The works on this collection are drawn from two of the very first stereo LPs released by L’Oiseau-Lyre, the sub-label of Decca. ‘Music of Handel’ was a 1958 album containing arias (recently reissued by Eloquence 482 4759) and this instrumental suite from ‘Rodrigo’, one of the composer’s early pre-London Italian operas, performed in Florence in […]

An iconic record, this collection of two well-known (Debussy, Ravel) and two rarities (Roussel, Ropartz) of the chamber music repertoire was issued in both its LP and CD incarnations to great acclaim. It was recorded in the unusually spacious acoustic of Walthamstow Assembly Hall and its late producer, Ray Minshull, provides an amusing recollection of […]

Continuing its exploration of Britten rarities,this Decca Eloquence release features Peter Pears as both tenor as well as director (of the Wilbye Consort) and the much-loved harpist Osian Ellis. While the Pears/Britten recording of Britten’s folk song arrangements is well known, the recording with Pears and Ellis is a decided rarity. Using this as a […]

An inspired arrangement between Decca and Imogen Holst, led to a series of pioneering recordings of her father Gustav Holst’s music, which appeared on Argo and are now comprehensively released on CD as part of the Eloquence series. This collection highlights Holst’s fascination with mysticism and the Orient, with the inclusion of the Rig-Veda Hymns […]

‘Wales is rich in folk songs and the art of singing these songs is very much alive today,’ writes Osian Ellis in the original note (reprinted in the CD booklet) accompanying this L’Oiseau-Lyre LP. Renowned for his harpistry and to many through his recordings of music by Benjamin Britten (with whom he worked closely), this […]