A quarter-century of postwar Bayreuth recordings, made live at the Festspielhaus by Decca, DG and Philips: this is an absorbing history in sound of Wagner interpretation featuring several albums of timeless authority. This survey of Wagner’s mature operas, excluding the Ring, takes the listener from Parsifal in 1951 under Hans Knappertsbusch, through to Die Meistersinger […]
A violinist-conductor who understood orchestras from the inside out: commanding power and Viennese warmth in the complete Decca symphonic recordings of Walter Weller. As the youngest ever leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, Walter Weller quickly established a natural rapport with orchestras at home and abroad when he swapped bow for baton in the late 1960s. […]
This box brings together a collection of Decca recordings displaying the dynamism of Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, including material previously unreleased on CD. In the generation after Ataúlfo Argenta, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos became the most prominent Spanish conductor, both at home and abroad. Just 25 when he was appointed Music Director of […]
Volume 2 of Antal Doráti’s London recordings for Mercury covers sessions between June 1960 (Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony) and August 1966 (Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suites). By way of a bonus, the set concludes with a rarity issued on Philips and scarcely seen since, an album of neoclassical works by Julian Orbón (Cantigas del Rey, sung by Heather […]
Covering recordings from July 1956 to July 1961, here are early stereo spectaculars on Mercury, under the inspired baton of Antal Doráti: classic albums of Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and many more in a new ‘Original Jackets’ Limited Edition. Eloquence has been making a systematic and critically acclaimed survey of the Mercury legacy of recordings made […]
Driving intensity, rhythmic flair and demonstration-quality sound are brought to the fore in a new anthology of Antal Doráti’s early recordings with the Philharmonia Hungarica on Mercury and Philips. Founded in 1956, the Philharmonia Hungarica emerged from turbulent post-war times as a crack ensemble of émigré Hungarian musicians who had fled Communism for the West. […]
Vienna, old and new, meet on this journey from Mozart to Schoenberg and then on to Berg, Weill, Gerhard and Ligeti with David Atherton and the London Sinfonietta. Central to this anthology is the pioneering set of music by Schoenberg recorded in 1973–74 critically acclaimed for its ‘big line and attention to detail (Stereo Review) […]
A new-world virtuoso with old-world musicianship: the complete Decca recordings of JOSHUA BELL, capturing the first decade of the violinist’s career on record. Decca signed the nineteen-year-old Joshua Bell in 1986 on the basis of privately made concerto tapes. Bell had first picked up a violin at the age of four, but he had been […]
“We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart” said Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague IRMGARD SEEFRIED. Collected here are Seefried’s complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her […]
For his debut recording, on the prestigious Decca Australia label, Australian pianist Calvin Abdiel presents three technically complex piano works by three exemplary Romantic composers. All works are based on the theme/variation form. For Schumann’s fiendishly challenging Etudes symphoniques, Calvin adds his own interpolated sequence of the posthumous variations. The equally demanding Liszt showpiece based […]
Michael Tilson Thomas’s complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (1970–2003) and Argo (1992–1995) encapsulate the conductor’s restlessly exploratory nature and masterful handling of the modern orchestra. The recordings in this collection demonstrate his superb ear for complex rhythms and textures, an orchestral builder, as well as an inspired interpreter of the widest imaginable range of music. […]
A meeting of minds in Amsterdam: the complete Philips recordings of Sir Colin Davis and the Concertgebouworkest made in the orchestra’s acoustically optimal home and featuring classic accounts of Haydn, Berlioz, Dvořák and Stravinsky. Davis lends these readings rhythmic impetus and unassuming authority; the orchestra and audio engineers respond with sonic warmth and transparency. LIMITED […]
