An original Decca recording of the soprano, Jennifer Vyvyan, in English song repertoire, coupled with traditional folksongs with another much-loved English singer of the 1950s and 60s, Norma Procter. In the August 1953 issue of Opera magazine, the editor looked back on outstanding vocal achievements in the preceding season of opera. Drawing largely from stagings […]

A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, making their first appearance on Decca CD. As a church musician in Salzburg, the young Mozart was required to turn out a regular diet of masses and settings of the Vespers and Litanies. Sung at afternoon services on feast days, the Litany was a favourite form of Catholic […]

The role of Constanze in ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’ is famously one of the most demanding, not only among Mozart’s operas but in the entire dramatic coloratura repertoire. The singer should have youth on her side, yet the technique to master two long and taxing arias placed almost back to back and the emotional […]

A pioneering L’Oiseau-Lyre recording is reissued for the first time on Decca CD. Made during February 1957 in the West Hampstead studios of Decca, this was the first-ever complete recording of ‘The Fairy Queen’. Suites and individual dances from Purcell’s masque had been played and recorded by chamber and even symphonic ensembles and songs such […]

Compiled from several Decca recordings made between 1964 and 1988, this portrait of Auber was created at Richard Bonynge’s specific request and supervised by him. Most substantial of these recordings is the ballet version which Auber made from his opera ‘Marco Spada’: 65 minutes of scintillating dance music, in the adaptation made by Richard Bonynge […]

Through scholarship, performance and recording, Richard Bonynge has done more than any other modern-day musician to advance the cause of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, the foremost composer of opéra-comique in nineteenth-century Paris. What he wrote was ‘Simple, joyous and unsophisticated music,’ according to Bonynge: this is his sole recording of a complete opera by Auber. ‘Le Domino […]

Through many recordings on Supraphon, the sympathetic, dynamic relationship of Karel Ančerl with the Czech Philharmonic is well known, especially in native repertoire such as Dvořák and Smetana. To a lesser extent, his work late in life with the Toronto Symphony, once he had emigrated to Canada, is documented on CD. However, his brief but […]

With reissues of music from Haydn to Sibelius, Eloquence has returned to availability much of the recorded legacy of Eduard van Beinum, the chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam in the post-war years. This is the first time that his complete Mozart studio recordings have been gathered together in a single issue and […]

Between the controversial Mengelberg and the versatile Bernard Haitink, Eduard van Beinum played a less distinctive role as principal conductor of the Concertgebouw in the postwar years until his death in 1959 but it is difficult to overestimate the positive effect he had on that orchestra and the sincerity of his musicianship. Van Beinum described […]

The farewell performance of Dame Nellie Melba, world-famous prima donna of her day, on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she had sung hundreds of times over an unprecedented span of 40 years, remains a justly famous occasion, of which recorded extracts have been reissued previously. What makes the present release […]

This highly appealing collection of light-orchestral classics, gathers up eighteen years in the history of one of the world’s most celebrated orchestras during the golden age of the LP. Ever since its foundation in 1883, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam has been blessed with a hall that to all intents and purposes, belongs to them. […]

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 […]