These rarities of sprightly, energetic and utterly charming music make a welcome return to the catalogue at budget price. A contemporary reaction to the first production is found in the diary of Count Zinzendorf, who found the subject ‘…extremely sad, lugubrious and frightening… Hell appears, furies dance with lighted torches and torment Don Juan; in […]
Among the many recordings of the complete Mozart Violin Concertos, this one, with the late Iona Brown directing the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from the violin, has lain dormant for far too long. Gramophone magazine welcomed it with the words: ‘a series which is outstanding for its freshness and spontaneity in a […]
Not all of Bach’s Cantatas were written for Sunday service. Here is a pair of humorous offerings performed with great charisma by the husband-wife duo of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Julia Varady.
The sequence of Italian operas on this recording take us from the birth of opera at the end of the sixteenth century to the first flowerings of the Classical period nearly 200 years later. The extraordinary power and agility of Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s voice comes fully into its own on this recording, allowing for a richness […]
Bringing together four of Mendelssohn’s earliest works, this collection also showcases Marriner and the Academy in one of their earliest recordings – that of three of the composer’s String Symphonies. Warmly recorded and virtuosically despatched, they are coupled with a scintillating (unnumbered) Piano Concerto by Mendelssohn, with John Ogdon as a fleet-fingered soloist.
Tippett never hesitated to go his own way. He was expelled from grammar school for attempting to convert his friends to atheism, espoused Trotskyism and, in 1943, was jailed for three months as a conscientious objector. Tippett’s time would come, by the 1960s and 70s, thanks to younger interpreters such as Colin Davis who were unfazed […]
A collection of music for strings, including the first complete appearance of a rare LP by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Rudolf Barshai of music by Bartók (one of the most invigorating “Divertimento” recordings ever made). Vivaldi is coupled with a selection of gleaming ‘Visions Fugitives’ (arranged by Barshai from Prokofiev’s piano pieces) and the […]
The stylish sweetness that Marriner and his Academy bring to Vivaldi have a place of their own in the pantheon of Vivaldi recordings. And these eight concertos amply testify this in their breezy melodiousness and sharpness of attack.
Returning to the catalogue, at budget price for the first time, is the delicious recording by Marriner and the Academy of Scandinavian works. The ‘Holberg Suite’ was recorded in 1970 whereas the rest of the program was taped seven years later. All of the recordings were made in the stunning Kingsway Hall acoustic.
Mozart’s sublime masterpiece for violin and viola, the Sinfonia Concertante, was recorded on a few occasions by Marriner, but strangely enough, this version with two of the Academy’s foremost musicians – Alan Loveday and Stephen Shingles – has lain buried in the archives. Now, it receives its first release on CD and likewise its coupling, […]
Simply idyllic, this 2CD set couples a traversal of English seasons with idyllic music for cello and orchestra by English composers, all rapturously performed by the Academy and Marriner.
There is no current listing of the 12 Fantasias in the RED CD catalogue and it happens to be a much-requested item from the Grumiaux back-catalogue. Here it makes its first appearance as an international CD release.
