Mark Ainley surveys the artistry of Greek pianist Gina Bachauer, to mark the release of her complete Mercury Living Presence recordings. Many pianists are impossible to classify and fit no school. Gina Bachauer was one of these… unlike most modern pianists she was a romantic with a virtuoso approach to the keyboard…. She played in […]

What The Critics Said VOLUME 1 “Judging from the first releases by him and the newly resuscitated Detroit Symphony Orchestra, [Paray] should soon come into his own. His reading of this much-played symphony is a thrill from start to finish.” High Fidelity, November 1953 (Franck) “Once again, Paray reveals his mastery at interpreting modern French […]

“I still remember the time when I played Rachmaninov’s Piano Concert No. 3 for the first time in London in 2001. After the concert, he gave me a hug with tears in his eyes, and said that he had high hopes for me. Master Fou was a great artist that I respected very much. I […]

Piers Lane writes about the winner of the 2021 Sydney International Piano Competition – the first to be held online – a selection of whose live recordings are released on Decca Eloquence. What an exciting time it was in January 2020! I had appointed four experienced musicians to listen along with me to the 285 […]

By Alan Sanders From the early 1920s onwards, English-speaking purchasers of classical records will almost certainly have come across discs played by the ‘Berlin State Opera Orchestra’. This body was clearly a frequent visitor to the recording studios at the time, and it seemingly had no exclusive contract with any company, since it appeared on […]

95-year-old piano legend Ruth Slenczynska reminiscences with Eloquence Classics about studying with her legendary mentors, Josef Hofmann and Sergei Rachmaninov, and witnessing the creation of her classmate Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.