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 […]

The stunning ‘Covent Garden Anniversary Album’ released complete for the first time on CD, coupled with Solti’s firecracker accounts of Overtures and Preludes. Soloists include a range of 1960s Covent Garden stalwarts, – Carlyle, Sutherland, Veasey, Minton, Shuard, Collier, Gobbi, Evans, Pears and Ward; and conductors – Downes, Bonynge, Walton and Goodall. Nearly 160 minutes […]

All of the few Britten recordings made by Eugene Goosse in 1953, have now been released on Decca Eloquence. Remodelled on themes he wrote as a boy, the ‘Simple Symphony’s’ undeniable charm and charisma have ensured it a constant place in repertoire enjoyed not only by children but by adults too. Much the same goes […]

This recording forms part of a series of reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps the ensemble projected a rather cosy, cuddly image on its tours abroad. More often than not, the […]

On 24 June 1936, Peter Pears joined his BBC Singers colleague, contralto Anne Wood, at Decca’s studio in Upper Thames Street in the City of London to make his very first commercial recording, of Peter Warlock’s setting of the Corpus Christi carol for unaccompanied voices. The year marked a turning-point for Pears: he met Benjamin […]

This collection brings together rarities and surprises from the Decca/Argo Britten discography, a collection notable as much for the infrequency with which much of this music is performed as it is for the fact that many of these are world-premiere recordings of Britten’s music. The source material itself is extremely rare and virtually every recording […]

Throughout Britten’s public career as the leading opera and song composer of his age, there have appeared, from time to time, small-scale works composed for more intimate occasions – the wedding anniversary of friends, for instance, a BBC feature program, songs for children, a chorus for a prisoner-of-war choir and – for his own use […]