The complete published Decca recordings of a fine but forgotten Russian pianist, previously unreleased on CD. A student of the legendary pedagogue Konstantin Igumnov, Nikolai Orloff, became a professor of piano himself at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1917, at the age of just 25. Having emigrated to Paris in 1922, he soon began to make […]

One of the last century’s great popularisers of art music who introduced the names of Mozart and Strauss to millions, Arthur Fiedler recorded for several labels during his half century as music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Eloquence has already reissued the Deutsche Grammophon ‘Sleigh Ride’ album (480 6715) of festive-themed treats by Handel, […]

‘In every way the most transcendentally gifted young piano student I have heard in the last 25 years’ was Percy Grainger’s pronouncement of the young Eileen Joyce (1908–1991) when he first heard her play in 1926. From the goldfields in Western Australia whose capital city is the most remote in the world, Joyce defied incongruous and […]

The Eloquence label has restored to modern circulation many recordings of the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet but few of them have been as overlooked as this pair of concertos which are now released internationally for the first time on CD, in new digital remasterings. French music found Ansermet in his element and he was a […]

Is nothing sacred? The Cambridge Buskers bring their madcap humour to the greats of classical music – everything from the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and the ‘1812 Overture’ to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ and the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’! And not forgetting Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies in under four minutes… This 4CD set brings together the pair’s most famous albums, released […]

When Arthur Rubinstein first heard the fifteen-year-old Gilels perform in Odessa, he exclaimed ‘By God, I can’t describe it. If he comes to America, I might as well pack my bags and leave!’ ‘Serious without solemnity, profound without pomp, he was a citizen of the world,’ wrote Jeremy Siepmann of Gilels. ‘Like music itself, his […]

While the bulk of Ansermet’s recordings were made with L’Orchestre de la Susise Romande, there were a few with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and the very occasional foray into recordings with London orchestras. One of these was with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1959 with producer Michael Williamson and engineer Kenneth […]

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.

The consummate aristocrat with a huge technique at his diposal, Magaloff despatches stylish and glittering performances of the complete Chopin Waltzes.

The best of Chopin’s solo piano works – selections from his Polonaises, Waltzes, Mazurkas, Ballades, Preludes – in performances that have been praised time and again over the years from such celebrities as Nikita Magaloff, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Joseph Cooper, Peter Katin and Julius Katchen.

From the poet of the piano, Frederic Chopin, comes a compilation of some of his most memorable moments – both for solo piano and for piano with orchestra. And for the musically curious there is a rarity as well – the ‘Krakowiak’ with one-time Sydney-based conductor, Willem van Otterloo, conducting the Hague Resident Orchestra with […]

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 […]