Haydn’s ‘Surprise’ and ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony by Antal Doráti (Mercury Living Presence).

Extremely rare recordings of overtures to The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) and Oberon (Weber) by Antal Doráti on Mercury Living Presence.

Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in stereo from Antal Doráti (Mercury Living Presence).

Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 on Mercury Living Presence in mono from Antal Doráti.

The complete Decca recital recordings compiled and newly remastered in tribute to a superlative Mozart soprano of the last century – released to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her passing (10 August 2000). The Belgian-born Suzanne Danco (1911–2000) made her operatic debut in Genoa as Fiordiligi in 1941, and it seems appropriate that in July […]

Jan Smeterlin was a born Chopin interpreter on home soil. Presented here is a collection that includes rare and previously unissued recordings. Writing to Gramophone in 1965, a Royal Navy Commander stationed in India made an impassioned plea: ‘I have heard Rubinstein, Ashkenase, even Paderewski, playing the Chopin Mazurkas … None has approached the sublimity of Smeterlin’s […]

Bliss: The Decca Originals: a new collection of Decca recordings of Bliss’s music, including tracks previously unreleased on Decca CD as well as the complete version of the Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli. The career of Arthur Bliss was launched in London in the 1920s with provocative ensemble pieces such as Rout, but it was […]

Zurich-born and trained, the conductor Robert Denzler (1892–1972) found a summer home in Bayreuth as an assistant to the likes of Hans Richter and Karl Muck. He thus established his Wagnerian credentials early on, and from 1925 to 1931 he ran an annual Wagner Festival in Geneva in cooperation with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. […]

A landmark tribute to Roger Désormière, a great French conductor of the mid-twentieth century, including many recordings new to CD. A car crash in March 1953 cruelly cut short the career of Roger Désormière, who at the age of 53 had already established a reputation as one of the most insightful French conductors of his […]

Three exceptionally rare Decca LPs of a much prized French pianist, newly remastered and released on CD for the first time. Rheumatism forced Agnelle Bundervoët to retire from the platform at the peak of her career in the late 1950s, though she continued to pass on to her students at the Conservatoire of Versailles the […]

Rarely encountered and previously unpublished recordings by a major Swiss pianist of the 1950s and 60s. Born in Lucerne in 1911, Albert Ferber studied with a pupil of Alfred Cortot and often played for Rachmaninov in Switzerland. International critics visiting the 1939 Lucerne Festival were impressed by ‘an exceptional Swiss pianist … who also showed […]

According to one former violist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Eugen Jochum was the type of conductor ‘who doesn’t “put on” spectacular performances, but whose music-making always bears the stamp of honesty. He is enthusiastic during a concert and also conveys his intentions to the orchestra without any affectation’. The sincerity and integrity of Jochum’s musical […]