Camille Saint-Saëns was only 21 years of age when he wrote his Mass Op. 4 but the craftsmanship of both its vocal and instrumental writing, testifies to the accomplishment of an experienced composer at a tender age: as a prodigious student at the Paris Conservatoire he was awarded a first prize in organ at just […]

A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, including several items making their first appearance on Decca CD. The soprano, Jennifer Vyvyan, was taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London by Roy Henderson, coach of Kathleen Ferrier. With Henderson’s help she formed a secure technique and quickly won acclaim for both operatic and oratorio […]

The Argo LP of the ‘Symphony of Psalms’ and ‘Canticum Sacrum’ caused a stir when it was first issued in 1975. All previous recordings had used female voices for the upper parts but Stravinsky specifically asks for children’s voices in the Symphony and his old-fashioned score markings in the ‘Canticum Sacrum’ suggest that he had […]

This unique collection, newly remastered from original Philips recordings, documents the work of Dutch conductor, Eduard van Beinum, in Baroque and Rococo repertoire. Thanks to his celebrated recordings of Romantic composers – many of them reissued on previous Eloquence releases – such as Berlioz (482 5569), Brahms (442 9788) and Bruckner (480 7068), the conductor […]

There was a time – at least until 1960 – when Bach’s ensemble music was a familiar sight on the concert programs of symphonic orchestras. The musicians of an ensemble such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam understood this music and how to distinguish it from Mozart or Mahler or Stravinsky. But concerns of […]

An original Decca recording of the soprano, Jennifer Vyvyan, in English song repertoire, coupled with traditional folksongs with another much-loved English singer of the 1950s and 60s, Norma Procter. In the August 1953 issue of Opera magazine, the editor looked back on outstanding vocal achievements in the preceding season of opera. Drawing largely from stagings […]

A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, making their first appearance on Decca CD. As a church musician in Salzburg, the young Mozart was required to turn out a regular diet of masses and settings of the Vespers and Litanies. Sung at afternoon services on feast days, the Litany was a favourite form of Catholic […]

The role of Constanze in ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’ is famously one of the most demanding, not only among Mozart’s operas but in the entire dramatic coloratura repertoire. The singer should have youth on her side, yet the technique to master two long and taxing arias placed almost back to back and the emotional […]

A pioneering L’Oiseau-Lyre recording is reissued for the first time on Decca CD. Made during February 1957 in the West Hampstead studios of Decca, this was the first-ever complete recording of ‘The Fairy Queen’. Suites and individual dances from Purcell’s masque had been played and recorded by chamber and even symphonic ensembles and songs such […]

Compiled from several Decca recordings made between 1964 and 1988, this portrait of Auber was created at Richard Bonynge’s specific request and supervised by him. Most substantial of these recordings is the ballet version which Auber made from his opera ‘Marco Spada’: 65 minutes of scintillating dance music, in the adaptation made by Richard Bonynge […]

Through scholarship, performance and recording, Richard Bonynge has done more than any other modern-day musician to advance the cause of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, the foremost composer of opéra-comique in nineteenth-century Paris. What he wrote was ‘Simple, joyous and unsophisticated music,’ according to Bonynge: this is his sole recording of a complete opera by Auber. ‘Le Domino […]

Through many recordings on Supraphon, the sympathetic, dynamic relationship of Karel Ančerl with the Czech Philharmonic is well known, especially in native repertoire such as Dvořák and Smetana. To a lesser extent, his work late in life with the Toronto Symphony, once he had emigrated to Canada, is documented on CD. However, his brief but […]