Issued in the US under the title ‘Witches’ Brew’, Alexander Gibson and the New Symphony Orchestra of London recorded this album in 1959 and the performances remain today as characterful and incisive as they were then. While pieces from this recording have previously appeared on Decca, this is its first complete release on the label. […]
Liszt’s Eine Faust-Symphonie, based on the Faust legend, is an hour-long work for tenor, choir and orchestra, based on the Faust legend. The Suisse Romande Orchestra take to this complex score, one with which they could hardly have been familiar, with clear enthusiasm and imbue the performance with alertness and vivacity. The woodwind playing of […]
Eschewing the barn-storming bravura of some of his colleagues, Claudio Arrau brought an extra dimension – a spiritual, meditative one – to his performances of Liszt and these recordings of the Concertos unfold with unequalled grandeur. Equally compelling are his expansive readings of the three ‘Études de Concert’.
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.
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 […]
Alicia de Larrocha’s magisterial, sonorous, even coruscating performance of Liszt’s B minor Sonata is here preceded by altogether more genteel repertoire from the 19th century – pairs of pieces by Grieg and Mendelssohn. A rarity – making its first appearance on CD internationally – is Grieg’s only solo piano sonata which was written in eleven days […]
One of Kiri Te Kanawa’s rare recorded excursions into song repertoire, this consummate recital is once more restored to the Decca catalogue. Including such popular favourites as Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’ and Granados’ ‘La maja y el ruiseñor’, Obradors’ wonderful ‘Cinco canciones clasicas espanolas’ and a quartet of beautiful songs by Liszt.
Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony bring a fantastic array of colour as well as subtlety to these marvellous Rhapsodies. With an array of countries represented – the Rhapsodies largely paying tribute to indigenous music – the cover illustration highlights these associations.
It is commonplace to observe how little separates the cradle from the grave. For some, the words ‘womb’, ‘room’, ‘doom’ and ‘tomb’ have sufficed to encapsulate the human experience. When infant mortality rates in the developed countries were higher than they are today, families could hardly help being reminded that last night’s lullaby might be […]
A collection of some of Liszt’s most symphonic piano works, this recording by Lilya Zilberstein includes the Ballade in B minor, which openly acknowledge Liszt’s debt to Chopin and the two Légendes of 1863, which bear witness to a period in which Liszt (then 52) became almost obsessed with the religious life. The six Consolations, published […]
With technique to burn but poetry at the fore, Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s recordings of the two Liszt concertos have always held a special affection in many a music-lover’s heart. They are reissued as per the original CD couplings – with the demonic ‘Totentanz’ and the multi-coloured ‘Hungarian Fantasy’.
The recorded legacy of Albert Wolff is one of the most sought-after by collectors. Of Dutch parentage, but born in Paris, Wolff was something of a polymath: pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and had a long career in recording studios beginning in 1920. His first recordings for Decca, starting in the summer of 1951, were a […]
