‘When he is at his best he plays more beautifully than any of us’ wrote Alfred Brendel on the pianism of Wilhelm Kempff. Eloquence is proud to announce a mini-edition devoted to some of the rarer recordings of Wilhelm Kempff, born in 1895 at Jüterbog, the son of a church organist. By 1916, Kempff was […]
‘Rita Streich, famed for her peerless coloratura, for her Queen of the Night and her performances of Olympia in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Rita Streich, often dubbed a ‘singing nightingale’ also took time out from a busy career to record miniatures. Several LPs, combined over two (now deleted) Deutsche […]
Alicia de Larrocha made several LPs of Mozart’s solo piano music for Decca between 1973 and 1986. In a series of recordings on Decca Eloquence, reissued to celebrate her artistry, this 3CD set brings together, for the first time, all her solo Mozart – nine sonatas, the D major Rondo, and the D minor and […]
Concertos, symphonies, operas … sonatas, serenades and divertimenti. But Mozart and Ballet Music? Truly a rarity! Much of the music on this disc formed the tenth and last LP in Decca’s complete Dances and Marches series with the Wiener Mozart Ensemble under Willi Boskovsky for which he chose younger players, some of whom had not […]
Larrocha in Mozart, whether the sonatas or concertos, has always attracted high praise. But even by her high standards, this particular coupling which made its first appearance in 1983, must be counted among her most successful concerto recordings. One distinguished reviewer wrote at the time that her captivating performance of the Piano Concerto in F […]
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]
The Piano Quartets are like heavenly twins, alike on the outside but very different in tone. The G minor, like all Mozart’s works in that key, is intense, introspective and even tragic in places. The E flat is extrovert, bracing, brilliant and straightforwardly pleasurable. The present performances feature what, at first glance, is a strange […]
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]
Driven almost to distraction by debts, illness in the family – his baby daughter Theresia died on 29 July – and the indifference of a fickle public, Mozart often turned for financial succour to a fellow Freemason, Johann Michael Puchberg. This gentleman, whose name has come down through history solely because of his assistance 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 […]
Mozart’s precocious genius was as a keyboard player and composer and his father proudly paraded these gifts of his all over Europe; but Wolfgang also played the violin – Leopold’s own instrument, for which he had written a tutor that was to become famous – and throughout the years he lived at home he was […]
