Among the final albums made by the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt was a history in sound of Viennese dance, the waltzes and polkas that made contemporary millionaires of the Strauss dynasty and have since travelled the world not least thanks to the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert. The leader of those concerts for 25 years, […]
Is nothing sacred? The Cambridge Buskers bring their madcap humour to the greats of classical music – everything from the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and the ‘1812 Overture’ to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ and the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’! And not forgetting Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies in under four minutes… This 4CD set brings together the pair’s most famous albums, released […]
Erich Kleiber was one of Georg Solti’s idols and it was a Kleiber performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony that transformed his life and was the catalyst in his decision to become a conductor – a decision he made at the age of fourteen. The Schubert recording comes from one of only two recording sessions with […]
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 […]
Schubert’s sacred works rarely get an outing and these benedictory performances of two of his best-loved masses are here given refined and affectionate performances in echt-Viennese idiom by the superb Vienna Boys’ Choir.
Warm and relaxed readings of two of Schubert’s best loved symphonies, this recording is completed with two of his most songful Overtures.
Hans Hotter (1909–2003) was 64 when he recorded two recital LPs for Decca, here coupled as a 2CD set. One of the rare singers to achieve equal eminence in Wagner and in Lieder, the singer’s voluminous bass-baritone, at once majestic and profoundly human, was in its autumn. Yet, the sense of detail, of characterisation, he […]
Exhuming two glorious chamber music recordings. Jorg Demus is pianist in this joyous, sunny recording of Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet and the Suk Trio’s only recording of the Dvorak ‘Dumky’ Trio, much sought after by collectors, finally makes an appearance on CD.
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.
The incomparable strings of the Vienna Philharmonic and the airborne singing of the Vienna State Opera Chorus are just two highlights of this memorable recording of Schubert’s Incidental Music for ‘Rosamunde’. It is here released for the first time on CD.
This collection brings together all of Alicia de Larrocha’s Schubert recordings for Decca on a single disc with her 1978 account of the A major Sonata, D.664 released internationally on CD for the first time. Opening with one of the most sheerly perfect melodies which Larrocha plays with the utmost elegance, the major work on […]
The first CD release of a recording that was a legend in its lifetime. Campoli was, besides his many concert-platform accomplishments, a salon violinist of the first rank and naturally this easy ability to switch between the two domains gave him the edge over many other violinists of his day in this charming repertoire. When […]
