The first CD release of these priceless recordings from the Decca archives. Kertész brings his blend of thrust and tenderness (and huge architectural conviction) to the Fifth Symphony while John Ogdon and Neville Marriner perform the First Piano Concerto ‘to the manner born’ with not a single high-jink glossed over. Raymond Tuttle provides the fascinating […]

The first CD release of Kertész’ recording of Mozart’s choral masterwork with some glorious solo singing. The work achieved huge popularity in the 1980s through its pivotal inclusion in the film ‘Amadeus’.

There have been many recordings of the Brahms symphonies but few have the passion, vitality and drive of István Kertész’s Vienna Philharmonic cycle. This 4CD collection brings together all of Kertész’s Brahms recordings for Decca. The two Serenades were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. His Wiener Philharmoniker Brahms cycle began in May 1964 with […]

Three of Respighi’s most colourful and popular orchestral works in truly legendary performances. Both ‘Pines’ and ‘Fountains’ are massive orchestral scores evoking the named sights of Rome. ‘The Birds’ is based on music by Respighi’s Baroque predecessors and is a delightful, tuneful evocation of an earlier time in gleaming orchestrations.

You will search far to find such potent, explosive recordings of the Smetana ‘Bartered Bride’ excerpts or the selection of five ‘Slavonic Dances’ here included, or as picturesquely sculpted a ‘Vltava’. Istvan Kertesz brings poetry and fire in equal measure to these works in a superbly recorded concert that is rounded off with Dvorak’s tuneful […]

This collection brings together a miscellany of orchestral works. In addition to the symphony, there’s Mozart’s most popular Serenade – ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ – in a gloriously cushioned performance, plus five overtures. Four of these are lifted from the double-LP set ‘Mozart Opera Festival’ while that for ‘Cosi’ comes from the complete opera set.

In 1971, Istvan Kertesz went into the studio with an array of opera singers with whom he enjoyed performing to make a recording of arias, duets and ensembles from Mozart’s most popular operas. The results, in terms of characterisation and energy, are in a class of their own and what’s more, the stellar singers blend […]

Elegantly-turned performances of these symphonies with Kertesz revelling in the romantic ethos to which these works point. The recordings are rich, warm and beautifully balanced.

Robust and red-blooded performances of the later symphonies here, pointing unashamedly to the Romantic era. The opening of No. 39, especially, has few rivals in terms of intensity and the way Kertesz balances light and shade.

Kertész’ orchestral Mozart has been well documented on Eloquence with many releases appearing on CD for the first time. Now, restored to the catalogue, is his dramatic, muscular reading of the ‘Requiem’. Stretching to 79 minutes, the disc is filled out with selections from the composer’s Masonic Music, with the ‘Maurerische Trauermusik’ bearing an uncanny resemblance […]

Today, Anton Bruckner, the son of a village schoolmaster, is recognised as one of the most important (albeit late-blooming) symphonists of the nineteenth century. During his lifetime, however, he was the subject of incomprehension and ridicule – that is, when critics and musicians paid him and his music any attention at all. Even in modern […]

Dvořák naturally gave a great deal of attention to the genre of the oratorio and it was his work in this area that firmly established his reputation in the English-speaking world. Rossini very much admired Pergolesi’s fine setting of the Stabat Mater but had not felt equal to attempting his own. The decision to try […]