lesser-known orchestral works. For lovers of sultry, seductive and even angry Latin American music, […]

The Boston Symphony Chamber Players made a few critically-acclaimed recordings for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1970s, among them the Second Viennese School’s reworkings of Strauss waltzes. Drawn from players of the Boston Symphony, with Michael Tilson Thomas as pianist (here in the two string sonatas) the playing is febrile, alert and atmospheric. This collection brings […]