Here, for the first time on CD, are Boris Belkin’s sizzling accounts of the two Prokofiev Concertos. Kirill Kondrashin was meant to conduct them both but his untimely death meant that Rudolf Barshai had to step onto the podium to conduct the Second. As a coupling you have a veritable Hi-Fi Spectacular – few recordings […]

A collection of music for strings, including the first complete appearance of a rare LP by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Rudolf Barshai of music by Bartók (one of the most invigorating “Divertimento” recordings ever made). Vivaldi is coupled with a selection of gleaming ‘Visions Fugitives’ (arranged by Barshai from Prokofiev’s piano pieces) and the […]

This and the other two 2CD sets – 4800834 and 4800837 – represent all of Ansermet’s Prokofiev recordings for Decca (with the exception of a mono recording of the March & Scherzo from The Love for Three Oranges – the stereo version appears here).

An undisputed masterpiece of the Russian repertoire – Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet – is joined by the little known Prokofiev Quintet which had a vexed gestation together with a rarity from the Hungarian-born Matyas Seiber who lived most of his life in Britain. In it, Peter Pears takes the role of narrator of passages from the […]

Ruggiero Ricci has enjoyed a varied and colourful discography on Decca and these recordings, are, apart from Prokofiev’s Second Violin Sonata, all comprised of music for solo violin. The Bach pieces date from the 1957 London sessions and the 20th-century pieces were recorded three years later at Victoria Hall in Geneva. Tully Potter’s perceptive liner […]

This and the other two 2CD sets – 4800830 and 4800837 – represent all of Ansermet’s Prokofiev recordings for Decca (with the exception of a mono recording of the March and Scherzo from The Love for Three Oranges). Both the Paris Conservatoire and the Suisse Romande versions of the ‘Classical’ Symphony are included.

This and the other two 2CD sets represent all of Ansermet’s Prokofiev recordings for Decca (with the exception of a mono recording of the March and Scherzo from ‘The Love for Three Oranges’ – the stereo version appears here). Both, the Paris Conservatoire and the Suisse Romande versions of the ‘Classical’ Symphony are included and Ruggiero […]

Elisabeth Söderström was a born storyteller. She told stories not just in music, but also peppered her recitals on stage with tales and anecdotes. It made her a perfect interpreter for the collection of children’s songs by Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Gretchaninov that she recorded with Vladimir Ashkenazy in 1977–78 and which appear on CD2 of […]

Born in 1888, the Russian soprano, Oda Slobodskaya, won a scholarship for secondary education but, having completed her schooling, to her displeasure, found herself working with her parents in a second hand clothes shop. Despite having no formal musical training, she travelled, at the age of eighteen, from her hometown of Vilno (then part of […]

As one of the leading interpreters of Russian music, and Benjamin Britten’s soprano for some of his works, including the mighty War Requiem, it may come as a surprise to some that Galina Vishnevskaya began her professional career in 1944, singing, of all things, Viennese operettas (in Russian translation!) in the chorus of a travelling […]

Given Russia’s richness in superstar pianists, it is not surprising that Russian composers have composed extensively for the piano. Some of the composers represented in this collection were impressive pianists in their own right and they composed music designed to display their own technique and artistry. Others were more modestly gifted as performers but still […]

Composers have always relied on piano transcriptions as a means of bringing selected extracts from large-scale dramatic works to the attention of a wider audience than would otherwise be possible and Prokofiev was no exception. Although he craved success as a composer of the stage and published a total of seventeen operas and ballets, he […]