A tribute to the late Ida Haendel, comprising her complete Decca Recordings (1940–1997), newly remastered, as well as her performances at the 1982 Huberman Festival. Lavishly illustrated, Original Jackets, Limited Edition. On her death in July 2020, obituaries worldwide paid glowing tributes to the effervescence of the violinist Ida Haendel, in both her playing and […]
One of the most significant violinists in gramophone history, Alfredo Campoli enjoyed tremendous success in the 1930s as a purveyor of light music both in concerts with his own salon orchestra and on Decca. A series of six, 2CD reissues from Eloquence focuses on the violinist’s postwar reinvention of himself as ‘Campoli’, the classical soloist. […]
One of the most significant violinists in gramophone history, Alfredo Campoli enjoyed tremendous success in the 1930s as a purveyor of light music, both in concerts with his own salon orchestra and on Decca. A series of six, 2CD reissues from Eloquence focuses on the violinist’s postwar reinvention of himself as ‘Campoli’, the classical soloist. […]
The first CD release of a recording that was a legend in its lifetime. Campoli was, besides his many concert-platform accomplishments, a salon violinist of the first rank and naturally this easy ability to switch between the two domains gave him the edge over many other violinists of his day in this charming repertoire. When […]
Miniatures for guitar from the Iberian peninsula, performed with style and panache by one of the guitar’s leading exponents, Pepe Romero.
In 1977, Decca released an LP entitled ‘Concertos from Spain’ which coupled two contemporary piano concertos – one by Montsalvatge (‘Concerto Breve’, written for Alicia de Larrocha) and the other, Surinach’s Piano Concerto. The Surinach recording – he was a kind of Spanish Khachaturian – has never before been released on CD. Taking advantage of the […]
The popularity of the guitar has never waned and the sun-drenched sound of Spanish guitar music is one of the instrument’s most popular incarnations. At the helm of performers of this style of guitar music is Narciso Yepes who recorded vast amounts of guitar music for Deutsche Gramophon. This collection brings together some of the […]
Composing and story-telling are not unrelated but Albéniz was as adept as any Scheherazade at both! For many, his masterpiece was ‘Iberia’, a set of piano pieces composed near the end of his life. It contains twelve ‘impressions’ (the composer’s word) of Spain and is organised into four books of three pieces each. Although they […]
These unique recordings make their first appearance on CD. Some make their first ever appearance on Decca! Jean Morel (1903–75) counted among his teachers Isidore Philipp, Gabriel Pierné and Reynaldo Hahn. He established a connection with the United States early on, teaching at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleu between 1921 (when he was just eighteen!) […]
Two ‘Phase 4’ recordings reappear in their entirety on this double-CD of violin bon-bons. Josef Sakonov’s is of virtuoso violin pieces (including Sarasate’s ‘Zigeunerweisen’) and sentimental miniatures by Godard, Tchaikovsky, Ponce and others. This is the first international release of the complete original LP on CD. Erich Gruenberg’s recording centres around Fritz Kreisler – as […]
Both the Albéniz works on this recording began life as piano pieces – the Suite española for solo piano (here orchestrated by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos) and the Rapsodia española for two pianos, orchestrated by Cristobal Halffter. They are given immensely colourful performances here, in glorious ‘Decca Sound’, with Burgos’s 1967 recording of the Suite […]
Although she disliked being typecast as a Spanish music specialist, there’s no doubt that Alicia de Larrocha’s way with this music is in a class by itself. No matter what the repertoire for a recital she gave, regardless of whether it included Spanish music, she was often called upon by her audiences to provide at […]
