One of Kiri Te Kanawa’s rare recorded excursions into song repertoire, this consummate recital is once more restored to the Decca catalogue. Including such popular favourites as Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’ and Granados’ ‘La maja y el ruiseñor’, Obradors’ wonderful ‘Cinco canciones clasicas espanolas’ and a quartet of beautiful songs by Liszt.

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 […]

A real rarity of the ballet world, this marvellous score, ‘rediscovered’ by Sir Frederick Ashton, was one of Decca’s most glorious recordings of ballet music by that pioneer of this genre, Richard Bonynge.

Barry Tuckwell provides his own, insightful liner notes for this, his second recording of the Strauss Horn Concertos (the first being with Istvan Kertesz). What makes this a particularly sought-after release is the inclusion of the rarities and the fact that Tuckwell has gone back to the original manuscripts. The Final Scene from ‘Capriccio’ is […]

The high spirits of the opening movement of Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 77 No. 1 are totally infectious and the playing of the ‘original’ Takacs Quartet is without peer – with sweep and a vocalism so particular to their ensemble.

Recorded in the splendidly-lush acoustic of Winchester Cathedral, this popular Decca/Argo release is now restored to circulation at super-budget price with such popular favourites as Parry’s ‘I was glad’ and Elgar’s orchestration of ‘Jerusalem’. But there are also many other pieces for choir and orchestra here to be discovered.

The program on this CD is composed of various liturgical songs, arranged around four different themes within the Jewish year: the high festivals, the three main festivals, the Sabbath and Hanukah.

These 1970s recordings make their first appearance on CD in this compilation and are masterfully performed by the Beaux Arts Trio and Walter Trampler. Dvorak’s two piano quartets have lain in the shade of his glorious Op. 81 Piano Quintet but where this composer’s chamber music is concerned, beautiful surprises await the listener who steps […]

These vocal works are mostly late Haydn and the performances are based on texts derived from recent scholarship.  ‘Arianna a Naxos’ was written with keyboard accompaniment; Haydn intended to orchestrate it but never got around to it. This version is a collation of two anonymous orchestrations, plus ‘vocal embellishments and cadenzas’ presumably by H. C. Robbins […]

Quintessential mezzo-soprano, Marilyn Horne, treats us to a program of great songs from ‘The American Songbook’ – a veritable quilt of many-coloured delights. The arrangements range from the delicate to the lush and the mood ranges from racy fun to religiously uplifting. This CD, one of Decca’s first releases on compact disc, has been excerpted […]

A treasury of some of the greatest Lehar recordings from the Decca catalogue, this CD encompasses the entire LP with Holm, Krenn and Paulik plus Pilar Lorengar singing arias from ‘Eva’ and ‘Gypsy Love’. It’s a model of sugar-encrusted elegance of a bygone era.

One of Riccardo Chailly’s first recordings with the Concertgebouw, reissued at super-budget price and marking the conductor’s glorious tenure with this magnificent orchestra, this disc provides a fascinating picture of Ravel the Orchestrator. For those after thrilling recordings of ‘Bolero’ and ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ this is a self-recommending recording but the rare gems by […]