To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sibelius, Decca Eloquence collects together the four LPs of the composer’s music that Horst Stein recorded for Decca between 1971 and 1981. They include all the important tone poems, the Second Symphony (receiving its first international release on CD) and music for the theatre. All were critically […]
On this reissue, Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Piano Concerto No. 1 is coupled with a relative rarity – the Concert Fantasy. Peter Katin was not the first pianist to make a studio recording of Tchaikovksy’s Concert Fantasy – that honour went to Tatiana Nikolayeva in 1950 – but his 1958 recording with Sir Adrian Boult was the […]
The D’Oyly Carte Company began its association with Decca after World War II, embarking on a series of recordings in the late 1940s and early 50s of the major Savoy Operas. A subsequent stereo-era cycle, begun in 1957, was followed in turn by a new series of which the present 1974 recording of ‘Iolanthe’ is […]
Time to pass in court circles there certainly was – and money to spend in the passing of it too! Lavish entertainments, revelry and dancing, pageants, music and the ritual of the hunt were known to Henry’s queen, Katharine; and all these culminated in the superlative splendours of the Field of Cloth of Gold in […]
Bursting onto the scene with a sensational two-year run at the Savoy Theatre (672 performances commencing on 14 March 1885), it was not long before ‘The Mikado’ was playing around the world in myriad different productions and translations – and it continues to be greeted with unparalleled global enthusiasm today. This October 1957 recording of […]
Conductor Jussi Jalas (1908–1985), was closely associated with Sibelius’ music. Furthermore, he was closely associated with Sibelius’ family as he married Sibelius’ daughter, Jeanne Margareta and fathered two sons. His teachers included Pierre Monteux and he taught at the conservatory named after his father-in-law between 1945 and 1965. Later, he directed the Finnish National Opera […]
Several countries have their light operas: the British their Gilbert and Sullivan, the Spanish their zarzuelas, the French their operettes. All of these display quite tight-knit styles but the operetta tradition of Austria and specifically Vienna, is more diffuse, reflecting the differing styles of folk music found in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. The world of […]
That Richard Strauss loved and understood the soprano voice is an inescapable fact. He was married to soprano, Pauline de Ahna and thus had a living laboratory for his song-writing. Even after Pauline had retired from the stage, he continued to favour sopranos in his operas and other vocal compositions. And sopranos repaid him with […]
Although Pierre Monteux was a notable exponent of both Beethoven and the modern French school, it was with the Ballets Russes that his name was linked. Further, when he was conducting French repertoire in American theatres (particularly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1917 to 1919), he also took on the premières of […]
Among the legendary opera singers of the post-war era was Lisa Della Casa, one of the few internationally known musical stars produced by the little country of Switzerland and a member of the exceptional Mozart ensemble built up by the Vienna State Opera. For opera-goers on both sides of the Atlantic, she was the first […]
Gifted with great beauty and a natural stage presence, Hilde Gueden was unfailingly easy on the ear as well as the eye. With her creamy tone and ability to spin the silvery upper-register sonority needed for her Strauss roles, she was a natural successor to Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Schöne and Adele Kern. Fortunately for posterity, […]
During the 1950s, 60s and 70s Decca recorded several LPs of recitals by both well and lesser-known opera singers of the day. This collection of famous opera arias, issued across two volumes, includes several of the singers known, in the main, to connoisseurs. The present volume features three singers represented by their 1950s recital discs: […]
