Decca Eloquence continues its exploration of the recordings of Pierre Monteux with a coupling of two works that invoke the supernatural. Monteux’s brilliant, yet cultivated late-1950s readings of these works offer much pleasure and both are released internationally on Decca CD for the first time.

Although overshadowed by the more celebrated second recording of Otello that Mario del Monaco and Renata Tebaldi made with Karajan (1960), many feel this earlier (1954) recording features both protagonists in fresher voice, and Alberto Erede and his Santa Cecilia forces really pack a punch.

Heralded by a priceless photo of Del Monaco, this classic 1954 recording of ‘Rigoletto’ is restored to the catalogue. Recorded about the same time as Erede’s ‘Otello’ sessions (also with Del Monaco and Protti), Del Monaco gives a powerful rendition of the Duke and Hilda Gueden’s crystalline purity gives Gilda all the innocence and largesse […]

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 […]

After the wealth of string quartets produced by the composers of High Classicism – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert – the leading figures of Romanticism were somewhat daunted by the expectations of their public. Felix Mendelssohn achieved a respectable total of six quartets but the three notable composers represented in this program managed only nine […]

In his most famous orchestral composition, ‘Scheherazade’, Rimsky-Korsakov, like Beethoven in his ‘Pastoral’ Symphony before him, was more interested in evoking feelings and impressions than in spoon-feeding listeners a pre-digested program. So the titles he provided for its four movements were indicative rather than based on particular stories from the ‘Arabian Nights’. Pierre Monteux’s recording, […]

In May 1946, when Milan’s venerable La Scala theatre reopened after World War II, conductor Arturo Toscanini selected Renata Tebaldi then 24, to sing music by Rossini and Verdi for that watershed concert. ‘Ah, la voce d’angelo’ – the voice of an angel – was Toscanini’s reported verdict. In her heyday, she was known as […]

All three works on this CD feature the flute and all feature Pierre Monteux collaborating with his son, Claude. Bach composed some music for the recorder but it is outnumbered by his works for transverse flute which he called the ‘traversiere’. In his Orchestral Suite No. 2, Bach gave the ‘traversiere’ a starring role. Although […]

On 22 January 1785, Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote from Salzburg to his daughter, Nannerl, retelling the news ‘that last Saturday (Wolfgang) performed his six quartets [in truth probably just KV 387, 421 and 428] for his dear friend Haydn and other good friends and that he has sold them to Artaria for a hundred ducats’. […]

‘The Gondoliers’ is the sunniest of all the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas and was one of the most harmonious collaborations between two such temperamentally incompatible yet artistically well-matched men. The morning after the rapturously received opening night in December 1889, Gilbert wrote to Sullivan: ‘I must thank you for the magnificent work you have […]

In 1948, the young Hungarian conductor, Ferenc Fricsay (1914–1963) who had studied with Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, was invited to Berlin to become chief conductor of the RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) Symphonie Orchester and chief conductor of the Städtische Oper (today, the Deutsche Oper Berlin). The RIAS Symphonie Orchester changed its name […]

‘Queen Victoria loved music for music’s sake and singing appealed especially to her. It was a joy, a necessity to her to hear music every day and to keep in contact with the musicians of her time. Artists met with the most charming and graceful reception and the Queen always entertained herself for a long […]