Compiled from several Decca recordings made between 1964 and 1988, this portrait of Auber was created at Richard Bonynge’s specific request and supervised by him. Most substantial of these recordings is the ballet version which Auber made from his opera ‘Marco Spada’: 65 minutes of scintillating dance music, in the adaptation made by Richard Bonynge […]

The Eloquence label has restored to modern circulation many recordings of the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet but few of them have been as overlooked as this pair of concertos which are now released internationally for the first time on CD, in new digital remasterings. French music found Ansermet in his element and he was a […]

The ‘fresh, beautiful and critically underpraised’ voice (Gramophone) of Pilar Lorengar is celebrated here on an album of operatic arias, originally issued in 1980 by Decca as a portrait of the Spanish soprano who had entranced audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for three decades. ‘Our Pilar’as she was known affectionately at the Deutsche […]

During the golden age of the LP, Horst Stein was among a select band of central-European conductors (Vaclav Neumann and Otmar Suitner are another two notable examples) revered by Japanese orchestras and audiences, perhaps more than their Western counterparts. They had an uncomplicated mastery of the repertoire that shunned interpretative eccentricity and plugged listeners into […]

Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the seventh volume is a collection of music inspired by the countryside. This album takes a tour of many and varied landscapes beginning with the English countryside as seen through the eyes of Vaughan Williams, coupled with the Vienna Woods, in Johann Strauss II’s popular waltz, France’s […]

This, Ansermet’s only Wagner recording for Decca, was made in November 1963. He paces the ‘Meistersinger’ Prelude implacably and his Wagner interpretations have plenty of fire as well as richness and gravitas. Much requested for reissue, this recording finally makes its appearance on CD in the international arena.

Although they have been intermittently available, Walter Weller’s cycle of the three Rachmaninov Symphonies have hidden their blazing light under the Decca bushel for far too long. Recorded in absolutely thrilling Decca sound with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (No. 1) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Nos. 2 and 3), these three masterpieces are now […]

While it remains a pity that Ansermet didn’t venture further into the bleaker landscapes of Sibelius, less may well be more, and these epic recordings of the Second and Fourth symphonies, together with a raw reading of Tapiola are collected together on CD for the first time. The mood of desolation continues with the Paris […]

While Ansermet’s stereo Suisse Romande recording of ‘Scheherazade’ is well-known and has been frequently reissued, his early (1954) Paris Conservatoire Orchestra recording of this piece is a relative rarity and here receives its first CD outing on Decca. It has, perhaps, that extra bit of fantasy over his later recording of the work and was […]

Fantasy and folklore are the subject of this 2CD collection of orchestral pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov recorded between 1953 and 1963 by the Suisse Romande Orchestra and Ernest Ansermet. We encounter Antar, disillusioned son of a slave who rises to become a Bedouin chief and dies in the arms of a fairy queen. We meet a […]

Recorded between October 1951 and June 1953, these mono recordings have been much prized and sought-after by collectors and now reappear on CD at super-budget price. Ravel and Ansermet were well acquainted and that adds a special authenticity to these sublime readings, presenting the majority of Ravel’s orchestral music (Bolero and La Valse appear on […]

This release brings together Ansermet’s complete Ravel concerto/concertante recordings with the first international release on CD of Swiss pianist Jacqueline Blancard’s aristocratic readings of the two Piano Concertos and Ruggiero Ricci’s dare-devilry in the Tzigane.