‘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 […]
Throughout a career spanning over 60 years, Dame Moura Lympany was closely associated with the music of Rachmaninov. It began as an unlikely meeting of minds and fingers: what was this slight and beautiful young Englishwoman doing with music that needed the composer’s own huge hands to span its ninths and tenths, written by a […]
Although Alicia de Larrocha was justly crowned in her own lifetime as the Queen of Spanish piano music, the larger-scale Romantic concertos were also within her repertoire during the first half of her long career until her finger-span could not accommodate the outsize hand-stretches required by Rachmaninov’s music in particular. To such works as Eloquence […]
Two of the works on this collection were inspired by literary sources. Tchaikovsky was an assiduous reader and it is not surprising that so many of his works had literary origins. In the case of ‘Francesca da Rimini’, a reading of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ was sufficient to convince him that here was worthy material for a […]
Born Bernette Epstein in Boston in 1920 of Russian heritage, Yara Bernette’s family moved to Brazil when she was six months old. Her first piano teacher was José Kliass, like Claudio Arrau a pupil of Martin Krause, who in turn had been a pupil of Liszt. Both Arrau and Arthur Rubinstein were supportive of her […]
Although they have been intermittently available, Walter Weller’s cycle of the three Rachmaninov Symphonies have hidden their blazing light under the Decca bushel for far too long. Recorded in absolutely thrilling Decca sound with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (No. 1) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Nos. 2 and 3), these three masterpieces are now […]
While it remains a pity that Ansermet didn’t venture further into the bleaker landscapes of Sibelius, less may well be more, and these epic recordings of the Second and Fourth symphonies, together with a raw reading of Tapiola are collected together on CD for the first time. The mood of desolation continues with the Paris […]
From some of the great Rachmaninoffian moments on Decca comes this compilation presenting the complete symphonic poem ‘The Isle of the Dead’ in a darkly dramatic reading by Ashkenazy (as conductor) and the Concertgebouw plus moments from the Piano Concertos and a selection of preludes with Ashkenazy this time as pianist.
The famous ‘Shine’ piano concerto – No. 3 – now appears at budget price in this very romantic performance from one of Decca’s star pianists, Alicia de Larrocha. The coupling is the no-less-difficult and wildly exciting Piano Concerto No. 1 from Peter Katin.
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.
For a variety of reasons, the Romantic piano concerto remains one of the most engaging ambassadors for classical music. In the collective mind of the world audience, the names of Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Rachmaninov are synonymous with large and spectacular musical works during which a symphony orchestra and a dazzling pianist are set to engage […]
The 1897 premiere of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 1 was one of the most notorious disasters in classical music. The composer, sensing that misfortune was about to befall him and his newest creation, sat not in the audience but backstage (‘squirming,’ according to his cousin Lyudmila Skalon) in what is now the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall. […]
