Since the beginning of opera, the convention of the duet, in which two characters simultaneously express their feelings, has been one of the staple ploys of musical dramatists. Characters may join their voices in a unity of feeling, or in extreme disagreement, or in any one of the thousand shades in between; though in the […]
William Steinberg made only three recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and his Hindemith recordings, authoritative, sumptuously recorded and pulsating with energy, are among the most invaluable in the Hindemith discography. Barenboim’s coupling of ‘Der Schwanendreher’ is no less welcome, offering what is substantially an important 20th-century viola concerto and being a viola player himself, Hindemith’s writing […]
Debussy’s twenty-four Préludes, like Chopin’s, are surprisingly self-sufficient. Divided into two books, published in 1910 and 1913, the Préludes are an intimate record of Debussy’s inner and imaginative life. Their titles were after-thoughts rather than direct inspirations, largely because Debussy’s delicate and complex response to natural phenomena or human idiosyncrasy could hardly be contained or […]
Extremely rare, Ansermet’s Mozart recordings for Decca are now released on a 2CD set. The very diversity of the works makes for an interesting Mozart/Ansermet concert, led by an aristocratic reading of the ‘Prague’ Symphony and continuing with the second concerto with principal SRO flautist, André Pepin and a sublime account of the motet ‘Exsultate, […]
Ernerst Ansermet was the first conductor to record the six ‘Paris’ symphonies of Haydn. Charming works, full of humorous touches, they were reissued often on LP with some of the most entertaining covers ever seen (these are reproduced in the booklet).
Schubert and Jorge Bolet may seem rare bedfellows for a virtuoso who excelled in the music of Liszt and Rachmaninov and whose lineage extended, through his teacher David Saperton, to Leopold Godowsky (Saperton’s teacher). But he finds in this music both muscularity and strength and his grasp of the music’s visionary and often extensive and […]
The Ernest Ansermet Legacy on Decca Eloquence has garnered much critical acclaim from around the world and the more recent batch of releases includes his beautifully graded accounts of all the Saint-Saëns recordings he made for Decca. The ‘Organ Symphony’ dates from 1962 and ten years earlier, Ansermet and the SRO recorded the two other […]
Legendary cellist, Pierre Fournier’s stereo recording of the Dvořák Cello Concerto is well known but his earlier recording from July 1954 for Decca is largely forgotten. It’s revived in this Kubelik-led anthology also bringing back to the catalogue the conductor’s mono version of the Janáček Sinfonietta and his electrifying account of Tchaikovsky’s love poem ‘Romeo […]
Collected together on this CD are all the César Franck recordings Ansermet made for Decca. Led by his glorious account of the Symphony, it includes the ethereal ‘Les Éolides’ as well as the terrifying ‘Le chausseur maudit’ (The Accursed Huntsman).
One of the greatest joys for a music lover is to discover repertoire that one has not yet heard from a composer whose music one believes one was largely familiar. Beethoven’s folk song settings are truly a treat; this is easily the least familiar and least appreciated realm of his considerable output. What is probably […]
This and the other two 2CD sets – 4800830 and 4800837 – represent all of Ansermet’s Prokofiev recordings for Decca (with the exception of a mono recording of the March and Scherzo from The Love for Three Oranges). Both the Paris Conservatoire and the Suisse Romande versions of the ‘Classical’ Symphony are included.
While Handel’s Concerti Grossi are much performed and recorded, the exquisite Oboe Concertos and the grand Concerti a due cori are unfairly neglected. Bringing together both these sets of concerti, this generous 2CD set presents Neville Marriner’s Decca recordings of the former (one of his first) and Philips recordings of the latter. Included too, are […]
