A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, including several items making their first appearance on Decca CD. The soprano, Jennifer Vyvyan, was taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London by Roy Henderson, coach of Kathleen Ferrier. With Henderson’s help she formed a secure technique and quickly won acclaim for both operatic and oratorio […]

A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, making their first appearance on Decca CD. As a church musician in Salzburg, the young Mozart was required to turn out a regular diet of masses and settings of the Vespers and Litanies. Sung at afternoon services on feast days, the Litany was a favourite form of Catholic […]

A pioneering L’Oiseau-Lyre recording is reissued for the first time on Decca CD. Made during February 1957 in the West Hampstead studios of Decca, this was the first-ever complete recording of ‘The Fairy Queen’. Suites and individual dances from Purcell’s masque had been played and recorded by chamber and even symphonic ensembles and songs such […]

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 […]