Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the seventh volume is a collection of music inspired by the countryside. This album takes a tour of many and varied landscapes beginning with the English countryside as seen through the eyes of Vaughan Williams, coupled with the Vienna Woods, in Johann Strauss II’s popular waltz, France’s […]
Debussy’s ‘Preludes’ represent one of the great cultural ‘events’ of the 20th century, exploring both the vivid and near-invisible colours of the piano. A feast of sound and sensations, this recording is unique in presenting all 24 ‘Preludes’ on a single disc.
‘This is the one piece I would like to conduct when I am old,’ reads Claudio Abbado’s entry in his diary, aged eight. He was speaking of Debussy’s ‘Nocturnes’. He recorded it in 1970 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, at whose Tanglewood Festival in 1958 he had won the Koussevitzky Prize. It was around 1970 […]
The two Debussy sonatas date from late in the composer’s life and are wistful pieces though not without humour. The Ravel Violin Sonata is sleek, elegant and has a delightful jazzy movement while the Trio is a masterpiece, a tour de force of writing for these three instruments and a hugely enjoyable work. This early […]
From Decca’s rich catalogue of piano music comes a generous selection of miniatures for piano, many of them quiet, all of them popular and much sought-after, in the finest of performances, of course.
These performances of three of Debussy’s major orchestral works are simply staggering. Rarely have the half-lights and luminosity of these three works – generously offered on a single CD – been better captured in performance. Ephemeral is the word for van Beinum’s interpretations and the CD also boasts one of the sexiest ‘Sirènes’ on record!
Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the seventh volume, Reflections in the Water, is the ultimate tranquility! Water is a force of nature that inspired composers to some of their most languid compositions, from the Baroque (Handel’s Water Music written for a royal party held on a barge) to Impressionistic (the aqueous ripples and shimmer […]
Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the first volume, Music for Relaxation, offers a miscellany of classical pieces from piano (the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata) to orchestral music by Grieg, Elgar and Borodin.
An iconic record, this collection of two well-known (Debussy, Ravel) and two rarities (Roussel, Ropartz) of the chamber music repertoire was issued in both its LP and CD incarnations to great acclaim. It was recorded in the unusually spacious acoustic of Walthamstow Assembly Hall and its late producer, Ray Minshull, provides an amusing recollection of […]
Time and again these performances of two haunting French chamber works have been voted as the best in the catalogue. These elegant, suave performances now reappear on Eloquence.
This volume of Debussy’s dramatic works and ballet music is dedicated, by and large, to ‘rarities’ by the composer. Few of Debussy’s works have divided critical opinion more than ‘Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien’, banned as it was by the Archbishop of Paris six days before its premiere. The beautiful, rarefied ‘Six Épigraphes Antiques’ were […]
From some of the best Debussy recordings in the DG catalogue, this collection brings together some of the most popular pieces by this composer in tranquil, gleaming performances.
