Looking back at ‘Tristan und Isolde’ twenty years after its composition, Wagner told his wife Cosima: ‘My model was Romeo and Juliet – nothing but duets!’ He was invoking Bellini’s opera,’I Capuleti e i Montecchi’ which he had conducted many times as a young man. Indeed, there had been much in the Italian master’s legacy that […]

To mark the worldwide bicentenary celebrations of Wagner’s birth, a set of four CDs was recorded for the Decca label by Australian Wagner scholar, author and lecturer Peter Bassett, as an introduction to and commentary on Richard Wagner’s great cycle of four music dramas: Der Ring des Nibelungen. The recording uses extensive musical excerpts from the […]

2013 marked the centenary of the first performance of Schoenberg’s – if not the early 20th century’s – essay in gargantuism. The forces involved were unprecedented: in addition to the soloists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, two tenors, bass and speaker) there were three male-voice choirs and an eight-part mixed choir; and the 150-piece orchestra included 25 woodwind, […]

‘It’s Wagner’s opera: let’s present him and not ourselves!’ This remark by Hans Knappertsbusch to Hans Hotter as the singer was about go on stage as Gurnemanz at Bayreuth in 1964, was characteristic of the conductor’s attitude. Singers’ egos, directors’ concepts and designers’ flights of fancy had no place in the Knappertsbusch vision of Wagner’s […]

This collection of five of Brahms’s chamber music masterpieces includes four with piano and all of these feature the supreme artistry of András Schiff. Both the quintets – for clarinet and for piano – are included; the recording of the Clarinet Quintet with Peter Schmidl and members of the New Vienna Octet, receives its first release […]

George London was born in Montreal, Canada; when he was fifteen the family moved to the United States. His original surname was Burnstein (he also used Burnson for a time) and his forebears were from Širvintos in Lithuania. He began his singing studies in Los Angeles and by the 1940s was touring with a trio […]

Among the many Heldentenoren spoken of in glowing terms, perhaps none has been so unfairly neglected as Jess Thomas. Full-throated and resplendent, not a hint of strain, an amazing array of colours in the voice (from sotto voce to overpowering), he possessed an artistry that was not only a thrill in the theatre but that […]

On this album, Ben Heppner – recognised as one of the world’s leading Heldentenors – features a selection of the finest excerpts for tenor voice from Wagner’s ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’. Tracing the life of Wagner’s ultimate hero, Siegfried, from his father Siegmund (‘Die Walküre’) to Siegfried’s youth (‘Siegfried’) and death (‘Götterdämmerung’), the album features famous […]

Astrid Varnay (1918–2006) was born in Sweden of Hungarian heritage and raised in America. She went on to become one of the most sought-after dramatic sopranos of the 20th century and one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation. Her voice was often praised for its seemingly limitless upper register. On this generously […]

Mendelssohn’s Octet, Op. 20 occupies a proud place in the history of works by indecently young composers; it is doubtful whether even such prodigies as Mozart and Schubert produced such an extended, mature work at the age of sixteen. Moreover, one of its movements granted the composer the honour of having an adjective named after […]

Arne’s Eight Harpsichord Sonatas was Christopher Hogwod’s first record for L’Oiseau-Lyre and this reissue marks its first international CD release. Whereas Arne’s career lay primarily in the theatre (his melodic gifts ensured success not only in Italianate opera but in masque and pantomime as well), an appointment in 1754 as composer to the Vauxhall Gardens […]

The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is one of the most important collections of keyboard music of the 16th century. Recorded to accompany the Folio Society’s publication, ‘Music at Court’ (also written by Christopher Hogwood), this collection was imaginatively distributed to the Society’s members, together with suitable vintages to accompany the literary titles. To suit the music – […]