Swaggering performances of Americana from two celebrated conductors whose interpretation of this music ranks amongst the very finest.

Never has a more sublime recording of German Opera Choruses been made. Varviso and his Leipzig and Dresden teams deliver some of the most ravishing sonorities you’ll ever here in a compilation that focuses on Wagner and is surrounded by Weber, Nicolai and Beethoven.

One of the most fizzing, entertaining recordings of ‘The Barber of Seville’, brought off with tremendous panache by the principals with instinctively shaped, pliant playing from the Naples orchestra under Silvio Varviso.

Two murders, an attempted rape and a suicide, all packed into about a hundred minutes, makes for spellbinding drama. And this performance of highlights from ‘Tosca’ is just that, in one of Tebaldi’s early recordings for Decca.

This is Renata Tebaldi’s first (and more silvery) recording of ‘Madama Butterfly’ with some very strong singing from the supporting cast.

One of the most touching portrayals of Puccini’s immortal opera, this recording includes all the favourite arias and ensemble pieces.

The legendary 1972 recording of Mahler’s First Symphony, here beautifully remastered for super-budget release. Haitink conveys all the joy and the angst beneath Mahler’s score and the recording has warmth and bloom.

From Decca’s rich catalogue of piano music comes a generous selection of miniatures for piano, many of them quiet, all of them popular and much sought-after, in the finest of performances, of course.

Hymn singing is a wonderful way for people of all backgrounds, regardless of faith, regardless of any particular musical ability, to join together in worship and in song. It’s very often the text, rather than the tune to which it is set that has ensured a hymn’s lasting popularity. Indeed some of these texts, though […]

The incomparable strings of the Vienna Philharmonic and the airborne singing of the Vienna State Opera Chorus are just two highlights of this memorable recording of Schubert’s Incidental Music for ‘Rosamunde’. It is here released for the first time on CD.

Some of the most legendary recordings of these highly popular works for violin by Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens and Bruch, together on a single CD.

Delius wrote no more poignant a piece than ‘Sea Drift’ – a Walt Whitman setting of lost love as seen through the eyes of a little boy. His African-American-inspired ‘Appalachia’, a magnificent set of variations on a Slavic song is the other major work on this recording and two miniatures conducted by Marriner complete it. […]