Reissued to mark Colin Davis’s 80th birthday, this sublime Philips recording of ‘Dido and Aeneas’ makes a welcome return to the catalogue. The honeyed sound of its protagonists – Josephine Veasey (whom Colin Davis also chose as the Dido for his recording of Berlioz’s ‘Les Troyens’) and John Shirley-Quirk – is offset by a chaste-sounding Helen […]

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 […]

In addition to recording the Bach Violin Concertos with Henryk Szeryng, Neville Marriner and the Academy also recorded two LPs of arrangements (made by Christopher Hogwood) of harpsichord concertos. These colourful arrangements are for oboe, flute and violin in various combinations. They were issued originally on two Argo LPs to great critical acclaim and are […]

The partnership of Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is possibly the most recorded of all partnerships in recorded classical music. This collection brings together three of their very first recordings: ‘A Recital’, ‘A Second Recital’ and ‘Italian Concertos’, the three LPs receiving their first complete release on CD. The first […]

The partnership of Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is possibly the most recorded of all partnerships in recorded classical music. This collection brings together three of their earliest concerto recordings: ‘Baroque Trumpet Concertos, ‘Recital for Strings and ‘18th Century Flute Concertos’, the three LPs receiving their first complete release on CD. […]

Long out of the catalogue, Marriner’s (Philips) recording of Bach’s B Minor Mass, with an array of splendid soloists, returns to circulation. Its coupling is the first release on CD of this recording of the deeply moving Cantata BWV 56 ‘Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen’. It was one of two (extant) Bach cantatas for […]

Michael Haydn, brother of Joseph, was a highly proficient composer in his own right who earned the respect and affection of his contemporaries. A Gramophone reviewer described him thus: ‘He is a man whose character, it seems to me, always comes clearly through his music: he was cheerful, easygoing, unambitious (also, said the Mozarts, inclined […]

Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 13-16 date from a period when the composer was devoting a great deal of his time to symphonic writing, and are particularly interesting from the light they shed on his gradual moulding of the essentially lightweight opera sinfonia to the weightier symphonic manner of Haydn and his Viennese contemporaries. They were penned […]

‘Jephtha’ was the last full-length composition that Handel wrote. (‘The Triumph of Time and Truth’ of 1757 was almost entirely made up of pre-existing music.) Given this fact and also that the actual writing of it was an inordinately laborious task for Handel as he fought with rapidly failing eyesight, its incomparable depth of expression […]

During the 18th century, it was common for noblemen to employ numbers of musicians to entertain themselves and their guests, and to add dignity and colour to occasions of Church and State. Music was frequently written to form a pleasant background to dinners and parties. Serious or complex music would clearly have been inappropriate for […]

While Kiri Te Kanawa was still preparing for that career-defining debut as the Countess, she made a first Mozart disc under Colin Davis: a collection of sacred music, including the Solemn Vespers, KV 339, with its serene setting of ‘Laudate Dominum’, and Exsultate, jubilate. The Countess became the singer’s calling-card, and she repeated the role […]

The story of the birth of Jesus more than two thousand years ago has been the source of inspiration for countless poets and musicians, as well as practitioners of other forms of art. The infant, born of a virgin in a lowly cattle shed, because there was no room in the inn; the angel of […]