One of Radu Lupu’s earliest Decca recordings, this couples two of Beethoven’s most dramatic C minor works. The performance with Lawrence Foster receives its first CD release while the C minor Variations have, time and again, been recognised as classic recordings.

Beethoven’s earliest piano concerto (although the second to be published) is here coupled with the first CD release of Mehta’s ‘Creatures of Prometheus’. And what a performance it is, full of fire and delicacy.

Some of the most poetic readings of these concertos.  Lupu and Mehta bring freshness and vitality to No. 1 while No. 4 receives one of its most lucid readings on record with its famous opening, phrased with perhaps unequalled beauty.

From Decca’s rich catalogue of piano music comes a generous selection of miniatures for piano, many of them quiet, all of them popular and much sought-after, in the finest of performances, of course.

Peerless performances – both, deeply moving and fleet of finger – of three of Beethoven’s most popular piano sonatas. Radu Lupu, the ultimate poet among pianists, is a musician’s musician. His concerts are attended by capacity audiences who never cease to be amazed by the magic of his interpretations and his all-too-few recordings are gems. […]

Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the first volume, Music for Relaxation, offers a miscellany of classical pieces from piano (the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata) to orchestral music by Grieg, Elgar and Borodin.

A thrilling ‘Emperor’ from Lupu and Mehta is coupled with some solo piano rarities. Both the two Rondos and the two Sonatas included here are among Beethoven’s simpler pieces for piano and, while ever charming, they are constantly played by piano students and on regular piano exam syllabuses.