After the wealth of string quartets produced by the composers of High Classicism – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert – the leading figures of Romanticism were somewhat daunted by the expectations of their public. Felix Mendelssohn achieved a respectable total of six quartets but the three notable composers represented in this program managed only nine […]

In his most famous orchestral composition, ‘Scheherazade’, Rimsky-Korsakov, like Beethoven in his ‘Pastoral’ Symphony before him, was more interested in evoking feelings and impressions than in spoon-feeding listeners a pre-digested program. So the titles he provided for its four movements were indicative rather than based on particular stories from the ‘Arabian Nights’. Pierre Monteux’s recording, […]

In May 1946, when Milan’s venerable La Scala theatre reopened after World War II, conductor Arturo Toscanini selected Renata Tebaldi then 24, to sing music by Rossini and Verdi for that watershed concert. ‘Ah, la voce d’angelo’ – the voice of an angel – was Toscanini’s reported verdict. In her heyday, she was known as […]

All three works on this CD feature the flute and all feature Pierre Monteux collaborating with his son, Claude. Bach composed some music for the recorder but it is outnumbered by his works for transverse flute which he called the ‘traversiere’. In his Orchestral Suite No. 2, Bach gave the ‘traversiere’ a starring role. Although […]

On 22 January 1785, Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote from Salzburg to his daughter, Nannerl, retelling the news ‘that last Saturday (Wolfgang) performed his six quartets [in truth probably just KV 387, 421 and 428] for his dear friend Haydn and other good friends and that he has sold them to Artaria for a hundred ducats’. […]

‘The Gondoliers’ is the sunniest of all the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas and was one of the most harmonious collaborations between two such temperamentally incompatible yet artistically well-matched men. The morning after the rapturously received opening night in December 1889, Gilbert wrote to Sullivan: ‘I must thank you for the magnificent work you have […]

In 1948, the young Hungarian conductor, Ferenc Fricsay (1914–1963) who had studied with Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, was invited to Berlin to become chief conductor of the RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) Symphonie Orchester and chief conductor of the Städtische Oper (today, the Deutsche Oper Berlin). The RIAS Symphonie Orchester changed its name […]

‘Queen Victoria loved music for music’s sake and singing appealed especially to her. It was a joy, a necessity to her to hear music every day and to keep in contact with the musicians of her time. Artists met with the most charming and graceful reception and the Queen always entertained herself for a long […]

This recording will make you smile. Two of the most accomplished opera singers of the twentieth century turn their attention to some of the best known songs from Broadway musicals, and the effect is ‘Wunderbar’! Cesare Siepi was a prolific recording artist on 78rpm records before making a number of outstanding LP sets for Decca. […]

These new re-masterings cast fresh light on seminal recordings of ‘Cavalleria rusticana’ and ‘Pagliacci’ both featuring Mario del Monaco. He was in his prime when he recorded Turiddu and Canio, and his performances in both recordings could hardly be more spine-tingling. ‘Cavalleria rusticana’ was recorded in 1954 and ‘Pagliacci’ in 1953. Franco Ghione’s feeling for the lyricism […]

With its roots in the mid-nineteenth century English opera tradition of Balfe and Wallace, ‘The Yeomen of the Guard’, is an integrated hybrid of operetta and romantic opera that combines the sparkling essence of previous Savoy successes with heightened drama and emotion while its score is also free from the earnestness in which much of […]

George Malcolm, who died in 1997, irreverently called the harpsichord the ‘jangle box’, yet he was a master of that instrument and of several other musical domains as well. Of Scottish ancestry, he was born in London in 1917 and when he was just seven he was admitted to the Royal College of Music. He […]