Two first-ever releases from 1965 Philips sessions of 18th-century music for the stage conducted by the supremely versatile Sir Charles Mackerras. Eighteenth-century music had been a passion for Charles Mackerras ever since childhood. ‘What I particularly like is the beautiful symmetry of it,’ he said in 1977, ‘and the extremely florid decoration which you find […]
Mercury, Philips and Decca recordings of orchestral pops conducted by the supremely versatile Sir Charles Mackerras, including a pair of Strauss overtures new to CD. Few conductors, if any, have demonstrated the sheer versatility of Charles Mackerras. He could turn his sharp ear and his unfussy baton technique to every corner of classical repertoire, and […]
Finzi – more master of the small-scale than the large-scale – had a fine ear for poetry and a great sensitivity in his verse settings. In 1978 and 1979, Richard Hickox made two LPs for Argo of (mainly) choral music by Gerald Finzi. Never issued in their entirety, they appear here complete on a 2CD […]
Delius wrote no more poignant a piece than ‘Sea Drift’ – a Walt Whitman setting of lost love as seen through the eyes of a little boy. His African-American-inspired ‘Appalachia’, a magnificent set of variations on a Slavic song is the other major work on this recording and two miniatures conducted by Marriner complete it. […]
Britten’s stately and clear-sighted readings of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos begin a program that continues with a group of rarities. Much requested and finally available on CD, is the complete 1953 Opening Concert of the Aldeburgh Festival in which Britten and Imogen Holst shared the conducting honours. In addition to the anthems (in which the soloists […]
Sir Adrian Boult made a selection of Decca recordings in the 1950s and 60s ranging from Baroque repertoire (Bach, Handel) to the music of the 20th century – most notably the first eight Vaughan Williams symphonies. Coupled together for the first time on CD are his two major Handel recordings for Decca – of the […]
Throughout much of the first half of the previous century, entertainer Harry Lauder was, in the words of Winston Churchill, ‘Scotland’s greatest ever ambassador!’ In the following years, Scotland’s next ‘greatest ever ambassador’ (if not Sean Connery!) must have been Kenneth McKellar, who was born in 1927, the son of a grocer, in the Scottish […]
While Kiri Te Kanawa was still preparing for that career-defining debut as the Countess, she made a first Mozart disc under Colin Davis: a collection of sacred music, including the Solemn Vespers, KV 339, with its serene setting of ‘Laudate Dominum’, and Exsultate, jubilate. The Countess became the singer’s calling-card, and she repeated the role […]
Throughout Britten’s public career as the leading opera and song composer of his age, there have appeared, from time to time, small-scale works composed for more intimate occasions – the wedding anniversary of friends, for instance, a BBC feature program, songs for children, a chorus for a prisoner-of-war choir and – for his own use […]
Dvořák naturally gave a great deal of attention to the genre of the oratorio and it was his work in this area that firmly established his reputation in the English-speaking world. Rossini very much admired Pergolesi’s fine setting of the Stabat Mater but had not felt equal to attempting his own. The decision to try […]
