Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And in the fourth volume, Music of the Night, there’s the ‘Barcarolle’ from Offenbach’s ‘Tales of Hoffmann’, slow movements from String Serenades by Mozart, Dvorak and Suk and of course, Chopin’s night music, celebrated by his popular D flat major Nocturne, Op. 27 No. 2.
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 […]
The first-ever coupling of these two quintessential French symphonies. D’Indy’s atmospheric ‘Symphonie sur un chant montagnard Français’ is something of a Lisztian pastoral symphonic essay with a glorious obbligato part for solo piano, here performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Weller and the LPO then deliver a sumptuous performance of the little-known Dukas Symphony, a work just […]
This has to be one of the most amazing recordings of Rossini Overtures ever made. The polish and scintillation of the orchestral playing practically outclasses any other recording and the sense of fun is infectious! Try track 1 and you’ll be sold!
Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony bring a fantastic array of colour as well as subtlety to these marvellous Rhapsodies. With an array of countries represented – the Rhapsodies largely paying tribute to indigenous music – the cover illustration highlights these associations.
With technique to burn but poetry at the fore, Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s recordings of the two Liszt concertos have always held a special affection in many a music-lover’s heart. They are reissued as per the original CD couplings – with the demonic ‘Totentanz’ and the multi-coloured ‘Hungarian Fantasy’.
This well-filled 2CD set – nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes long – presents Bartók’s major concertos (the Viola Concerto appears on another Eloquence CD). The three Piano Concertos appear in muscular and sumptuously recorded performances (one of the finest examples of Decca’s 1970s engineering at the venerated Kingsway Hall) by Pascal Rogé and Walter […]
A favourite ballet all round the year, but a perennial at Christmas-time, Tchaikovsky’s evergreen Nutcracker has never perhaps received as luxurious a recorded performance as that of Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. The coupling – Aurora’s Dream – is a suite of dances, mostly from the last act of The Sleeping Beauty, […]
2014 marked the centenary of the birth of the colossal Cuban-born pianist, Jorge Bolet. Signed to Decca later in life, he made a series of magnificent Liszt recordings, but also recorded music by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms and Rachmaninov. One of Bolet’s own teachers, Josef Hofmann, was the dedicatee of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, a work […]
Most parents will assert that siblings do not always play well together but classical music gives many examples to the contrary. Although violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, was the most famous member of his family, he performed and made several recordings with his sisters, Hephzibah and Yaltah both pianists. (Pianist Marcel Ciampi who taught both sisters, remarked […]
