The so-called French Suites are actually no more French stylistically than either of Bach’s other sets of keyboard suites, the English Suites and the Partitas. They are a fascinating mixture of movements of differing national styles, primarily French and Italian, lacking an introductory movement such as a prelude and conceived for performers without the virtuoso […]
A first international CD issue for two contrasting albums of light-orchestral Mozart from Joseph Keilberth and Thurston Dart. The two albums reissued here exemplify the postwar revolution of Classical-era performance styles. Having begun to make records in 1938, the L’Oiseau-Lyre label worked in the vanguard of the period-performance movement, yet in 1951 the Bamberg Symphony […]
A feast of melancholia: three L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of early English chamber music from the dawn of the period-performance era, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time with much material new to CD. With this and several other albums issued in 2019, Eloquence celebrates the art of Thurston Dart, the harpsichordist, conductor and editor […]
Three L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of chamber music by Couperin, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time, including material new to CD. During the past half-century, Francois Couperin ‘the Great’ has indeed come to be regarded among the great European composers. Where once he was dismissed with faint praise as the confector of trifles to […]
Two L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of English brass music from the 17th and 18th centuries – The Royal Brass Music of King James I and English Baroque Trumpet Concertos – newly compiled and remastered and issued on CD for the first time. With this and several other albums issued in 2019, Eloquence celebrates the art of […]
Alfred Deller’s only complete recording of a Handel opera. First staged at the King’s Theatre in London in February 1732 and revived two years later, Sosarme was not heard again in full (if not entirely complete) until a BBC broadcast in January 1955, conducted by Anthony Lewis. Conductor and performers then made this recording a […]
Three L’Oiseau-Lyre LPs celebrating the art of a much-loved contralto, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time, including material new to CD. The history of British contraltos on record, extends beyond Kathleen Ferrier to Constance Shacklock and before her Dame Clara Butt but their select number was joined in the 1950s by Helen […]
The first commercial recording of Rameau’s first opera. Thanks to several Eloquence releases, the pioneering work of Anthony Lewis in the field of Baroque opera is now readily available: ‘The Fairy Queen’ (482 7449) of Purcell, Handel’s ‘Semele’ (482 5055) and a compilation albums of Handel arias (482 4759) were all critically acclaimed at the […]
A pioneering Handel recording of the 1950s in a new digital remastering, released on Decca CD for the first time. The scholar and conductor, Anthony Lewis, was one of the early luminaries of the L’Oiseau Lyre label which became, over time, the early-music imprint of Decca. Drawing on his experience of conducting and staging Baroque […]
‘In every way the most transcendentally gifted young piano student I have heard in the last 25 years’ was Percy Grainger’s pronouncement of the young Eileen Joyce (1908–1991) when he first heard her play in 1926. From the goldfields in Western Australia whose capital city is the most remote in the world, Joyce defied incongruous and […]
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 […]
These delightful Cantatas have very familiar tunes that Handel was later to reuse in other works, so many of them are instantly recognisable. They also elicit some of the most visceral singing imaginable from Helen Watts.
