A newly compiled anthology of Decca recordings on Eloquence, surveys the healthy state of Handel singing in England in the 1960s, before this music became the preserve of musicians and singers within the period-instrument movement. This generous (145-minute) collection is based around a pair of newly re-mastered recital albums made by the contralto, Bernadette Greevy […]
For years, admitted Sir Georg Solti to High Fidelity magazine in January 1967, ‘Mahler bored me. He came to me or I came to him, eight or nine years ago. Up till then his symphonies were all pieces and bits. Now I see their form, I love them. It is not enough to like music. […]
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 […]
After the Fourth in 1961, the First in 1964 and the Second in 1966, the Ninth was the fourth of Mahler’s symphonies to be recorded for Decca by Sir Georg Solti. Symphonies 1, 2 and plus No. 3 from 1968, were all made with the London Symphony Orchestra but the cycle quickly expanded its horizons […]
The Lyric Opera of Chicago was founded as recently as 1954 but within two years it had secured the services of many operatic stars of the day who were doubtless reassured of the quality and warmth of reception at the company by the trailblazing US debut of Maria Callas as Norma in its first season. […]
Even while creating a sensation across the US with concerts in Chicago, Cleveland, New York and further afield, Rafael Kubelík recorded the four symphonies of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic for Decca (in stereo) in the 1950s. Long unavailable, they are here presented together for the first time on CD, in an economical 2CD package, […]
In several valuable and newly remastered releases under ‘The Decca Recitals’ banner, Eloquence has compiled tributes to several fine singers of the 1950s whose vocal personality particularly fitted the demands of art song: among them are Jacques Jansen (482 4603), Irma Kolassi (482 4637) and Oda Slobodskaya (480 3524). They are now joined by an […]
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 […]
For the first century of its history, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam had only four principal conductors and it was the second and fourth, Willem Mengelberg and Bernard Haitink who enjoyed a truly international reputation. Previous issues on Eloquence from Haydn (476 8483) to Debussy (464 6362) have shed light on the recordings made […]
The Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti had already made several recordings in the US with various orchestras for the Mercury label when Philips engaged him to begin working in the studio with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. There had been thrilling accounts of Tchaikovsky from both Minneapolis and Chicago and so it was to be […]
‘I think that every art is an art of authority but between “authoritarian” and “dictatorial” there is a vast difference.’ So remarked the Hungarian conductor, Antal Doráti, towards the end of a long career which included, near its beginning, almost a decade spent working closely with orchestras in The Hague and Amsterdam. That work, very […]
One of three complementary albums which celebrate the art of the Hungarian pianist, Andor Foldes, in the music of Beethoven, this Eloquence release pairs an eventful journey through the composer’s sonatas with his excursions into shorter and lighter repertoire. Taken by itself, the release would serve as an ideal introduction to Beethoven’s piano music. Foldes […]
