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 […]

There is a celebrated letter from the year 1810 in which Bettina Brentano enthuses to the poet Goethe about a recent meeting with Beethoven. ‘When I open my eyes’, Beethoven had announced to her, ‘I must sigh … I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all […]

The classic recording of the nine Beethoven Symphonies – Karajan’s 1960s effort – returns to the catalogue now on Eloquence at super-budget price.

A relaxed and eloquent ‘Spring Sonata’ contrasts with a lean and athletic performance of the ‘Kreutzer’ from two expert Beethovenians. In between comes the Op. 12 No. 2 – a sonata that greatly puzzled its audience at the time of its composition.

Lorin Maazel’s early DG and Decca recordings were landmarks and this disc offers what is unquestionably two of the finest performances of these two symphonies. The Fifth has really thunderbolt impact and the Berlin strings and winds in the ‘Pastoral’ sing gloriously

Blazing and saturated sound – of the aptly-described ‘gold brick’ variety – characterises these celebrated performances of eight of Beethoven’s best-loved Overtures. All the favourites are there and the recordings have been stunningly remastered for this release.

A thrilling ‘Emperor’ from Lupu and Mehta is coupled with some solo piano rarities. Both the two Rondos and the two Sonatas included here are among Beethoven’s simpler pieces for piano and, while ever charming, they are constantly played by piano students and on regular piano exam syllabuses.

Spanish pianist, Alicia de Larrocha’s first recording of Beethoven’s Emperor is a grand and thrilling affair and here receives its first release on CD. The pairing is Beethoven’s own arrangement of his Violin Concerto, for piano and orchestra and it is played with tremendous elan and style by Olli Mustonen. Note the first movement cadenza, […]

For their 1989 festival, the committee of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir invited Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to join the Choir and the Utah Symphony Orchestra under maestro Julius Rudel. The choice of repertoire remained open and Dame Kiri selected a highly appropriate program of inspirational works that she could share with the choir and its […]

It is customary – although also somewhat arbitrary – to divide Beethoven’s career into early, middle and late periods. Be that as it may, his only completed violin concerto comes from the middle period. (Beethoven had attempted a violin concerto in 1790 but only 259 bars of it survive.) He began writing it in late […]

A thrilling collection of Overtures and Preludes (with some popular orchestral pieces thrown in for good measure) from Zubin Mehta. As a showman of the best variety, his recordings remain one of the Decca catalogue’s richest legacies with more than half of this collection released on CD for the first time.

Herbert von Karajan turns his attention to the swaggering pomp of favourite marches by the ‘other’ Strauss family and many others in this good natured and emblazoned romp.