‘The most original and artistically consummate of all my works,’ Hugo Wolf said (with justice) of the Italienisches Liederbuch which he wrote in 1890-1 to the poetry of Paul Heyse. Perhaps no pair of singers on record has interpreted this cycle of 46 songs with such natural accomplishment as Irmgard Seefried and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. They […]
Two L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of English brass music from the 17th and 18th centuries – The Royal Brass Music of King James I and English Baroque Trumpet Concertos – newly compiled and remastered and issued on CD for the first time. With this and several other albums issued in 2019, Eloquence celebrates the art of […]
Handel orchestral favourites from the 1950s in a winning combination of old-school polish and unaffected stylistic refinement. With this and several other albums, Eloquence celebrates the art of Thurston Dart, the harpsichordist, conductor and editor who played a leading role in the early-music revival in postwar Britain. After his death in 1971 at the […]
For music-lovers who grew up between the 1950s and the 1970s, Alfred Deller (1912–1979) was the embodiment of the countertenor voice, just as Segovia was the guitar and Casals was the cello. Many who heard his earliest LPs will have applauded the words that Sir Michael Tippett uttered on first hearing Deller live, as early […]
The Vienna Philharmonic’s distinguished Bruckner tradition, documented through a series of superb Decca recordings from the 1960s and 70s on a Limited Edition 9-CD box set, with Original Jackets. Founded in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic gave a notoriously dusty reception to Bruckner’s Third when they played through it in rehearsal in 1874 and refused […]
A song recital new to CD from a peerless lyric soprano, coupled with classic recordings of Ravel and Verdi. In 1971 Andrew Porter wrote that Margaret Price’s voice was among the things that make one ‘glad to be alive’. In the 1960s she had recorded for a small Welsh label a recital of Welsh, […]
Kurt Masur’s burnished readings of Brahms’s orchestral music with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, issued as a Limited Edition box with Original Jackets. Hardly less than with its founder, Felix Mendelssohn, the Leipzig Gewandhaus grew up with Brahms conducting and playing. For a sense of heritage, the orchestra boasts a Brahms tradition second to none. In […]
Alfred Deller’s only complete recording of a Handel opera. First staged at the King’s Theatre in London in February 1732 and revived two years later, Sosarme was not heard again in full (if not entirely complete) until a BBC broadcast in January 1955, conducted by Anthony Lewis. Conductor and performers then made this recording a […]
Three L’Oiseau-Lyre LPs celebrating the art of a much-loved contralto, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time, including material new to CD. The history of British contraltos on record, extends beyond Kathleen Ferrier to Constance Shacklock and before her Dame Clara Butt but their select number was joined in the 1950s by Helen […]
Presented on CD for the first time and newly remastered, a pair of Romantic Lieder recitals by the Welsh contralto who inherited the mantle of Kathleen Ferrier. The history of British contraltos on record, stretches back to Constance Shacklock and before her Dame Clara Butt but it was Ferrier who defined the sound of that […]
Of the works by Handel presented here, three are cantatas devoted to the Patron Saint of music, St. Cecilia, another is an Italian cantata that was probably presented for a private patron in Rome while the remaining two works are drawn from Handel’s unique set of ‘Neun Deutsche Arien’ (Nos. 4 & 6 in the […]
Decca studio recordings made between 1947 and 1949 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, newly compiled and remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn and including material new to CD. Decca first presented its ‘ffrr’ technology – full frequency range recording – in 1944, originally developed by the company’s engineers as a means of detecting and identifying German submarines […]
