To the delightfully muddled ‘Marriage of Figaro’-like plot of ‘El amor brujo’, Ansermet brings an earthy sensuality and piquant wit. Ansermet recorded ‘El sombrero del tres picos’ twice and while the later recording with Teresa Berganza has rarely been out of the catalogue, this earlier mono, 1952 recording with Suzanne Danco is rare and much sought-after, not […]
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 […]
Two ‘Phase 4’ recordings reappear in their entirety on this double-CD of violin bon-bons. Josef Sakonov’s is of virtuoso violin pieces (including Sarasate’s ‘Zigeunerweisen’) and sentimental miniatures by Godard, Tchaikovsky, Ponce and others. This is the first international release of the complete original LP on CD. Erich Gruenberg’s recording centres around Fritz Kreisler – as […]
Although she never liked being pigeon-holed as a Spanish piano music specialist, Alicia de Larrocha was supreme in the music of her country. This CD brings together all of the solo piano recordings of music by Falla she made for Decca in 1973, together with her first (1970) of two recordings of Nights in the […]
Jesús López-Cobos’s scintillating and sonically thrilling Decca recordings of Spanish music are here represented with music both Spanish and Spanish-influenced. Scenes and Dances from Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat, Chabrier’s picture-postcard essay España and two works by Turina (one meditative, the other more extrovert) form the Spanish contingent of this orchestral recital, while Rimsky-Korsakov’s technicolour Capriccio […]
Although she disliked being typecast as a Spanish music specialist, there’s no doubt that Alicia de Larrocha’s way with this music is in a class by itself. No matter what the repertoire for a recital she gave, regardless of whether it included Spanish music, she was often called upon by her audiences to provide at […]
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos’s 1965–66 recording of Spanish orchestral favourites was a huge success in its time, not only for the orchestra and conductor’s sense of colour, flamboyance and rhythmic acuity, but also for the sheer panoramic sound-spectrum with the fabled ‘Decca Sound’. Bringing together works both Spanish in origin as well as of Spanish […]
Some of Lorin Maazel’s first recordings were made for Deutsche Grammophon when he was merely 27. This collection presents vivid performances of three great twentieth-century ballet scores, all infused with the folk rhythms of their respective composers’ native lands – Falla’s Andalusia and Stravinsky’s Russia. Both composers also exploited the most sophisticated orchestral textures available to […]
Jean Martinon’s career in the recording studio got under way after World War II when, in 1947–48, he and the London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded music by Mozart, Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Chabrier. Between then and April 1960 he recorded extensively for Decca. Brilliant as many of these recordings are, they have completely overshadowed the parallel legacy […]
The violinist who straddled the divide between the old ways and the new, was the Viennese virtuoso, Wolfgang Eduard Schneiderhan. He was born on 28th May 1915 and beginning violin lessons at five, he polished his technique under Sevcík and Winkler. From the 1950s onward, Schneiderhan displayed all the qualities normally associated with German musicians. […]
