A new collection of Decca’s legendary ‘ffrr’ recordings from the early 1950s, made by an underrated Spanish master of orchestral colour in London and Paris. Includes several items new to CD. Enrique Jordá described conducting as a ‘hair-raising’ business, and his career never recovered from a very public dressing-down by George Szell while music director […]
Complete on CD for the first time, the Deutsche Grammophon legacy of cult violinist Johanna Martzy, and of violist Michael Mann. Five original DG albums complete on two CDs. The brilliant tone and discriminating taste of the recordings made by Johanna Martzy (1924-79) mark her out among the finest violinists of her generation. Her EMI […]
A tribute to the late Ida Haendel, comprising her complete Decca Recordings (1940–1997), newly remastered, as well as her performances at the 1982 Huberman Festival. Lavishly illustrated, Original Jackets, Limited Edition. On her death in July 2020, obituaries worldwide paid glowing tributes to the effervescence of the violinist Ida Haendel, in both her playing and […]
A newly remastered, richly documented set celebrating the art of a Spanish Beethoven specialist recorded at the peak of his powers in the late 1950s. Born in Zaragoza in 1905, Eduardo del Pueyo left Spain in 1920 to enter the Paris Conservatoire but rejected the teaching of Marguerite Long outright. In thrall to Beethoven’s genius […]
A generous compilation of short pieces either recorded individually or extracted from the Decca discography of Ernest Ansermet. Included is a complete ten-inch LP of encores entitled ‘Orchestral Favourites’ and containing pieces by Falla, Chabrier, Mussorgsky and Debussy. This dates from October 1955, near the beginning of Decca’s stereo catalogue whereas the rest of the […]
A newly remastered collection of four original Decca albums featuring the Spanish mezzo-soprano at the height of her powers in the repertoire most associated with her, from Rossini to folk and popular songs from her native Spain. Born in 1935, Teresa Berganza was in her mid-twenties when she made the recordings on this album, yet […]
The ‘fresh, beautiful and critically underpraised’ voice (Gramophone) of Pilar Lorengar is celebrated here on an album of operatic arias, originally issued in 1980 by Decca as a portrait of the Spanish soprano who had entranced audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for three decades. ‘Our Pilar’as she was known affectionately at the Deutsche […]
As he explains in his liner notes for this CD, Lynn Harrell uses the voice as his point of departure for this collection of encores. They are largely reflective pieces with a bit of fun such as the unfairly forgotten Glazunov ‘Spanish Serenade’ thrown in for good measure. And this once popular disc now makes […]
The popularity of the guitar has never waned and the sun-drenched sound of Spanish guitar music is one of the instrument’s most popular incarnations. At the helm of performers of this style of guitar music is Narciso Yepes who recorded vast amounts of guitar music for Deutsche Gramophon. This collection brings together some of the […]
During the war, Falla wrote a pantomime ballet titled ‘El Corregidor y la Molinera’ (‘The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife’) based on a novella by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, was at the 1917 premiere. Liking what he saw, Diaghilev imagined that the ballet, with modifications, would be perfect […]
To the delightfully muddled ‘Marriage of Figaro’-like plot of ‘El amor brujo’, Ansermet brings an earthy sensuality and piquant wit. Ansermet recorded ‘El sombrero del tres picos’ twice and while the later recording with Teresa Berganza has rarely been out of the catalogue, this earlier mono, 1952 recording with Suzanne Danco is rare and much sought-after, not […]
The recorded legacy of Albert Wolff is one of the most sought-after by collectors. Of Dutch parentage, but born in Paris, Wolff was something of a polymath: pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and had a long career in recording studios beginning in 1920. His first recordings for Decca, starting in the summer of 1951, were a […]
