A 22-CD celebration of the doyenne of organists on her 80th birthday (17 January 2021) spanning her illustrious career of nearly five decades. ‘Weir is to the organ what Heifetz was to the violin, and Casals to the cello – a phenomenon,’ pronounced the celebrated broadcaster John Amis. Fittingly, this is a 22-CD celebration of […]
From Adam to Zandonai, from 1954 to 1996, 20 CDs made up of no less than 28 Decca opera recordings, most of them recorded as highlights albums, many long unavailable, newly remastered and all featuring the greatest singers of their age. In bygone years, before 24/7 streaming, recorded music was less readily available than it […]
A debut on CD for the American Decca legacy of Ruth Slenczynska, a prodigious Romantic-age keyboard lioness. The biography for her Wigmore Hall recital in March 1957 claimed that the 32-year-old Ruth Slenczynska had given 1600 concerts. Scarcely believably, perhaps, but no less so than other elements of her extraordinary life story – making her […]
Hans Christian Andersen, the film, was produced in the spring of 1952 and released on 25 November in New York, with general release following in December that year. It was one of the top ten grossing films of the year, but was not well received in Andersen’s hometown of Odense, when it was released in […]
From Monteverdi to Brahms via French Baroque rarities: the Decca Gold (US) legacy of a complete musician, newly remastered and issued complete for the first time, with fascinating liner notes by Nigel Simeone. Original Jackets, Limited Edition. Composer, teacher, organist, pianist, harpsichordist, choir trainer, conductor, musicologist: there seemed to be no end to the talents […]
Dame Joan Sutherland’s personal selection of her favourite recordings, with her own liner notes. Tributes from Moffatt Oxenbould and Fiona Janes, previously unpublished photographs, a series of costume designs for her key operatic roles, and illustrations of all the original jackets from which the selection was made. Plus her recipe for Christmas Pudding, all issued […]
A collection of short stories for Christmas, written and adapted for American children of the 1940s and 1950s and featuring stars of the silver screen, including several first-time official CD issues. In the days when families gathered around the wireless and the radiogram, Christmas stories made popular entertainment for children and adults alike. The most […]
The inspirational French maestro on disc: an unrivalled retrospective, covering three decades of incandescent music-making, including recordings new to CD and long unavailable, newly remastered and comprehensively documented. In the memories of most record-buyers, Charles Munch was indelibly and almost exclusively associated with the RCA label, thanks to a string of spectacular albums made during […]
A tribute to the late Ida Haendel, comprising her complete Decca Recordings (1940–1997), newly remastered, as well as her performances at the 1982 Huberman Festival. Lavishly illustrated, Original Jackets, Limited Edition. On her death in July 2020, obituaries worldwide paid glowing tributes to the effervescence of the violinist Ida Haendel, in both her playing and […]
‘Like most of the great European conductors,’ wrote the critic Harold C. Schonberg, ‘[Schmidt-Isserstedt] has been brought up in a tradition that insists on selflessness before great music. The aim of conducting, as he sees it, is to bring out the message of the composer and not the skill.’ These virtues distinguish his Mozart conducting […]
Newly remastered, and new to CD, the dramatically charged Dvořák recordings made by Hans-Schmidt-Isserstedt for Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, coupled with the composer’s (and Brahms) folkloric dances. Eloquence pays tribute to the self-effacing art of Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973) combining three LPs onto a 2-CD set – all recorded during his postwar reinvention as a symphonic […]
Noted for his Haydn and Mozart and for his affinity with 20th-century music from Berg to Bartók to Messiaen, the Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti also demonstrated a particularly idiomatic flair in presenting music of the early romantic era. Of these Mendelssohn and Schuman recordings, all but the Minneapolis ‘Italian’ Symphony are in stereo. Unlike many […]
