No expense was spared to mount the first production of ‘Le Corsaire’ at the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra in Paris early in 1856. Soon finding a permanent home in the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg thanks to the choreography of Marius Petipa, this full-length ballet quickly became an established classic of the genre. Audiences have […]
No conductor working in the recording studios in the 1960s and beyond did more than Richard Bonynge to recover the sound of the 19th-century ballet, especially in its home of the Paris Opéra-Comique. A central figure in that culture was Adolphe Adam who supplied vaudevilles, ballets, pastiches and comic operas over the course of three […]
A pioneering Handel recording of the 1950s in a new digital remastering, released on Decca CD for the first time. The scholar and conductor, Anthony Lewis, was one of the early luminaries of the L’Oiseau Lyre label which became, over time, the early-music imprint of Decca. Drawing on his experience of conducting and staging Baroque […]
A first release on CD of Mussorgsky’s epic tragedy recorded by the Belgrade National Opera. With this and six companion issues, Eloquence makes available for the first time on CD the seven complete Russian operas recorded in 1955 by Decca with the company of the Belgrade Opera. Fresh from a successful tour of ‘Boris Godunov’ […]
Fluent and luminously textured accounts of Fauré’s major choral and orchestral music, compiled on CD for the first time. After the death of Sir Neville Marriner in October 2016 at the age of 91, Eloquence pays tribute to the conductor’s work on record with a Requiem – and the most gently consoling Requiem of them […]
Following his still-little-known first account with Enrique Jorda on the podium and made nine years before his celebrated partnership with George Szell and the LSO, this is Clifford Curzon’s second recording for Decca of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, a work which defined his reputation in the 1950s and early 60s as an imperious yet deeply […]
Eduard van Beinum made three recordings of Brahms’s First Symphony, all with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of which he had become principal conductor after World War II. This newly remastered Eloquence album presents his second thoughts on the symphony, as it were, from September 1951. Cut from the same cloth as his Beethoven symphonies, Van Beinum’s […]
Ernest Ansermet’s complete Decca recordings of Frank Martin. The Swiss conductor regarded his countryman, Frank Martin as one of the two great composers of his time. He rejected the atonal system of music as ‘without musical meaning’ and even, late in life, turned against Igor Stravinsky whom he had championed earlier in his career. In […]
A newly compiled, generous, 4CD collection of high-octane Russian orchestral masterpieces, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the firebrand musicianship of Dutch maestro Edo de Waart. ‘In my profession,’ remarked Edo de Waart in a 1990 interview, ‘you need the affrontery to believe you have an alternative with something to say […]
What could be more fun than discovering the colours of classical music by visiting a zoo? A menagerie of birds and beasts come to life on this delightful collection – a perfect way to introduce to the wonderful world of classical music.
The perfect introduction to ballet music as little ballerinas take their first steps into the magical world of ballet. From sugar plums to fairy princes and skating couples to waltzing flowers, each track is carefully selected to delight young listeners.
In March 1959 and May 1963, respectively, Vera Lynn and Kenneth McKellar – two of Decca’s best-selling exclusive artists – went into the studio to record albums of nursery rhymes. Simply but deliciously scored with several touches of humour, the two collections were brought together by Decca in 1976 and issued as “The Wonderful World […]
