A new collection of Decca’s legendary ‘ffrr’ recordings from the early 1950s, made by an underrated Spanish master of orchestral colour in London and Paris. Includes several items new to CD. Enrique Jordá described conducting as a ‘hair-raising’ business, and his career never recovered from a very public dressing-down by George Szell while music director […]

Complete on CD for the first time, the Deutsche Grammophon legacy of cult violinist Johanna Martzy, and of violist Michael Mann. Five original DG albums complete on two CDs. The brilliant tone and discriminating taste of the recordings made by Johanna Martzy (1924-79) mark her out among the finest violinists of her generation. Her EMI […]

Six Violin Sonatas from the 20th century performed by German violinist Max Rostal and recorded for Argo and Deutsche Grammophon. Having fled from the Nazis and moved to London in 1934, the German violinist Max Rostal became a fixture of the English capital’s musical scene and an inspired interpreter of English music. With his regular […]

A trio of twentieth-century classics, sardonic and timely tales, in long-unavailable Decca/Argo recordings from the 1970s. Roberto Gerhard’s imagination was immediately fired by reading Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, La Peste, about a French-Algerian town in the sudden grip of bubonic plague. He determined to make a musical setting (The Plague), and after its premiere in […]

Collected for the first time – Erich Kleiber’s rare recordings with the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker made for Polydor/Grammophon and newly remastered for this release. Erich Kleiber’s appointment to the musical directorship of the Staatsoper Berlin in 1923 proved to be the making of his career. Hired on the strength of a single […]

Eugen Jochum’s complete recordings of choral / sacred music for Philips collected together for the first time. Includes the rare Rudolf Mengelberg Magnificat. Born into a Catholic family of Bavarian musicians, Eugen Jochum was playing the organ and conducting his father’s choir as a child. Late in life he became renowned as a Bruckner specialist, […]

From her legendary debut through the succeeding years, Jeanne Demessieux brought virtuosity allied to intellect and sensitivity, and went on to become the glory of the French organ school. This 8-CD celebration of one of the instrument’s most spoken-of, yet enigmatic figures, brings together for the first time her complete Decca recordings and a previously […]

Newly compiled for the first time, the Decca career of a pre-eminent Mozart conductor, complemented by his recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Westminster. Peter Maag began his career as a pianist, but turned to conducting with the encouragement of Wilhelm Furtwangler. He made his first Decca recording having lately turned 30, with the Suisse Romande […]

Four 1950s Decca records of popular English music, newly remastered and issued complete for the first time on CD. Better than anyone else, Eric Coates and Sir Noël Coward captured the moods of middle-class, mid-century England at its most optimistic – and in other ways most nostalgic, comforting their audiences and distracting them from their […]

Two first-ever releases from 1965 Philips sessions of 18th-century music for the stage conducted by the supremely versatile Sir Charles Mackerras. Eighteenth-century music had been a passion for Charles Mackerras ever since childhood. ‘What I particularly like is the beautiful symmetry of it,’ he said in 1977, ‘and the extremely florid decoration which you find […]

Mercury, Philips and Decca recordings of orchestral pops conducted by the supremely versatile Sir Charles Mackerras, including a pair of Strauss overtures new to CD. Few conductors, if any, have demonstrated the sheer versatility of Charles Mackerras. He could turn his sharp ear and his unfussy baton technique to every corner of classical repertoire, and […]

A master Beethoven conductor in his prime – a 12-CD set presenting the ‘London’ Beethoven recordings of Sir Colin Davis, including the Symphonies, a selection of Overtures, the five Piano Concertos (Stephen Kovacevich), Violin Concerto (Arthur Grumiaux) and the two Masses. These broadly-sung and spacious performances, unexaggerated yet alive, are collected together for the first […]