Posts tagged as "pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky"

Tchaikovsky; Stravinsky; Berg: Violin Concertos

April 22, 2016

Arthur Grumiaux was a prince among violinists and recorded extensively for Philips/Decca. Many of his recordings – some of them released internationally for the first time on CD – have appeared on an extensive series on the Eloquence label. Here is another – a rare 1956 performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto coupled with his highly-praised […]

Dvorak: Cello Concerto; Janacek: Sinfonietta; Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet

April 22, 2016

Legendary cellist, Pierre Fournier’s stereo recording of the Dvořák Cello Concerto is well known but his earlier recording from July 1954 for Decca is largely forgotten. It’s revived in this Kubelik-led anthology also bringing back to the catalogue the conductor’s mono version of the Janáček Sinfonietta and his electrifying account of Tchaikovsky’s love poem ‘Romeo […]

Elisabeth Söderström – The Russian Songbook

April 20, 2016

Elisabeth Söderström was a born storyteller. She told stories not just in music, but also peppered her recitals on stage with tales and anecdotes. It made her a perfect interpreter for the collection of children’s songs by Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Gretchaninov that she recorded with Vladimir Ashkenazy in 1977–78 and which appear on CD2 of […]

The Art of Oda Slobodskaya

April 20, 2016

Born in 1888, the Russian soprano, Oda Slobodskaya, won a scholarship for secondary education but, having completed her schooling, to her displeasure, found herself working with her parents in a second hand clothes shop. Despite having no formal musical training, she travelled, at the age of eighteen, from her hometown of Vilno (then part of […]

Vishnevskaya sings Russian Songs

April 19, 2016

As one of the leading interpreters of Russian music, and Benjamin Britten’s soprano for some of his works, including the mighty War Requiem, it may come as a surprise to some that Galina Vishnevskaya began her professional career in 1944, singing, of all things, Viennese operettas (in Russian translation!) in the chorus of a travelling […]

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien; Francesca da Rimini; Romeo and Juliet; The Nutcracker

April 19, 2016

Four of Tchaikovsky’s most popular orchestral works make their appearances here in historic Decca and Philips recordings appearing internationally on CD for the first time. Most travellers to Italy content themselves with writing postcards. Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, wrote a popular symphonic work. His Capriccio italien was inspired by impressions made upon the composer […]

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture; Capriccio italien; Marche slave; Swan Lake

April 19, 2016

By 1958, Decca had been recording in stereo for four years, regularly sending out two production teams, one to make the stereo master, the other the mono master. Each team of producer and engineer worked independently of the other to produce the optimum sound for their system. In 1958, to launch their new stereo series […]

Russian Piano Encores

April 18, 2016

Given Russia’s richness in superstar pianists, it is not surprising that Russian composers have composed extensively for the piano. Some of the composers represented in this collection were impressive pianists in their own right and they composed music designed to display their own technique and artistry. Others were more modestly gifted as performers but still […]

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker; Aurora’s Wedding

April 18, 2016

A favourite ballet all round the year, but a perennial at Christmas-time, Tchaikovsky’s evergreen Nutcracker has never perhaps received as luxurious a recorded performance as that of Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. The coupling – Aurora’s Dream – is a suite of dances, mostly from the last act of The Sleeping Beauty, […]

Sleigh Ride

April 18, 2016

Arthur Fiedler took great pride in bringing classical music to the world at large. While Leonard Bernstein was busy with his Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, Fiedler and his Boston Pops Orchestra (most of the members drawn from the Boston Symphony) gave concerts of popular classics that became a fixture on America’s […]

Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Shostakovich: String Quartets

March 15, 2016

Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet, Borodin’s Second and Shostakovich’s Eighth are three of the finest quartets in the Russian repertory. They reveal that Russian composers were hardly less at home in the relatively private medium of the string quartet than when writing for the more spectacular full symphony orchestra. Both the Tchaikovsky and the Borodin have received […]

The Art of the Prima Ballerina

March 15, 2016

While Richard Bonynge has long been associated with opera, particularly with that of the Bel Canto age, he has been one of the most active revivers and conductors of ballet in the 20th and 21st centuries. His recordings of the major Romantic classical ballet scores have been critically acclaimed but he has also been responsible for making […]