Peter Quantrill provides a fascinating glimpse into the history surrounding rare Hungarian recordings released on a limited Deutsche Grammophon edition. It was no easy task for major commercial labels to record musicians from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. A label such as Deutsche Grammophon could take one of three options. They […]
In the early hours of 21 January 1958, the conductor Ataúlfo Argenta turned the key in the ignition of his Austin A90 Six Westminster. His wife and five children were asleep at home while he was warming up with his lover at the time in her freezing garage. The carbon monoxide fumes overcame them, and […]
A century and a half after his birth in Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg has been quietly relegated to the darkest corner of the gallery holding portraits of classical music’s most consequential figures. His countenance – self-painted, unlike the others, because Schoenberg could wield a paintbrush with style and determination, the way he did everything else – […]
IRMGARD SEEFRIED IN HER OWN WORDS (English & German) I come from a tiny village that has not changed to this day, which is special, I think. I go there almost every year to check the thread back to my past, which I call ‘my red thread’. This village has a schoolhouse and a crooked […]
Campoli’s 78rpm Recordings The first seven CDs of this set contain all the extant studio recordings made by Alfredo Campoli for Decca from his first sessions for the label in 1931 through his last made for release on 78rpm discs in 1949, except for the non-Classical sides he made as leader and soloist with his […]
Words by Niek Nelissen (Translation: Margaret Koford) As a recording artist, the Viennese conductor Josef Krips (1902–1974) lived through the most significant technological developments in the music industry. His first recordings were released on 78rpm records, which could only hold about four minutes of music per side. From 1950 onwards music was recorded on tape […]
Reviewing and remembering our recording series for Philips with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra has been joyous for me. Many thoughts and memories flood my mind and listening to them once again fills me with pride. Pride to have been given the opportunity to create a brand new orchestra; pride to work with a great recording […]
“Schmidt-Isserstedt is the man for the job. His reading is strong, spacious and noble, and the symphony emerges at its full tragic stature. The playing and recording are in every way worthy of him.” The Times, August 1953 (Dvořák: Symphony No. 7) “This well-engineered recording deserves repeated hearing.” The Times, March 1959 (Beethoven: Piano Concerto […]
Antal Doráti – The Mercury Masters – The Mono Recordings “The lively Mendelssohn symphony finds conductor and orchestra in superlative form. Their performance of this difficult work is amply virtuosic, yet very sensitively phrased.” High Fidelity, January 1953 (Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4) “Refreshingly brisk, straightforward and unmarred by any of the usual sentimentality … The […]
Elly Ameling in her own words Elly Ameling is a cultivated, gentle lady. Born on 8 February 1933, she was propelled to national stardom after winning the International Vocal Competition’s-Hertogenbosch in 1956. She sang under the young Bernard Haitink in 1958 and that same year won the prestigious Concours de Genève, opening doors to an […]
The once-mighty Franco-Belgian school of violin playing suffered something of a thin time in the post-war years. In Belgium, Alfred Dubois died in 1949, aged only 50, leaving his pupil Arthur Grumiaux on a lonely eminence. In France, air crashes claimed Ginette Neveu in 1949, aged 30, and Jacques Thibaud in 1953, aged 72. Fine […]
When Jörg Demus died in April 2019, aged 90, he was remembered by one Austrian obituarist as ‘the ballet-master of ten fingers’. Many pupils from his classes at his own alma mater of the Wiener Akademie paid affectionate tributes to a dry and lively man, equipped with a cynical, quick-witted, typically Viennese turn of mind, […]
