This collection includes all of Alicia de Larrocha’s analogue Bach solo recordings for Decca. Two suites and the ‘Italian Concerto’ form the backbone of this release but there are also three Bach transcriptions – two by Harriet Cohen and the mighty Chaconne by Busoni (the 1973 recording; Larrocha recorded it a second time in 1986). […]

These magnificent recordings of the Ravel Piano Concertos have taken a far too long leave of absence from the Decca catalogue and are now back, with generous Faure and Franck couplings. Beautifully recorded sound too.

The famous ‘Shine’ piano concerto – No. 3 – now appears at budget price in this very romantic performance from one of Decca’s star pianists, Alicia de Larrocha. The coupling is the no-less-difficult and wildly exciting Piano Concerto No. 1 from Peter Katin.

Spanish pianist, Alicia de Larrocha’s first recording of Beethoven’s Emperor is a grand and thrilling affair and here receives its first release on CD. The pairing is Beethoven’s own arrangement of his Violin Concerto, for piano and orchestra and it is played with tremendous elan and style by Olli Mustonen. Note the first movement cadenza, […]

Purists might squirm but purists should think again. As Raymond Tuttle says in his background notes to this unique release, ‘When purists complain about Bach played on the piano, they also need to be reminded that, as these five concertos were not written for the keyboard in the first place, one might argue that any […]

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 […]

Rachmaninov was so horrified by the disastrous 1897 premiere of his First Symphony that he became ‘a changed man,’ to use his own words. For two years after that fateful evening, he composed almost nothing, and occupied himself by conducting operas in Moscow and by concertising at home and abroad. The trauma caused Rachmaninov to […]

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 […]

Alicia de Larrocha made several LPs of Mozart’s solo piano music for Decca between 1973 and 1986. In a series of recordings on Decca Eloquence, reissued to celebrate her artistry, this 3CD set brings together, for the first time, all her solo Mozart – nine sonatas, the D major Rondo, and the D minor and […]

Although she never liked being pigeon-holed as a Spanish piano music specialist, Alicia de Larrocha was supreme in the music of her country. This CD brings together all of the solo piano recordings of music by Falla she made for Decca in 1973, together with her first (1970) of two recordings of Nights in the […]

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 […]

Larrocha in Mozart, whether the sonatas or concertos, has always attracted high praise. But even by her high standards, this particular coupling which made its first appearance in 1983, must be counted among her most successful concerto recordings. One distinguished reviewer wrote at the time that her captivating performance of the Piano Concerto in F […]