Raymond Leppard’s second and more renowned contribution to the modern revival of Cavalli: a classic among Baroque opera recordings which won the coveted Rosette award from the Penguin Record Guide. In 1651, seven years after ‘Ormindo’ (also reissued by Eloquence in Leppard’s recording, 482 9382), Cavalli and his librettist Faustini scored another hit with the […]
The first commercial recording of Rameau’s first opera. Thanks to several Eloquence releases, the pioneering work of Anthony Lewis in the field of Baroque opera is now readily available: ‘The Fairy Queen’ (482 7449) of Purcell, Handel’s ‘Semele’ (482 5055) and a compilation albums of Handel arias (482 4759) were all critically acclaimed at the […]
While playing organs worldwide and concentrating his work in his native England, Peter Hurford nonetheless gave recitals on organs across Australia throughout his long career. However, he hardly played an instrument more dazzling in its impact and variety than the organ which was installed at the Sydney Opera House. Completed in May 1979 at a […]
A landmark in Baroque opera recordings, newly remastered. This ‘royal entertainment in music’ was fashioned by Cavalli to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini for performance in Venice in 1644, two years after ‘L’incoronazione di Poppaea’ saw the light of day. Through the course of ‘Ormindo’ we follow the adventures of two pairs of lovers as […]
A trumpet and organ spectacular: three original Argo and DG albums on a generous, newly compiled 2-CD set. In Baroque works generally, the trumpet is always accompanied by drums both of these instruments having strong associations with military music. The organ, on the other hand, is primarily associated with the church and it is within […]
Favourite arias and romantic concertos by a pioneer of American operetta. Born in Dublin, Victor Herbert began his career as a cellist in Germany, playing for Eduard Strauss, for Brahms and Liszt and emigrated to the US as principal cellist of the Metropolitan Opera. It was in that capacity that he composed the second of […]
Two rare L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings of French Baroque masterpieces, newly remastered and making their first appearance on CD. From the time of its foundation in 1932 by the Australian-born, Paris-adopted philanthropist Louise Hanson-Dyer, Editions de L’Oiseau-Lyre specialised in French early music as the name of the imprint implied. The company’s first complete scholarly edition a year […]
The complete Philips and L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings of Bach cantatas made by Sir Neville Marriner, reissued together for the first time. Bach’s cantatas vary enormously in scale and style, ranging from festal works featuring elaborate choral movements and large instrumental ensembles including trumpets and drums, to more meditative cantatas for a single voice and only a […]
Three original Argo and Decca albums compiled together for the first time: Lassus with an English accent. Five Eloquence albums dedicated to the art of Simon Preston were enthusiastically welcomed by the press in 2018, featuring in ‘Best Of’ end-of-year selections in Gramophone and online. In 1970, Preston became Organist and Choirmaster at the Cathedral […]
Three Decca albums issued complete, including a first release on CD for the ‘Simfonija Orijenta’, a monument of Yugoslavian musical modernism and François Huybrechts’s poetic ‘Taras Bulba’ from his Janáček disc. This release forms an important appendix to the Eloquence reissues of the seven Russian opera recordings made by Decca with the company of the Belgrade […]
Kirsten Flagstad’s farewell to the role she made her own: a rarely reissued, newly remastered and extensively documented monument in the history of Wagner on record. As the first commercial recording of Wagner’s ‘Götterdämmerung’ this set would have lasting significance even without the presence of its undoubted star, the Norwegian soprano,Kirsten Flagstad, in her signature […]
Decca’s first digital studio recording of a Wagner opera, preserving the long-matured work of a legendary Wagnerian conductor. By the time this recording was made in the winter of 1980–81 over the course of two extended sets of sessions, the Welsh National Opera had given 18 performances of Tristan und Isolde with this cast, most […]
