Newly remastered, and new to CD, the dramatically charged Dvořák recordings made by Hans-Schmidt-Isserstedt for Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, coupled with the composer’s (and Brahms) folkloric dances. Eloquence pays tribute to the self-effacing art of Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973) combining three LPs onto a 2-CD set – all recorded during his postwar reinvention as a symphonic […]
The early recordings of a keyboard lioness, long unavailable and new to CD. Not generally given to extravagant effusions, William Glock (Controller of Radio 3 and the BBC Proms in the 1970s) had no doubt: ‘There is no one who plays the piano better in the world than she does. There is no one with […]
Kurt Masur’s burnished readings of Brahms’s orchestral music with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, issued as a Limited Edition box with Original Jackets. Hardly less than with its founder, Felix Mendelssohn, the Leipzig Gewandhaus grew up with Brahms conducting and playing. For a sense of heritage, the orchestra boasts a Brahms tradition second to none. In […]
Presented on CD for the first time and newly remastered, a pair of Romantic Lieder recitals by the Welsh contralto who inherited the mantle of Kathleen Ferrier. The history of British contraltos on record, stretches back to Constance Shacklock and before her Dame Clara Butt but it was Ferrier who defined the sound of that […]
Following his still-little-known first account with Enrique Jorda on the podium and made nine years before his celebrated partnership with George Szell and the LSO, this is Clifford Curzon’s second recording for Decca of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, a work which defined his reputation in the 1950s and early 60s as an imperious yet deeply […]
Eduard van Beinum made three recordings of Brahms’s First Symphony, all with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of which he had become principal conductor after World War II. This newly remastered Eloquence album presents his second thoughts on the symphony, as it were, from September 1951. Cut from the same cloth as his Beethoven symphonies, Van Beinum’s […]
A newly remastered collection of Decca and Philips recordings made by under-rated Dutch conductor in Austro-German classics, Eduard van Beinum, including a little-known account of Beethoven’s ‘Prometheus’ Overture. The ballet music which Beethoven wrote to complement his overture was as little-heard in 1952 as it is now. Eduard van Beinum recorded eight numbers from the complete […]
One of the most significant violinists in gramophone history, Alfredo Campoli enjoyed tremendous success in the 1930s as a purveyor of light music both in concerts with his own salon orchestra and on Decca. A series of six, 2CD reissues from Eloquence focuses on the violinist’s postwar reinvention of himself as ‘Campoli’, the classical soloist. […]
‘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 […]
Music from five original Argo albums, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time in a 2CD set, with new booklet notes on the music and a tribute to Simon Preston. During the 1960s, it often seemed as if a new Simon Preston organ LP appeared every few months: so much in demand was […]
Even while creating a sensation across the US with concerts in Chicago, Cleveland, New York and further afield, Rafael Kubelík recorded the four symphonies of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic for Decca (in stereo) in the 1950s. Long unavailable, they are here presented together for the first time on CD, in an economical 2CD package, […]
Founded in 1937, the annual Queen Elisabeth Competition for violin and piano is still the best-known such event organised in Belgium and is considered among the best and most demanding in the world. Following in the footsteps of his fellow countryman, Emil Gilels who won first prize for piano in 1938, Mikhail Faerman stunned both […]
