By Alan Sanders From the early 1920s onwards, English-speaking purchasers of classical records will almost certainly have come across discs played by the ‘Berlin State Opera Orchestra’. This body was clearly a frequent visitor to the recording studios at the time, and it seemingly had no exclusive contract with any company, since it appeared on […]

On the occasion of her 80th birthday (17 January 2021), Dame Gillian Weir reflects on her working relationship with French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992), with illuminating insight and amusing anecdotes. Their special relationship is now celebrated in a new 22-CD Limited Edition Box Set on Eloquence, in which Messiaen’s work features on seven on […]

From the 1920s till the 1960s, composers of all stripes — particularly American composers — beat a path to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger.

Years ago, as a youthful Bartók acolyte, I learned the three piano concertos via Géza Anda’s marvellous DG recordings (with Ferenc Fricsay conducting) and the solo piano works from György Sándor’s near-complete series on Vox. Years later I acquired Andor Foldes’ DG mono set of the solo works (less comprehensive than Sándor’s but still representative) […]

Suzanne Danco’s recorded legacy is perhaps smaller than one might have wished, but we are nevertheless fortunate to be able to enjoy her rare talent in its many aspects, from the great soprano roles of Mozart to the delights of French song and opera.

Alan Sanders pens a portrait of Roger Désormière, one of France’s great hopes, whose career was cut short following a car crash in March 1953 which left him paralysed.

Waltzing all the way from Vienna to London. Peter Quantrill discusses a reissue of Josef Krips conducting music by the Strauss Family. A little over a quarter of a century after first raising a baton, Josef Krips made his London debut with a British orchestra in March 1948. He conducted the Philharmonia and Pierre Fournier […]

Founded in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic gave a notoriously dusty reception to Bruckner’s Third when they played through it in rehearsal in 1874 and refused to perform it in concert. Three years later the composer conducted them in the premiere of the symphony’s revised version; though the occasion was a fiasco, it earned Bruckner the lifelong admiration of Gustav Mahler, who was present as a student.

‘An extraordinary contralto’, in the words of her modern counterpart, Nathalie Stutzmann.

The fourth spouse of Ingmar Bergman, pianist Käbi Laretei worked with Hindemith on his “Ludus Tonalis”. R.J. Stove provides the background to the music and the recording for the first CD issue of this extremely rare Philips recording.

The tale of the Disney songstress. Born in 1931, Lucie Daullène seems to have made only two classical recordings, of which one was ‘Chants de la France’ with Joseph Canteloube, recorded in 1949–50.

Anita Cerquetti’s career was regrettably cut short in 1961; she withdrew temporarily, so she thought, for personal reasons but never returned to the scenes of her triumphs because the effort to regain her former eminence proved too great. She abandoned her career just when she had established herself alongside the slightly older Callas (Cerquetti’s idol) […]