Victoria de los Angeles – The Voice of an Angel

The distinguished Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles (1923-2005) was one of the best-loved classical singers of the second half of the 20th century. With a voice of exceptional beauty, she sang a wide range of operatic roles, a surprisingly large repertoire of German and French songs as well as the music of her native Spain, which she always included in her concerts. She made many recordings for EMI, with whom she had an exclusive contract for the major part of her career, and this collection brings together some of the finest of her recorded performances.

Each of the 7 CDs covers a separate part of the singer’s repertory, beginning with her early recordings of operatic arias, Spanish songs and Bachianas brasileiras No.5, for which the composer Villa Lobos specially chose de los Angeles for his authoritative recording in 1956. Among the items on CD 1 are two arias from Falla’s opera La vida breve, in which the singer caused a sensation in the UK when she first sang it on the BBC in 1948.

CD 2 covers Italian opera and includes de los Angeles’ exquisite Mimì from a famous recording of La bohème under Sir Thomas Beecham. Her partner in La bohème, the inimitable Jussi Björling, also appears with her in Pagliacci and Madama Butterfly, and the disc ends with de los Angeles as Violetta in La traviata.

CD 3 is devoted to French opera, including Massenet’s Manon and Gounod’s Faust and concludes with a generous selection from Bizet’s Carmen featuring Nicolai Gedda as Don José and conducted by Beecham.

CD 4 begins with a selection of popular songs with German, French, English, Italian and Spanish words, performed in orchestral arrangements by Douglas Gamley. These are followed by an attractive group of arias from zarzuelas, the Spanish form of light opera.

CD 5 is devoted entirely to a selection of Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne.

CD 6 begins with French Art Songs, followed by duets with the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau covering compositions by Purcell, Haydn, J. C. Bach, Beethoven, Dvorák and Tchaikovsky. It concludes with two pieces recorded live at the concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 20 February 1968 in which de los Angeles performed with Fischer-Dieskau and the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf to pay homage to that doyen of accompanists, Gerald Moore.

CD 7 is devoted to music of Spain, which was never absent from the singer’s recitals, and to which her audiences looked forward with special anticipation. Near the end of the disc she is heard accompanying herself on the guitar in the song ‘Adiós, Granada’, which she often performed as the final encore at her recitals. The programme ends with two songs by Granados recorded live at a recital at Hunter College, New York, in 1971 in which the accompanist is the Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha.

Claudio Arrau - Virtuoso Philosopher of the Piano

Claudio Arrau was born on 6th February 1903. Such was his prodigious talent that he gave his first public recital in Santiago at the age of five.

When he was nine he was sent, with support of the Chilean Government, to study in Berlin where he was a pupil of Martin Krause at Stern’s Conservatory for six years, he never went to another teacher.

He received many awards during his student days such that his name was already in circulation when he gave extensive tours in Germany and Scandinavia following his first recital in Berlin in 1914. He embarked on a tour of Europe after WW1. Conductors of the highest calibre - Nikisch, Mengelberg and Furtwängler amongst them - accompanied him.

After a successful return visit to his homeland in 1921 he visited London the following year where he appeared in a concert with Dame Nellie Melba and Bronislaw Huberman, the violinist who, at the age of 14, had won Brahms admiration for his performance of his concerto. In 1923 he toured the USA.

He joined the staff of Stern’s Conservatory in 1924 and taught there until 1940. In Berlin he played the complete works of Bach over 12 concerts but decided that the piano was not the instrument for these works and never played them in public again. Leaving Berlin in 1940 he returned to Chile, where in its capital, Santiago, he founded a piano school. It was whilst on a highly successful tour of the USA during the following year that he decided to settle his family in New York.

Arrau’s reputation is built on his special affinity for the music of Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and, above all, Beethoven whose complete sonatas he played in many major cities. His performances had all the virtuoso technique required but it was accomplished without the least ostentation; for him the music was what should remain in the audience’s ear and should not be disturbed by the flamboyance of the pianist in the audience’s eye.

Twenty years have passed since he departed but these recordings will bring back happy memories for all those lucky enough ever to have attended his concerts.

Janet Baker – The Beloved Mezzo

Janet Baker was born in Yorkshire in August 1933 and studied locally and then in London. In 1956 she made her opera debut in the Oxford University Opera Group and appeared for the first time at Glyndebourne. Gaining much experience with the Handel Opera Society and English Opera Group she made her debut with the Royal Opera in 1966. She became a favourite artist there, Glyndebourne and with Scottish Opera. Her voice was noted for its dramatic intensity and with her vivid stage personality she was an outstanding singing actress. These qualities she was able to transfer to recordings through her utter conviction and intense projection of the words. Her musical range was enormous, from Lute Songs through Monteverdi and the Baroque right up to the works written especially for her by composers such as Britten and Walton. Although she made many remarkable recordings it is probably those made with Sir John Barbirolli, especially Elgar and Mahler, which feature on so many people’s choices for “Desert Island Discs”. She was awarded D.B.E. in 1976, the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal in 1990 and made a Companion of Honour in 1994.

Jussi Björling – the Swedish Caruso

This 5 CD set showcasing the talents of the tenor Jussi Björling is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

The famous Swedish opera star Jussi Björling (1911-1960) was essentially a lyric tenor with the added ability to sing dramatic roles, which enabled him to excel in almost the whole of the Italian and French operatic repertoire.

Björling recorded exclusively for EMI from the beginning of his career for more than a decade, initially for EMI’s Swedish branch and later for EMI Classics. The 78 rpm recordings he made throughout the 1930s were among the company’s best selling vocal discs of their day, and in the LP era during the 1950s he made three outstanding complete operas for EMI.

This 5 CD set covers the best of Björling’s EMI solo recordings and includes highlights from the three complete operas:

Dennis Brain - The Horn Player

The four discs in the Dennis Brain set comprise all the recordings he made for EMI in the 14 short years he was active in the studio. The earliest sessions date from 21 June 1943 and the last from 22 August 1957, just days before his fatal car crash whilst returning from the Edinburgh Festival of that year. He was just 36 years old.

Montserrat Caballé - Great Operatic Recordings

This 4 CD set showcasing the talents of the opera singer Montserrat Caballé is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

• The famous Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé was one of the world’s leading operatic divas during the latter part of the 20th century.

• Her repertoire was wide, and went from the bel canto works of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, through Verdi, Puccini and the verismo operas of Leoncavallo and Mascagni to works by contemporary composers of the day.

• She recorded extensively for EMI throughout the 1970s, when she made several albums of operatic arias and duets as well a number of complete operas.

• This 4 CD set brings together the best of Caballé’s EMI recordings and includes highlights from all her complete operas, in which her tenor partners were fellow Spaniards Placido Domingo and José Carreras as well as her husband Bernabé Martí.

• The operatic composers whose works are included in the set are Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Verdi, Puccini, Boito, Giordano, Mascagni and Leoncavallo, and some of the operas represented are La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot, Gianni Schicchi, I puritani, Il pirata, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Aida, Don Carlo, Otello, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci and Mefistofele.

• As well as many outstanding operatic items, the set also includes some Spanish songs, namely ‘Las Fuentecitas del Parque’ from Canto a Sevilla by Turina and a complete performance of the delightful Cinco canciones negras by Montsalvatge.

Franco Corelli – The Tenor as Hero

This 4 CD set, devoted to the famous Italian tenor Franco Corelli, is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

• Franco Corelli began his stage career in Italy in 1951. With his powerful voice, charismatic stage presence and film-star good looks he soon became one of the 20th century’s outstanding operatic superstars.

• He first came to prominence when he sang opposite Maria Callas at La Scala, Milan, in a production of La vestale in 1954. He subsequently partnered Callas at La Scala in Fedora and Poliuto and later appeared with her at the end of her stage career in Norma in Paris in 1964 and Tosca in New York in 1965.

• Corelli made a spectacular debut at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in January 1961 in Verdi’s Il trovatore. He quickly became the Met’s leading tenor and performed there every season until 1974.

• He recorded extensively for EMI throughout the 1960s, when he made a number of complete operas as well as several albums of operatic arias and songs.

• This 4 CD set brings together the best of Corelli’s EMI recordings. From his operatic catalogue come a substantial number of arias, as well as duets with Birgit Nilsson, Mirella Freni, Antonietta Stella and Gabriella Tucci.

• The operatic composers whose works are included in the set are Bellini, Donizetti, Catalani, Ponchielli, Cilea, Massenet, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Verdi, Puccini, Giordano, Mascagni and Leoncavallo, and some of the operas represented are Turandot, I puritani, Norma, Un ballo in maschera, Il trovatore, La forza del destino, Aida, Roméo et Juliette, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. .

• In addition to the operatic material, there are a large number of songs, including popular Neapolitan titles such as ‘Core ’ngrato’, ‘Torna a Surriento’ and ‘’O sole mio’, plus other items like ‘Granada’, Schubert’s Ave Maria and the Ingemisco from Verdi’s Requiem.

• This album also includes a song recorded in Milan in 1961: ‘Si tu m’amais’ by Luigi Denza, that has never been issued either on LP or on CD since its initial release only in Italy in 1962 on a 45 rpm single.

Alfred Cortot – the Master Pianist

Alfred Cortot was born at Nyon, Switzerland in 1877 and died at Lausanne in 1962. He was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor and one of the most popular 20th century musicians, especially renowned for his poetic insight into Romantic piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.

In 1905 Cortot formed a trio with Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals which established itself as the leading piano trio of the day. From 1907 to 1923 Cortot taught at the Paris Conservatoire, where his pupils included many of the greatest pianist of the century: Clara Haskil, Dinu Lipatti, Vlado Perlemuter. In 1919 he founded the École Normale de Musique de Paris where his courses in musical interpretation were legendary. Extremely widely travelled as a pianist, he also appeared as guest conductor with many orchestras.

Possibly because of his lifelong championship of Teutonic musical culture he was a supporter of the German occupation in France during the Second World War and played in Nazi-sponsored concerts and worked for the Vichy regime. His Vichy connections, in particular, led to him being declared persona non grata after the Liberation and he was banned from performing publicly in France, although he continued to be well received as a recitalist in other countries, notably Italy and Britain.

This set of 7 CDs brings together a substantial number of Cortot's EMI recordings and features all the composers for whose music he showed a particular love and affinity. The set also contains many of the famous recordings that Cortot made with Casals and Thibaud in the 1920s.

A set to be treasued by all lovers of great piano playing.

Giuseppe Di Stefano – The Opera Singer

The Italian tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, who died on 3 March 2008 aged 86, was one of the finest opera singers of his day. He was blessed with a lyric tenor voice of great beauty, as well as a bright, open tone, and possessed the ability to bring vividly to life the characters he played, both on stage and in the recording studio. He began his career in lighter roles like Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, but later graduated to heavier parts such as Alvaro in La forza del destino and Canio in Pagliacci. He first appeared at La Scala in March 1947 as Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon, and in February 1948 he made his New York debut at the Metropolitan Opera as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto. In the same year he was also heard for the first time in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, and he went on throughout the 1950s to enjoy a career of uninterrupted success, centred mainly on La Scala and the Met.

He recorded extensively for EMI for the first decade or so of his career, and after making several recordings of popular songs in 1944 in Lausanne, he consolidated his position as a recording artist in the years that followed with a series of operatic arias and Italian folksongs in London and Milan, as well as some titles for RCA Victor in New York. In 1953, the EMI producer Walter Legge teamed Di Stefano with Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi in a recording of Lucia di Lammermoor in Florence and then went on during the next five years to make a series of unrivalled recordings of Italian operas with the same artists at La Scala. They remain to this day the benchmark against which all subsequent recordings of the same works are judged, and the 1953 Tosca conducted by Victor de Sabata is now generally acknowledged to be one of the finest recordings ever made. Di Stefano also appeared in several of Callas’s greatest stage successes at La Scala, including the 1954 Lucia di Lammermoor under Herbert von Karajan and the 1955 Traviata under Carlo Maria Giulini: live recordings of both are also available on EMI.

In the early 1950s, when the operatic catalogue of EMI was led by three of the greatest sopranos of the time – Maria Callas, Victoria de los Angeles and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – it was Giuseppe di Stefano who carried the banner for tenors, and he did it with great style. All his recorded performances capture not only his glorious voice, but also his outgoing and exuberant personality, which made him so popular both on stage and off. Like Callas, his glory days were relatively short, but his talent burned brightly and he is remembered with great affection by all lovers of Italian opera.

Edwin Fischer – Piano Playing from the Heart

The Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer (1886–1960) first came to prominence in the 1920s. In 1932 he formed his own chamber orchestra, and was one of the first performers to be interested in presenting music of the Baroque era in an historically accurate way. Though his performances were not particularly historically accurate, he did conduct concertos by the likes of Bach and Mozart from the keyboard, which at the time was most unusual. His interpretations, even of Bach, were romantically conceived, but still compelling.

The first five CDs in this set are devoted to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, beginning with a number of keyboard concertos with Fischer as both soloist and conductor. Then comes Fischer's complete Well-Tempered Clavier, recorded between 1933 and 1936, which is one of the landmarks of the Bach discography. This recording remains the yardstick against which all pianists measure themselves in this repertoire.

CDs 6, 7 and 8 are devoted to music by Mozart and include a number of solo works as well as five major concertos, two of which are conducted from the keyboard by Fischer himself.

CDs 9 and 10 move to Beethoven and include a magnificent performance of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, as well as Concertos Nos 3 & 4 conducted by Fischer from the keyboard. Also heard are Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Appassionata’ piano sonatas.

The next CD includes eight solo Impromptus and six Moments musicaux by Schubert, and the final CD is devoted to a live performance of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.2 conducted by Furtwängler made at a concert in Berlin in November 1942, coupled with a 1939 studio recording of the Adagio from Furtwangler’s Symphonic Concerto in B minor.

Kirsten Flagstad – The Supreme Wagnerian Soprano

This 5 CD set, devoted to the famous Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

Kirsten Flagstad (1895–1962) enjoyed a successful career singing opera and operetta in Scandanavia, and was considering retirement when she was catapulted to international fame in 1935 after a sensational appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York singing Sieglinde, Isolde and Brünnhilde.

From 1935 until her retirement from the stage in 1953 she was the leading Wagnerian soprano of her day. Her powerful, radiant voice and seemingly inexhaustible vocal stamina were ideally suited to the most taxing roles in Wagner’s operas and she was universally acclaimed, especially as Isolde and Brünnhilde. She scored a particular success at Covent Garden and sang there under the three most famous Wagner conductors of the time: Reiner, Beecham and Furtwängler.

The first CD in the set opens with a group of Baroque arias by Handel, Bach, Purcell and Gluck that show off to advantage Flagstad’s superb voice and impeccable musicality. The remainder of this CD consists of Arne Dørumsgaard’s attractive arrangements of classical arias and songs from the collection Canzone scordate.

In her concert repertoire, Flagstad specialised in Norwegian songs and made many recordings of the vocal music of Grieg as well as other Scandanavian composers like Alf Hurum, Ole Bull and Christian Sinding, all of whom are represented on CD 2.

The third CD beings with a group of songs by Schubert, Beethoven, Bridge and Dørumsgaard, after which Flagstad gives a superb account of the five Wesendonck Lieder that Wagner wrote while composing Tristan und Isolde. This CD concludes with Elisabeth’s prayer ‘Allmächt’ge Jungfrau’ from Tannhäuser and ‘Siegmund! Sieh’ auf mich’ in which Brünnhilde tells Siegmund of his forthcoming death in the second act of Die Walküre. Siegmund is sung by the tenor Set Svanholm, who was one of Flagstad’s regular partners in the theatre and on disc.

The remaining two discs include extensive excerpts from Siegfried, Götterdämmerung and Tristan und Isolde, with Set Svanholm as Siegfried and Ludwig Suthaus as Tristan. The complete recording of Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, is considered to be one of the finest opera recordings ever made.

Pierre Fournier – The Aristocrat of Cellists

Pierre Fournier was born in Paris on 24 June in 1906 the son of a French army general. He was known for his lyrical playing and his impeccable artistic sensitivity and this, during his lifetime, earned him the title 'the aristocrat of cellists'.

Fournier was first taught piano by his mother but at the age of nine he suffered a mild case of polio and lost some of the agility in his legs and feet. He was no longer able to master the use of the piano pedals and so turned to the cello.

At the age of 17 he graduated from the Conservatoire in Paris and was hailed as 'the cellist of the future', winning praise for his virtuosity and bowing technique. During the 1920s he played in the Krettly String Quartet and joined the Concerts Colonne Orchestra. His growing fame brought him into contact with all the great musicians of the time and he started recording with many of them.

Fournier's catalogue of EMI recordings is not extensive but, as illustrated by this 7-CD set, it covers a wide range of music from Bach to Poulenc, all recorded over a period of 34 years – from 1937 to 1971.

Fournier remained an active performer almost to the end of his life. One of his last concerts was in London when he was 78. He died in 1986.

Samson François – The Chopin Recordings

Samson’s early recordings, dating from the end of the 1940s, were mainly devoted to Frédéric Chopin, who already occupied a prominent position in his concert programmes.

The height of Samson’s art is probably to be found in the ballades (recorded between 26 and 28 October 1954, and first issued as an immensely successful 10" LP) and the dazzling interpretation of the nocturnes (recorded in May and June 1966).

In the ballades and the nocturnes Samson establishes an all-embracing colour with the aid of the loud pedal, although he modulates its power and creates a rainbow effect through the highly skilled, yet quite unpredictable use of the soft pedal. This alternation between the two pedals gives a breathless feeling to his approach. You will never find there the peaceful, semi-philosophical havens, nor the “landscaped” perspectives of neo-Classical pastoralism favoured by so many of his fellow artists, notably in the Fourth Ballade.

Samson strikes a balance between the visual and the narrative. The harmonic suspensions, which form the nub of the ballades, seem as if they are absorbed by this visionary ability, and all that preceded and all that followed could only be narration. Rarely have other pianists taken a similar view, and only Claudio Arrau – in his legendary first recording of the ballades made in 1953 – evolved within this perspective.

The nocturnes, recorded twelve years later, in 1966, possess the same burnished colour that characterises a Rembrandt background, despite the more analytical clarity cast by stereo sound. Once again it is Arrau, who, by voluntarily darkening his range of colours, seems to come nearest to this sultry vision of the nocturnes, while another leading interpreter of the cycle, the Polish pianist Stefan Askenase, was to fix his gaze obstinately in the direction of moonlight and the bel canto aesthetic.

If we are to go by the history of gramophone recording, no other pianist before him had discovered the personal, inimitable accent which Samson gives to the melodic pattern of these works, and which was not to be taken up by any other: over-intimate, perhaps, or over-rhapsodic, it is stylistically close to improvisation. If Samson still seems to be following a given declamatory scheme in the ballades, then the range of styles and expressiveness which he deploys for the abundant inventiveness of the nocturnes, has nothing to do with the innermost nature of the interpreter. For a good decade, Samson did not go back on his beliefs: he reinforced them.

Samson’s life was abruptly cut short in 1970 at a ridiculously early age – he was 46. Neither as pupil nor as teacher did he have any interest in pedagogy. Was this because he chose to keep his distance from all relationship or dependency? There is something of the stateless person in Samson’s pianistic style.

Furthermore, it seems very difficult to compare his art with that of other pianists. However, those French pianists of the new generation who have rediscovered Chopin (in large part thanks to Samson’s recordings), would seem to be in his debt.

Mirella Freni – The Opera Singer

Like Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni was also born in 1935 and was a native of Modena. She began singing at a very early age. She was soon heard by Gigli, who advised her to take up serious vocal studies and in 1955 she made her début at Modena as Micaela in Bizet's Carmen. The association of Mirella Freni and EMI has been a long and fruitful one and some of her most notable recordings appear on the label. This 4-CD set includes examples of some of her most successful roles, including four excerpts from Mascagni's L'amico Fritz with Pavarotti and some material new to CD.

Nicolai Gedda – Lyric Poet of the Tenor Voice

Harry Gustavus Nicolai Gedda was born in Sweden in July 1925 into a musical home.

His father, Mikhail Ustinov, was born in Russia and became choirmaster of the Russian Orthodox Church in Leipzig in 1928, Gedda learnt to read music and sung in a children’s quartet; he also became fluent in five languages – speaking Swedish and Russian with his parents and at school he learnt German, English and French. After his family returned to Sweden he continued his singing as a boy soprano.

He did not sing for two years following his voice breaking but then he found, when singing in the bath, that he had developed a light, rather high tenor. Although he had perfect pitch and loved music he did not think of making it a professional career so, on leaving high school, he joined a Stockholm bank. One day a customer, a player in the Royal Opera orchestra, heard him speak about wishing to sing and advised him to call on Carl Oehmann as he was Sweden’s best teacher. Gedda chose Donizetti’s bel canto classic Una furtive lagrima, Oehmann enthused that only the great Jussi Björling had ever sung it so beautifully and duly accepted him as a pupil at the age of 24. After a few months he passed the audition to study for two years at the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm on a musical scholarship.

In 1952 two of his teachers, who were also the conductor and producer of the Royal Opera, decided that he should play the lead in Adam’s Le Postillon de Longjumeau. After two months preparation he made his debut on 8th April and was an immediate success. News soon reached London of the Swedish sensation and he was given the chance of recording Dmitri in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov conducted by Issay Dobrowen and starring Boris Christoff. His prowess was not limited to opera but his highly sensitive light tenor voice was suited to Bach and Karajan chose him to record the B minor mass in the same year; fifteen years later he was the choice of Klemperer.

He was soon singing major roles in all the top opera houses throughout the world. He could not, though, try out new roles in minor theatres as he was too much in demand, so it was indeed fortunate that he had studied well with excellent teachers and this ensured he had a firm technical and stylistic base on which to develop each role he was offered.

He was always a highly intelligent artist and he knew his vocal limitations so never took on roles which were beyond his capabilities – he sang Lohengrin but no other Wagner operas for instance. Not that these restrictions caused any lack of repertoire, on the contrary he thoroughly enjoyed the world of operetta and musical songs following his great idol Richard Tauber.

Other great influences were Gigli and Schipa whose lyrical grace and delicacy Gedda always attempted to emulate. He was also the choice of the three leading sopranos – Callas, de los Angeles and Schwarzkopf – for a number of operatic recordings whilst for operetta it was Anneliese Rothenberger.

This collection encompasses all areas of his career and many of his finest recordings, including numerous from his favourite composers, Mozart, Donizetti, Puccini, Bizet and Massenet for operas and Schubert (a complete Die schöne Müllerin) for Lieder.

His talent for languages is covered with German, French, Italian, Russian and English operas or choral works and Lieder in those languages and Norwegian, Swedish, Finish and Spanish. Some of the German light songs and all the Russian Folksings appear on CD for the first time.

Walter Gieseking – Poet of the Keyboard

Born 5 November 1895 in Lyon, Gieseking's parents were Germans living in France at the time. Although having taken up the piano at the age of four he did not begin formal studies until the age of 11, when he went to Hanover to be taught by Karl Leimer. He served as a regimental bandsman in World War I and, after demobilisation, took up music as a career as accompanist and opera coach. As a recitalist he included much new music in his programmes, advocating the works of Schoenberg, Busoni, Szymanowski, Hindemith and Pfitzner. Gieseking's first London concert took place in 1923 with some success and his US début followed in 1926 with a performance of Hindemith's Piano Concerto.

Gieseking spent the years of World War II in Germany and also occasionally performed in German-occupied France. After the war he stood accused of being a Nazi-collaborator but was soon cleared of any pro-Nazi activities and continued his career as an international soloist.

Gieseking was in the process of recording all the Beethoven sonatas at EMI's Abbey Road Studios when he died during the night of 26 October 1956.

Although Gieseking's repertoire was extremely wide, taking in the works of many of his contemporaries, today he is remembered as an unsurpassed interpreter of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Ravel, and it is the music of these composers that is mainly featured in this 8-CD set.

Beniamino Gigli – Tenor Legend

Beniamino Gigli was the most popular and successful Italian tenor in the first half of the 20th century. Acclaimed as the second Caruso, he was a great popular favourite both on the operatic stage and the concert platform from his debut in 1914 to his retirement in 1955.

Gigli recorded extensively for HMV (now EMI) and his records were among the company’s best sellers for many years.

This ICON set covers the whole of Gigli’s recording career, starting with his very first records made in Milan in October and November 1918 to his farewell concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, in April 1955.

The programme begins with some of Gigli’s early 78 rpm records of operatic arias, duets and ensembles, made up to the middle of the 1930s. Then come extracts from the recordings of complete operas that Gigli made from 1934 onwards, starting with highlights from one of his most famous roles, the tragic clown Canio in Pagliacci by Leoncavallo.

Then come further extracts from Gigli’s famous complete recordings of La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Cavalleria rusticana, Andrea Chénier and Un ballo in maschera, followed by more solo recordings from 1940 onwards, climaxing with a spectacular ‘Nessun dorma’ made in 1949.

Gigli’s honeyed tone and his ability to infuse his singing with a great deal of light and shade made him a perfect interpreter of songs, including Neapolitan and Italian popular songs as well as classic ballads. CDs 5 and 6 present a wide selection of this repertoire including such popular titles as ‘’O sole mio’, ‘La danza’, ‘Mattinata’ and ‘La paloma’.

The final CD begins with some of Gigli’s last recordings of popular songs, including the delightful ‘Papaveri e papere’ (‘Poppies and ducks’) and ends with a live recording of Gigli’s farewell concert to an adoring audience at Carnegie Hall, New York, in April 1955 that includes a generous selection of operatic arias and songs from his extensive repertoire.

Emil Gilels – Complete EMI Recordings

Emil Gilels started studying the piano at the age of six at the Institute of Music and Drama in his home town of Odessa. Following a successful debut in 1929 he moved to the Odessa Conservatoire and it was there two years later that Artur Rubinstein heard him and remarked “If he ever comes to America, I may as well pack by bags and go.” In 1933 he won the first prize in the first All-Union Musicians Competition in Moscow but he returned to complete his studies in Odessa and graduated in 1935. He attended master classes with Heinrich Neuhaus in Moscow and heard (and later admitted to having been greatly influenced by) many foreign artists in those years, including Petri, Cortot, Gieseking and Arrau.

Winning second prize at the Vienna International Competition in 1936 was followed by winning first prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Festival in Brussels in 1938. He started to teach at the Moscow Conservatoire and was due to have played at the 1939 New York World Fair, but the war intervened and it was not until 1947 that he gave his first concerts outside Russia – France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and Denmark.

It was in France that he made his first recording for EMI – the Saint-Saëns second concerto in 1954 which was followed a year later by the Rachmaninov third concerto and the Chopin second sonata. In that year he also became the first major Russian musician to play in the US after the war and his New York debut aroused much enthusiasm as did his first appearance in London during 1959.

Although he now had a international career he did not tour that often nor as extensively as other artists so his appearances were regarded as “events” and, as such, tickets were highly-prized amongst his numerous fans and the piano-cognoscenti. He stands with Sviatoslav Richter as the two greatest Russian pianists of his generation. His virtuosity always placed at the service of the music whilst the lucidity and purity of his pianism captured the very essence of what he was performing. This collection covers so many aspects of his art, encompassing works in which the poetry of the music is tangible and others where his incredible dexterity is matched by fluency to yield performances of breathtaking brilliance. His career was brutally cut short by a heart attack in Moscow just before his 69th birthday.

Tito Gobbi – Complete solo Recordings

This 5 CD set, devoted to the outstanding Italian baritone Tito Gobbi, is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series. The bulk of this set is devoted to all the solo recordings that Gobbi made during his entire career, brought together for the first time.

The first CD begins with seven operatic arias (by Cilea, Leoncavallo, Mozart, Verdi and Puccini), and two songs (‘Musica proibita’ by Gastaldon and ‘Famme sunn’a cu’tte’ by Ruccione) that Gobbi made for the Italian branch of EMI in 1942. The songs were released only in Italy on a 78rpm record that had extremely limited circulation because of the Second World War, and are re-issued here by EMI for the first time.

The programme continues on CD 1 with further recordings that Gobbi made for EMI from 1948 onwards of operatic arias and songs, including two songs (‘La montanara’ and ‘Take the Sun’) that were featured in the 1949 film The Glass Mountain that brought the baritone to a wide cinema audience. He eventually appeared in more than 20 films.

CD 2 contains the rest of the songs and arias made up to the end of the 78rpm era, and finishes with the song ‘Nenia d’amore’ recorded in Italy in 1953 for the film Canzoni a due voci.

In 1955, Gobbi made his first LP recital album (with the forces of the Rome Opera), but it was not released at the time due to concerns about the technical quality of the recording. With the advance of technology the problems were subsequently able to be corrected and Gobbi later gave permission for material from the album to be released in various LP collections. The whole album is now heard here complete for the first time.

In 1964, EMI made a two-LP set called The Art of Tito Gobbi in which each of the four LP sides was devoted to a different genre, namely Operatic Arias, Classical Songs and Arias, Italian and Neapolitan Popular Songs, and Romantic Songs. The programme repeated some of the repertoire on the as yet unpublished 1955 album but ranged much more widely, especially in the field of song. The operatic arias were made with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Alberto Erede; the classical songs with a small chamber ensemble consisting of harpsichord, cello and guitar; the popular songs with members of the Orchestra of the Rome Opera, and the romantic songs with the distinguished pianist Gerald Moore. This project marked the end of Gobbi’s recording career in solo repertoire.

The rest of the set covers extracts from some of the acclaimed complete opera recordings that Gobbi made for EMI, including Lucia di Lammermoor, Tosca, Aida and Rigoletto with the legendary soprano Maria Callas. Other operas featured are L’elisir d’amore, Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlo, Aida, Il tabarro, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Pagliacci and Gianni Schicchi. The programme ends with a memorable reminder of one of Gobbi’s finest assumptions, the title role in Verdi’s sublime Falstaff.

Jascha Heifetz – The Master Violinist

Jascha Heifetz was a Jewish Lithuanian-born American violin virtuoso who was born in 1901 and died in 1987. His father was a professional violinist who started to give him lessons when Heifetz was only three-years-old. He then went on to further studies and, when only six, was able to give a performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto.

Kreisler, after accompanying the 12-year-old Heifetz at the piano in a performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto, said to all present, 'We may as well break our fiddles across our knees'. Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens and, in April 1911, he performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before an audience of 25,000; there was such a sensational reaction that police officers needed to protect the young violinist after the concert. Heifetz performed with the Berlin Philharmonic In 1914.

On October 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States at Carnegie Hall and became an immediate sensation. He became a US citizen in 1925.

Heifetz made his first recordings in Russia during 1910-11. Shortly after his Carnegie Hall début Heifetz made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in the US. For several years in the 1930s Heifetz recorded primarily for HMV in the UK, because Victor had cut back on classical recordings during the Great Depression: many of the recordings here date from this time. His earliest recording in this set was made for The Victor Company in 1925 and the latest for EMI in 1949.

Hans Hotter - The Great Bass-Baritone

This 6 CD set, devoted to the famous bass-baritone Hans Hotter, is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

• Hans Hotter (1909–2003) began his singing career in Germany in 1930, but came to international prominence after the Second World War when he established himself as a leading exponent of the main Wagnerian bass-baritone roles. His powerful voice and magnetic stage presence made him ideal to play Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wotan in the Ring and the ill-fated hero of Der fliegende Holländer.

• An intelligent and refined singer who was able to scale down his huge voice to the demands of German Lieder, Hotter excelled on the concert platform, and he continued to give recitals for many years after he retired from the opera in 1972. He also occasionally appeared after 1972 in small operatic roles and he was a notable narrator in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, a part he was still performing well into his 80s.

• Hotter was one of the major artists signed to EMI by the legendary record producer Walter Legge in Vienna as soon as the Second World War ended and one of his first recordings for the company was the Brahms Requiem under Herbert von Karajan, an extract from which is included in this set.

• This 6 CD set is devoted mainly to German Lieder and includes an impressive collection of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, Hugo Wolf, Loewe, Pfitzner and Richard Strauss recorded when Hotter was in his prime and generally accompanied by Gerald Moore.

• A number of tracks in this set are appearing in stereo for the first time on CD.

• The programme also includes the Bach solo cantata ‘Ich habe genug’ and the final CD is devoted to operatic items, including solo extracts from Capriccio, Der Mond and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as well as two substantial duets from Der fliegender Holländer and Die Walküre with the outstanding Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson. The two excerpts from Die Meistersinger are incomplete because the recordings were not released at the time they were made (1948) and some of the original 78 rpm masters had not survived by the time the items were issued on LP for the first time in 1982.

Rudolf Kempe - Shy Genius of the Podium

The German conductor Rudolf Kempe (1910–1976) began his musical career playing the oboe in various symphony orchestras. He eventually graduated to being a conductor after working for several years as an operatic repetiteur. His modest manner on the podium belied his great authority in controlling an orchestra, and his warm but meticulously detailed interpretations of the main classical repertoire established him as one of the leading conductors of his time.

The programme begins with recordings of four Beethoven Symphonies that Kempe made with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in 1971–72 as part of a complete cycle that has been critically acclaimed, although it has not previously been widely available.

These are followed by Symphonies 3 and 4 by Brahms with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra respectively, two orchestras with which Kemper was closely associated throughout his career.

The next CD shows Kempe’s skill with descriptive ‘programme’ music in Mendelssohn’s delightful incidental music to Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ and Rimsky-Korsakov's colourful orchestral suite Scheherazade depicting a number of tales from the 1001 Arabian Nights.

Then comes music by three Bohemian composers: the opening of the famous ‘Largo’ from Dvořák's ‘New World’ Symphony; the Polka from Schwanda the Bagpiper by Weinberger; and a suite from Smetana's lively opera The Bartered Bride.

CDs 6 and 7 present several of the main orchestral works by Richard Strauss, including Don Juan., Ein Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegel, Tod und Verklärung and Don Quixote, all except the last recorded with the Staatskapelle Dresden, an orchestra closely associated with the works of Richard Strauss.

CD 8 moves to the opera house and includes vocal extracts from Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos and Wagner's Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The next CD covers orchestral pieces from opera, including a suite arranged by Kempe himself from Hansel und Gretel by Humperdinck.

On CD 10 we find Kempe in lighter mood with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme of orchestral bon-bons that was called Vienna Philharmonic ‘On Holiday’ when it was originally released on LP. The final CD covers some of the best loved music by the Strauss family. The very last track in the album is the waltz Gold und Silber by Franz Lehár, which Kempe considered the finest studio recording he ever made.

Fritz Kreisler - The Charming Maverick

Fritz Kreisler was born in Vienna in 1875. His father was Jewish and his mother a Roman Catholic. He was the youngest pupil ever to enter the Conservatoire in Vienna, where he was taught by Anton Bruckner. He then went to Paris to continue his studies with, among others, Leo Delibes and Jules Massenet.

He was 13 years old when he made his American début in New York, during his first tour of that country in 1888/1889. His début with the Berlin Philharmonic took place in 1898 and launched his international career. In 1910 he gave the premiére of Elgar's Violin Concerto, a work that was dedicated to him.

After a short period of residence in the US during World War I, he finally settled there at the outbreak of World War II, becoming a US citizen in 1943. In 1941 a traffic accident caused his hearing and eyesight to be somewhat impaired but he continued to perform, giving his final public concert in 1947, although he continued to broadcast for some time after that. He died in New York City in 1962.

Aside from being one of the great violin soloists of his time Kreisler was also a composer of some note, ascribing some of his own pastiche compositions to composers of an earlier time. When, in 1935, he revealed that these works were not written by the likes of Pugnani, Vivaldi and Tartini but were, in fact his own, he came in for a degree of critical opprobrium.

Whatever the critics might have said it cannot be denied that many of Kreisler's shorter works, some of which are included in this set of 10 CDs, are among the most popular in the classical genre. Here is an opportunity for the collector to become familiar with these works played by the master himself.

Alicia De Larrocha – Complete EMI Recordings

Alicia de Larrocha (1923–2009) was the leading Spanish pianist of her time, and widely considered the finest interpreter of two Spanish composers of the late 19th and early 20th century: Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados. She was also an outstanding exponent of mainstream repertoire by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Rachmaninov.

This 8 CD set includes all the recordings of solo Spanish piano music she made for the Spanish company Hispavox in the 1950s and 60s, as well as a live recording of a concert with the Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles in 1971 and a concerto by Montsalvatge made in 1992.

The first CD opens with a group of Sonatas by the Spanish Baroque composer Antonio Soler, originally written for the harpsichord but performed here on the piano. These are followed by ‘Seis piezas sobre cantos populares españoles’ by Enrique Granados.

The next four CDs contain more works by Granados and Albéniz, including the two best known works by these composers: Goyescas by Granados and Iberia by Albéniz, in definitive performances by Larrocha.

CD 6 includes a number of works by another major Spanish composer: Manuel de Falla, as well as more pieces by Granados and Albéniz.

CD 7 begins with pieces by Joaquín Turina, another composer of the early 20th century, and it concludes with ‘Concierto breve para piano y orquestra’ by Xavier Montsalvatge (1912–2002) in a recording made in Barcelona in 1992, the year of the Barcelona Olympic Games.

The final CD is an atmospheric live recording of a recital given in 1971 at Hunter College, New York, by the Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles to which Alicia de Larrocha makes an outstanding contribution as accompanist.

Dinu Lipatti – The Master Pianist

To mark the forthcoming publication by Actes Sud of André Tubeuf’s new book on the Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, La quatorzième valse (The Fourteenth Waltz), EMI Classics is re-releasing all the recordings by this artist of genius in a single 7CD box, each one freshly and sympathetically re-mastered using 24-bit technology. Falling victim to leukaemia at an early age and at the height of his powers, Dinu Lipatti naturally left behind only a small discography, but one of truly exceptional diversity and quality, and this collection is rounded off by his famous last recital, at Besançon in September 1950. This recital, which he halted after thirteen waltzes (hence the title of André Tubeuf’s book), having completely exhausted his ailing body, has become legendary, a last, powerfully moving expression of a life cut short in its prime barely three months later.

Melos Ensemble – Music among Friends

The Melos Ensemble was formed by musicians who wanted to play chamber music scored for a larger ensemble in a combination of strings, winds and other instruments with the quality of musical rapport only regular groups can achieve.

All its members were excellent musicians who held positions in notable orchestras and appeared as soloists. The clarinettist Gervase de Peyer, flautist Richard Adeney, viola player Cecil Aronowitz and cellist Terence Weil were the founding members.

Planned as a group of twelve players - string quintet, wind quintet with piano and harp - this could be expanded by other players to perform an enormous range of works from Mozart through the classics and romantics of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms to Bartók, Janáček, Nielsen, Poulenc and Khatchaturian. They also gave first performances and then recorded works by four then young British composers: Richard Rodney Bennett, Harrison Birtwistle, Gordon Crosse and Peter Maxwell Davies.

The principal musicians who joined the initial four were the violinists Emanuel Hurwitz and Ivor McMahon, double bass player Adrian Beers, oboist Peter Graeme, horn player Neil Sanders, bassoonist William Waterhouse, pianist Lamar Crowson and harpist Osian Ellis.

Many of the recordings are classics of the Gramophone and have been rarely out of the catalogue. Here is a set bringing together all their recordings made during those fifteen halcyon years of glorious music-making.

Yehudi Menuhin & Stéphane Grappelli –
Friends in Music

This 4 CD set containing all the recordings that the two legendary violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli made for EMI is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

The classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the jazz musician Stéphane Grappelli collaborated on six LPs of semi-improvised jazz duets of popular songs between 1973 and 1983. The albums were called: Jealousy, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Tea for Two, Strictly for the Birds, Top Hat and For All Seasons.

Yehudi Menuhin has been acclaimed as one of the greatest and best-loved classical violinists of the 20th century, as well as an outstanding educator, humanitarian and citizen of the world. Stéphane Grappelli has long been an iconic figure in the jazz world, largely through his partnership with the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt and their participation during the 1930s in the Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

These two very different violinists first came together to appear on a TV show in the UK on Christmas Day 1971. Despite their initial doubts about the collaboration, the partnership blossomed and the two men became close friends as well as musical colleagues.

The 4 CDs contain 86 songs, many by the great American songwriters George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, as well as jazz standards like ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’, ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ and ‘Crazy Rhythm’. There are also 13 items composed by Grappelli himself, several of which were written specially for Menuhin.

The song ‘I didn’t know what time it was’ by Richard Rodgers on CD 2, recorded in Holland in October 1977, is being released here for the first time.

The accompaniments range from solo guitar or piano via trios and small ensembles to full orchestras involving woodwind, strings and brass. Among the skilled jazz musicians accompanying Menuhin and Grappelli are the pianists Alan Clare, Max Harris and Laurie Holloway; guitarists John Etheridge, Martin Taylor and Ike Isaacs; bass players Lennie Bush, Pierre Michelot and Jack Sewing, and drummers Ronnie Verrell and Alan Ganley.

The Arrangements are mostly by Max Harris, but those from the LP called Top Hat are by Nelson Riddle.

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli – The Master Pianist

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920–1995) was regarded as one of the most commanding and individual piano virtuosi of the 20th century, along with the likes of Horowitz, Rubinstein and Richter. The music of Schumann was a special feature of Michelangeli's repertoire, and his recording of the Ravel and Rachmaninov G major concertos is a truly great recording that has never been out of the catalogues since it was first released in a late 50s. This 4-CD set brings together many of Michelangeli's EMI recordings in a wonderful and wide range of works.

Nathan Milstein – Aristocrat of the Violin

Nathan Mironovich Milstein was born in 1903 in Odessa (then in Russia but now in the Ukraine). His first violin lessons took place when he was just 7 years old in Odessa with the eminent teacher Piotr Stolyarsky who, a little later, taught David Oistrakh, and later still, his son Igor.

Milstein then took up studies in St. Petersburg at the invitation of the great Leopold Auer, himself a virtuoso of the violin and a hugely influential teacher. It was at this time that he became friendly with Jascha Heifetz and Vladimir Horenstein and, whilst on tour with Horowitz, the two young men decided not to return to Soviet Russia but to stay in the West.

In 1929 Milstein made his American début with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. Eventually he settled in the US and became an American citizen in 1942. In 1948 Milstein's recording of the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto, with Bruno Walter conducting, became the very first item in Columbia Records' new LP catalogue.

This new Icon set of 8 well-filled CDs brings together a carefully-chosen selection of some of Milstein's greatest recordings for Capitol and EMI Classics, made during the years 1955 – 1964, when Milstein's incredible talent as one of the finest soloists of the 20th Century was at its best.

Lucia Popp – Queen of Night, Maiden of Light

Lucia Popp (born Lucia Poppová) entered the Academy in Bratislava primarily to study drama. Her voice was a mezzo-soprano but her musical lessons developed a high upper register to such a degree that her professional debut was as Queen of the Night in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte in Bratislava. In 1963 Otto Klemperer heard her and she duly recorded this role with him in 1971. Also in 1963 Herbert von Karajan invited her to join the State Opera in Vienna where her first role was Barbarina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

In June 1965 she recorded the soprano role in Orff’s Carmina Burana with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos who, at the age of 31, had already made a fine impression as a conductor of choral works. She made her debut at Covent Garden as Oscar in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera in 1966 and in New York in the following year as Queen of the Night. That year also saw her making her first solo recital recording – a selection of Handel and Mozart arias conducted by Georg Fischer.

The soubrette coloratura roles were then gradually replaced by lyric ones during the 1970s and ten years later these were supplemented by heavier roles such as Eva in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; (she also agreed to record two roles she had not performed on stage: Elisabeth in Wagner’s Tannhäuser and the eponym in Strauss’s Daphne). As a result of this vocal progression, she sang various roles in the same opera at different stages in her career – notably recording the role of Pamina, the Queen of the Night’s daughter, ten years after recording that of her mother!

Besides opera she loved Lieder and she made recital discs of Schubert and Strauss for EMI Classics as well as the latter’s Vier letzte Lieder with Klaus Tennstedt. Furthermore her stunning good looks, radiant smile and bubbling personality also meant she was ideal in operetta.

In December 1989 Czechoslovakia finally threw off the yoke of Soviet domination and at a celebratory concert in the Wenceslas Hall in Prague’s Castle she was invited to sing the eponym’s “Song to the Moon” from Dvorák’s Rusalka. Tragedy for her, alas, was just round the corner as she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and died in Munich a mere four days after her 54th birthday on 16th November 1993. She was buried in Cintorín Slávicie údolie, Bratislava, which is now the resting-place of modern-day Slovak heroes including Alexander Dubcek.

Hermann Prey – A Life in Song

The German baritone Hermann Prey was born in Berlin in 1929. In a career that spanned some 48 years, he became one of the most popular singers of his time and formed a great bond with his audiences through his unaffected and natural style of singing and his personal charm and acting ability. His repertoire was extremely wide and encompassed all the classic German Lieder, as well as a whole range of operatic roles from the lively Figaro of both Mozart and Rossini to more serious baritone parts in Verdi and Wagner, although it is in the lighter roles that he is most affectionately remembered. He enjoyed great success in the world’s major opera houses including Vienna, Bayreuth, Salzburg, Munich, Milan and New York, and also appeared frequently on German TV and in opera films. He died in 1998.

CD 1 begins with two groups of Lieder by Schubert to words by Schiller and Goethe, followed by a selection of 12 Deutsche Volkslieder by Brahms, while CD 2 contains a complete performance of Schubert's great song cycle Winterreise. CD 3 is devoted to Schumann, including Dichterliebe and songs with words by Kerner, and CD 4 opens with Schumann’s Liederkreis before going on to a collection of songs by Weber.

CD 5 presents six songs by Beethoven, starting with the popular ‘Adelaide’, and these are followed by a group of songs by Liszt, concluding with his setting of Three Sonnets by Petrarch. CD 6 begins with a group of songs by various composers all to words by Goethe that were recorded in 1974 but issued for the first time in 1998 as a tribute to Prey at the time of his death. These are followed by a very attractive selection of German Folk and Wayfarer songs that show Prey in lighter mood.

In CD7 we have a group of ten descriptive ballads by Loewe including his setting of Goethe's ‘Erlkönig’ and the traditional Scottish poem ‘Tom der Reimer’ (Tom the Rhymer). This CD ends with a magnificent performance of Bach's Cantata Ich habe genug with the Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus conducted by Kurt Thomas that illustrates Prey's talent for German liturgical music and oratorio.

With CD 8 we move to opera in a wide range of repertoire from Baroque and Classical works by Keiser, Gluck and Mozart to the Romantic music of Wagner and Humperdinck. All the arias from French and Italian operas are sung in German, as was the practice in German opera houses at the time these recordings were made.

CD 9 brings us to some more modern operatic items by Leoncavallo Richard Strauss and Korngold and then two powerful arias by Tchaikovsky, after which the mood lifts with extracts from the operettas Gasparone by Millöcker and Boccaccio by Suppé. Finally we have four romantic songs from American musicals that Prey sings in fine idiomatic style. On this CD we also hear Prey's frequent partner in both opera and operetta, the much loved soprano Anneliese Rothenberger, in several duets.

The final CD begins with arias from a number of German so-called ‘Spielopern’ by Kreutzer, Nessler and Lortzing before concluding in high spirits with items from operettas by those two masters of the genre, Johann Strauss II and Carl Millöcker.

Sviatoslav Richter – The Master Pianist

Sviatoslav Richter was born in 1915 and died in August 1997. He was a Soviet pianist, widely recognised as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. He was well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique and extensive repertoire.

In March 1934, Richter gave his first recital in his home town of Odessa. He did not start formal piano studies until three years later, with Heinrich Neuhaus, a famous pianist and piano teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire. During Richter's audition for Neuhaus, the teacher apparently whispered to a fellow student 'this man's a genius'. Although Neuhaus taught many great pianists, including Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, it is said that he considered Richter to be 'the genius pupil' for whom he had been waiting all his life.

The West first became aware of Richter through recordings he made in the 1950s. One of Richter's first advocates in the West was Emil Gilels, who stated during his first tour of the United States that the critics, who were giving Gilels rave reviews, should 'wait until you hear Richter'. Sviatoslav Richter (who had received the Stalin and Lenin prizes and became People's Artist of the RSFSR), gave his first concert tours in the USA in 1960 and in Britain and France in 1961.

While Richter enjoyed performing in front of an audience, he hated planning concerts years in advance, and in later years took to playing at very short notice in small, quite often darkened halls, with only a small lamp lighting the score. Richter claimed that this setting helped the audience focus on the music being performed, rather than on extraneous and irrelevant matters such as the performer's grimaces and gestures.

Richter's repertoire ranged from Handel and Bach to Szymanowski, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Britten, and Gershwin. Central to his repertoire were the works of all the composers who are represented in this Icon set.

Arthur Rubinstein – The Chopin Recordings

Arthur Rubinstein was born on January 28, 1887 to a businessman in Lódz. He was the youngest of 8 children in a family which was part of the large Jewish community in the city. His love of the piano showed itself when, aged two, he showed immense interest in his elder sister’s lessons. He studied in Warsaw and at the age of four he played for the great violinist, Joachim, who was so impressed that he made plans for the boy’s musical development.

At the age of 10 he moved to Berlin and three years later he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and visited other cities in Germany and Poland. At 17 he moved to Paris which, being the centre for so much music, was the best place to launch a career particularly one which involved playing the music of his fellow countryman, Chopin. He met Ravel, Dukas and Szymanowski, played Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 and was soon recognised as a major musical figure with enormous potential. Two years later he made his Carnegie Hall debut and then toured but, contrary to all his plans, he was not well received in the USA.

He returned to Europe for tours of Italy, Russia, Austria and Germany. It was not until 1912 that he made his debut in London and found a residence in Chelsea which was a good base from which to perform concerts and go on tours. He stayed in London during WW1, playing recitals and giving concerts with the renowned Belgian violinist, Ysaÿe. In 1916 and 1917 he toured Spain and South America where he developed his great love of the music of Albeniz, Granados, Falla and Villa-Lobos.

In 1921 he again visited the USA, this time with two Polish friends, Kochanski, who made some brilliant arrangements for violin and piano of Spanish music, and Szymanowski. He married in 1932 and the same year he withdrew from concert life for several months to develop his technique and repertoire. His house in Paris was looted by the Nazis in WW2 and his career moved across the Atlantic where he was now accepted as the genius all Europe knew. His agent always spelt his name Artur – in order to maintain the mystique of being “foreign”? (Rubinstein always referred to himself as Arthur when in English-speaking countries) – and he became an American citizen in 1946.

His discography is large but over half of it is dedicated to the works of Chopin and it is with this composer he is most associated although Brahms and the Spanish composers often featured. He is widely considered as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century in both solo and concerto work but also in chamber music with such greats as Heifetz, Piatigorsky and Szeryng.

His career started to fail with his eyesight in the mid-1970s and he retired following a concert in his beloved Wigmore Hall in but May 1976 where he had first played nearly 70 years before. He was made an honorary Knight of the British Empire in 1977. Although had refused to teach when younger he did accept pupils late in life and he also gave masterclasses.

He died in Geneva on 20 December 1982 at the age of 95. A year after his death his cremated remains were buried in Jerusalem. Israel holds a Piano Master competition in his honour every three years.

Artur Schnabel - Scholar of the Piano

Artur Schnabel was born on 17 April, 1882 at Lipnik Górny, a suburb of the modern-day Polish town of Bielsko-Biala. At the time of his birth this town would have been known as Bielitz, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schnabel died in 1951 at Axenstein in Switzerland.

He was the youngest of three children and when still a child the family moved to Vienna, where the young Schnabel took up studies with the legendary Theodor Leschetizsky, who also taught Paderewski and Moiseiwitsch. Schnabel remained a pupil of Leschetizsky's for seven years, from 1892 to 1897.

Schnabel's début took place in 1890 in Vienna and in 1900 he moved to Berlin, where he lived for 33 years. In 1905 he married the well-known contralto, Therese Behr, and the couple successfully toured the German provinces giving Lieder recitals.

The birth of their first son, Karl Ulrich, took place in 1909 and in 1912 a second boy, Stefan, was born. Karl Ulrich was to become a famous teacher and accomplished pianist: he features in two of the recordings in this set. A number of today's famous pianists studied with him, including Leon Fleisher and Peter Serkin. Stefan took up acting as a career and achieved a fair degree of success in both Germany and Hollywood.

Schnabel made his first recordings in 1930 of the Beethoven sonatas and concertos and, in 1933, the Schnabel family left Berlin a few months after Hitler took power. They lived in England for a while and in 1939 moved to the USA where, in 1944, Schnabel became an American citizen. Although resident in America, it was in Europe that he was more widely recognised and it was in London, for EMI, that Schnabel made virtually all of his great recordings.

This set of 8 CDs presents the incomparable Schnabel in a range of works by composers whose music he particularly admired and made a speciality of: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.

Elisabeth Schumann – Silver Thread of Song

The German soprano Elisabeth Schumann was one of the finest lyric sopranos of the 20th Century. She made her professional debut in Hamburg in 1909 and died in 1952, having given her last public concert the previous year. In 1985 the eminent vocal expert Alan Blyth wrote of her: ‘No artist so endeared herself to her public as Elisabeth Schumann. The charm of her manner is legendary; so is the attraction of her slivery voice and outgiving style. Whether in her operatic portrayals, her Lieder or her operetta offerings, she captivated her audiences.’

CDs 1 and 2 contain an unrivalled collection of Schumann's famous recordings of songs by Franz Schubert, the centrepiece of which is Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (‘The Shepherd on the Rock’) with Reginald Kell as the distinguished clarinet soloist. Every one of these songs is illuminated by the singer's unique style of vocal clarity and brightness as well as rhythmic bouyancy and spontaniety.

CD 3 brings together a number of Elisabeth Schumann's recordings of songs by her namesake Robert Schumann, including the famous cycle for female voice: Frauenliebe und-leben. Also on this CD are a group of songs by Brahms including several from the delightful ‘49 Deutsche Volkslieder’

CD 4 begins with Schumann's elegant performances of several soprano pieces by Bach and Handel, which are followed by a variety of contrasting works by Mozart including the main arias for Susanna and Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and both of Zerlina's solos from Don Giovanni. The Mozart programme continues with an engaging performance of the ‘Alleluja’ from Exsultate, jubilate, a small group of songs and then finally the Benedictus from Mozart’s final work, the moving Requiem in D minor.

CD 5 is a mixed Lieder recital starting with songs by Haydn and Beethoven, then a collection of Hugo Wolf and ending with a group of Richard Strauss compositions, all touched by Schumann's own personal vocal magic.

The final CD opens with three extracts from Der Rosenkavalier that amply demonstrate Elisabeth Schumann's radiant interpretation of Sophie that was acclaimed in theatres around the world. Then we hear Schumann gloriously floating the soprano line in the Quintet from Die Meistersinger, followed by a collection of charming English songs, all sung with impeccable pronunciation. The disc ends with some of the most entertaining performances of arias from Viennese operettas ever put on record that will guarantee to bring a smile of delight to even the most critical listener.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – Perfect Prima Donna

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915–2006) is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Blessed with a voice of exquisite beauty, as well as a striking physical presence, she shone brightly in opera, excelled in the concert hall and brought a unique artistry to the recital platform. She was signed exclusively to EMI in 1946 by the recording producer Walter Legge, with whom she formed a dedicated artistic and personal relationship, and together they produced a stream of magnificent recordings over almost 30 years. In addition to the tonal qualities of her voice, Schwarzkopf was renowned for her unrivalled communicative ability, which the vocal critic John Steane described as ‘almost making the voice visible’. Thus she could translate her charismatic stage presence into purely vocal terms through the medium of recording, and still convey all the dramatic meaning of her songs and operatic characters to listeners who could hear but not see her. This rare quality is evident in all the recordings in this unique collection, which covers a lifetime of work and reveals the development of her art.

The first CD begins with recordings of works by Bach, Handel and Mozart that are among the earliest that Schwarzkopf made for EMI. They show her voice at its freshest and also exhibit her fine legato and appreciable technique in Baroque music.

CD 2 begins with the famous collaboration between Schwarzkopf and the eminent pianist Walter Gieseking in a collection of simple but refined songs by Mozart that reveal great beauty of tone, evenness of line and sincerity of expression in the singing, as well as sensitive accompaniment from Gieseking. These are followed by four of Mozart's concert arias with orchestra, in which the conductor is the highly regarded George Szell.

At the beginning of her career, Schwarzkopf sang mainly lighter roles and in CD 3 we have a collection of Mozart arias that demonstrate this part of her repertoire in the arias of Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), but also a number of lyric roles that she never sang on stage, including Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro). This disc also gives us the chance to compare Schwarzkopf's totally different characterisation of the three principal female roles in Don Giovanni (Elvira, Anna and Zerlina) and Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna, Cherubino and the Countess).

CD 4 brings us back to the field of Lieder and includes another collaboration with a famous pianist, this time Edwin Fischer, in a highly acclaimed recital of Schubert Lieder, as well as more Schubert songs with her two regular accompanists, Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons.

In CD 5 we encounter the widely varied programmes of songs by a wide-ranging selection of composers — from Mendelssohn and Schumann, through Liszt and Brahms, to Mahler and Medtner and many more in between — that would often be a feature of Schwarzkopf's recitals. To each of these songs she brings her own individuality and stamps them with her personal qualities of beautiful singing and vivid interpretation.

The next disc is devoted entirely to the songs of Hugo Wolf, a composer whom Legge had championed since the beginning of the 1930s. Guided by Legge, Schwarzkopf became a peerless interpreter of Wolf's compositions. This live recording is of a legendary concert in Salzburg on 12 August 1953 marking the 50th anniversary of Hugo Wolf's death. The piano accompanist is the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

CD 7 brings us to Richard Strauss, a composer of whose works Schwarzkopf was a matchless performer. It begins with Schwarzkopf's 1953 recording of Strauss's valedictory Vier letzte Lieder, followed by the closing scene from Capriccio, an opera that Schwarzkopf performed a number of times on stage, and ends with scenes from Arabella, which Schwarzkopf sang only in the recording studio.

CD 8 stays with Richard Strauss. It starts with a long extract from the first act of Der Rosenkavalier beginning with the aging Marschallin contemplating the passing of the years in a famous monologue and then going to the end of the act in an extended duet with her young lover, the handsome Octavian. This is followed by the glorious trio from the end of the third act, one of Strauss's most beautiful compositions for the female voice. Then come 12 of Strauss's wonderful songs for soprano with orchestra, all conducted in supreme Straussian style by George Szell.

In CD 9 we turn to the lighter side of Schwarzkopf's repertoire with extracts from a whole range of delightful Viennese operettas, beginning with two of Johann Strauss II's favourite works: Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron. Then come several extracts from Schwarzkopf's second complete recording of Die lustige Witwe by Franz Lehár, and finally the complete recital of operetta arias that was always one of Schwarzkopf's must popular albums.

The final CD in the set starts with some of Schwarzkopf's earliest operatic recordings, when she was singing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier rather than the Marschallin, and a very youthful-sounding Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel. Then come a varied assortment of operatic arias that recall some of the roles that Schwarzkopf sang in the early part of her career, and the disc concludes with four items from the memorable concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in February 1967, when Schwarzkopf joined with her two distinguished colleagues Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Victoria de los Angeles to pay homage to that doyen of accompanists, Gerald Moore.

Andrés Segovia – The Master Guitarist

CD1

J.S. BACH · PONCE · SOR · DE VISÉE · FROBERGER · TORROBA MENDELSSOHN · MALATS · TÁRREGA ·
CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO

Total running time: 62.09

CD 2

ALBÉNIZ · TORROBA · TURINA · GRANADOS · PONCE

Total running time: 59.02

CD 3

J.S. BACH · SOR · TORROBA · TURINA · CRESPO · VILLA-LOBOS PONCE · SEGOVIA · CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO

Solomon - The Master Pianist

The great British piano virtuoso Solomon Cutner (known professionally by his first name alone) was born in the East End of London in 1902. He was best known for his performances of the music of Beethoven, of which there are many examples in this 7-CD set. In 1956, whilst in the process of recording the complete Beethoven sonatas for EMI, he experienced a massive stroke which rendered him inactive as a professional musician for the rest of his life. He died in 1988, aged 85 years.

Leopold Stokowski – The Maverick Conductor

One of the most flamboyant conductors of the 20th century, Leopold Stokowski was born at Marylebone in London in 1882, the son of a Polish father and Irish mother. As a young boy he started taking violin, piano and organ lessons and, at 13, became one of the youngest students to be admitted to the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. He later went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he gained a Bachelor of Music degree in 1903.

He paid his first visit to the United States in 1905 as organist of St. Bartholomew's Church in New York but returned to Europe to continue his studies. He made his conducting début in Paris in 1908 and his London début a year later. 1909 was also the year that Stokowski took up his first official conducting post, with the Cincinatti Symphony Orchestra. After three successful years at Cincinnatti Stokowski became music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he remained for the next 25 years, building for himself and the orchestra an enviable international reputation; creating what became known as the 'Philadelphia Sound'. Stokowski took up US citizenship in 1915.

Stokowski conducted a wide range of contemporary music, many of his performances being either world or American premières. The music of Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Sibelius and Stravinsky featured prominently in his concerts and he gave the first US performances of the music of a whole host of other contemporary composers.

Stokowski made his first Hollywood appearances in 1937 in the films 'The Big Broadcast' and, with Deanna Durbin and Adolphe Menjou, 'One Hundred Men and a Girl'. His best-known film role was as the conductor in Disney's 'Fantasia'. He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He married three times, his third wife being the railroad heiress, Gloria Vanderbilt. At the end of his life he returned to live in England and died, aged 95, at his home in Nether Wallop, Hampshire. His grave can be found in the cemetery at East Finchley in north London.

His collaboration with Capitol Records resulted in a crop of some of Stokowski's most famous recordings, made using three-track stereo tape recorders. Always the great innovator, Stokowski was more than happy to cooperate with the Capitol engineers to ensure the best recorded result and these, together with those he made for United Artists with the Symphony of the Air, can be heard in this unique 10-CD Icon set.

Richard Tauber - The Gentleman Tenor

This 5 CD set, devoted to the much-loved Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, is a further release in the EMI Classics ICON series.

Richard Tauber, born in the Austrian city of Linz in 1891, began his operatic career in 1913 singing the role of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart and quickly established himself as a leading lyric tenor in Austria and Germany.

But it was in lighter music that he won wide popular acclaim, when from about 1925 he began to appear in operettas by Franz Lehár, Johann Strauss II and others. So successful was he in the operettas of Lehár that the composer wrote a number of works especially for him, including Friederike (1928), Das Land des Lächelns (1929) and Giuditta (1934).

In 1933 he was forced to flee from Germany and then from Holland in 1938, at which time he moved permanently to England. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1940 and died in London in 1948.

In his later years he gave many highly successful concerts of both serious and lighter music and continued to appear frequently on stage in operettas and musicals, including Old Chelsea, which he wrote himself.

Tauber made more than 700 commercial recordings, all in the era of the 78 rpm disc. His repertoire covered an extremely wide range of music – from Mozart to popular songs of the day – and he lavished his refined vocal art with equal generosity on everything he sang. Many of his recordings became best-sellers and remain classics of the gramophone to this day.

His earliest recordings were made in Germany and are all sung in German, even arias from Italian and French operas. His first operetta recordings, also sung in German, include a number of authoritative performances of the music of Franz Lehár conducted by the composer. From the mid-1930s, Tauber started recording in London, usually singing in English, and repeated many of his earlier hit records in English versions, which in turn again became best sellers: typical examples of these are ‘Dein ist mein ganzes Herz’ which became ‘You are my heart’s delight’, and ‘Gern hab’ ich die Frau’n geküßt’ which in English is ‘Girls were made to love and kiss’.

The five CDs in this set are programmed as follows:
CD 1 Arias from Italian and French operas, mainly sung in German
CD 2 Arias by Tchaikovsky, Smetana and German composers
CD 3 Arias and duets from works by Franz Lehár in German
CD 4 Items from operettas by Johann Strauss II, Kálmán, Stolz and others
CD 5 Popular songs and operetta extracts sung in English

Fritz Wunderlich – A Poet among Tenors

Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was born into a musical family – his father was a choir director, his mother a violinist – and for a time the family kept an inn. His father had been severely wounded during WW1 and, owing to pressure from local Nazis, he lost his job and he committed suicide when Fritz was five years old. As a young man he worked in a bakery and neighbours and customers alike noticed his beautiful singing and encouraged him to take music seriously. A scholarship granted by the town fathers granted him five years at the Music Academy of Freiburg in Breisgau where he studied voice and classical horn which may help explain his remarkable breath control.

In 1955 in a student production of Die Zauberflöte he played Tamino and was engaged by the Wurttemburg State Opera in Stuttgart where his first role was Ulrich Eislinger in Die Meistersinger. Replacing an ailing Josef Traxel as Tamino Stuttgart had a new star and Wunderlich's short but brilliant career began. He sang regularly in Vienna and Munich as well as the Salzburg Festival, together with engagements at Covent Garden and Edinburgh in 1965. He had a highly successful USA tour in 1964 and was due to make his Metropolitan debut as Don Ottavio on October 8, 1966. The previous month he was an enjoying a hunting vacation when tragedy struck, his great friend and accompanist, Hubert Giesen, described the fatal accident as follows:

When the family and the other guests retired to bed, Wunderlich also went to his room on the ground floor, but left it again to get a book from the library on the first floor. He had slipped on his shoes but failed to tie the laces, and on his return he seems to have stepped on a shoelace and tripped. He grabbed at the thick rope that ran down the side of the stairs but it came away from the wall and he fell headlong on to the stone floor below. He must have turned as he fell and hit the back of his head on the flagstones, for he was already in a deep coma when he was found and taken to hospital in Heidelberg but he never recovered consciousness.

In hindsight it is fortunate for us that he spent so much of his career in the recording studio. His range was wide, to the classics of J.S, Bach, Mozart, Bach, Schubert and Mahler he brought lyrical brilliance and to Bel Canto and light opera a melodic tenderness which recalls Tauber. In the 1960s it was the fashion for German opera houses to perform operas in the local rather than original language hence virtually all his recordings are in German.

In April 2008 the BBC Music Magazine a survey voted him the fourth greatest tenor of all time – and that on a mere six years of recording. One can only ask what might have been had he not been killed so young!

Joseph Haydn - Portrait

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Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy - Portrait

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Georg Friedrich Händel - Portrait

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 Pablo Casals - Portrait

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Anton Bruckner - The Symphonies

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Richard Tauber - Superstar

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Anneliese Rothenberger - Die Stimme für Millionen

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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - The First Lady of Singing

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Classics for Kids

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Die schönsten Märsche

Alte Kameraden - Mussinan-Marsch
Alter Jägermarsch - Radetzky-Marsch u. v. a.

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Unvergessene Stimmen

E. Berger - M. Eggerth - G. Keller
E. Sack - R. Tauber u.v.a.
 

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Da unten im Tale - Deutsches Liedgut

P. Anders - E. Berger - E. Schwarzkopf u. v. a.

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Yehudi Menuhin

Béla Bartók - Johann Sebastian Bach - Edward Elgar,...
 

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Robert Schumann - Das Klavierwerk

Jörg Demus

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Jörg Demus plays complete Robert Schumann‘s piano works.

Maria Callas - The Greatest Operas

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Maria Callas was one of the greatest singers in history. The adoration for her art of singing had never been impaired, not even after her death. This musical portrait of a unique superstar includes recordings from the years 1950 to 1954 - the peak of her career.

Franz Schubert - Schubertiade
 

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This 10 CD Box contents a collection of famous works of Franz Schubert:
Symphonies Nos. 5-8
Piano Sonatas D 850, 959, 960
Piano Trios, D 898, 929
String Quartets D 112, 810 a.o.

Deutsche Volkslieder

Tölzer Knabenchor / Wiener Sängerknaben / Santa Lucia Chor / Lars Linek / Jochen Wiegandt,...

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Great Pianists

Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven u.a.
Great Pianists
F. Gulda - W. Backhaus -
R. Serkin - S. Cherkassky u.a.

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Great pianists F. Gulda, W.Backhaus, R. Serkin, S. Cherkassky a.o. play various pieces of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven.

This 10 CD set contents following works:
Andante con Variazioni in F minor Hob. XVII-6 (Haydn)
Sonata No.8 in A minor KV 310 (Mozart)
Sonata No. 21 in C major Op. 52 “Waldstein” (Beethoven),...

Great Chamber Music

Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini, Stravinsky u.a.
Jean-Pierre Rampal - Trio Pasquier,...

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This 10 CD set contains the works of Chamber Music:
Mozart: Adagio. Rondo
Bach: Partita No.2(excepts). Sonata No.3 (excepts)
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.5
Paganini: Capriccios (excepts),...

Sir John Barbirolli

Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, Beethoven u. v. a.

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Sir Thomas Beecham - The Maestro

Mozart, Grieg, Berlioz, R.Strauss u.a.

London Pholharmonic Orchestra - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

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Great Conductors

Sir T. Beecham, H. Knappertsbusch, Sir J. Barbirolli, W. Furtwängler u. a.
Schuman, Debussy, Berlioz, Smetana u. v. m.

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This 10 CD Box contains the works of great conductors, for example
Sir Thomas Beecham, H. Knappertsbusch, Sir John Barbirolli, G. Szell, W. Furtwängler a. o.
 

The Orchestra Of The Royal Danish Theatre

E. Fisher - J. Frandsen - King Frederik IX u. v. a.
Heinrich Schütz - Niels Wilhelm Gade

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Richard Strauss

Wiener und Berliner Philharmoniker - W. Furtwängler, R. Strauss
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Sir Thomas Beecham

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Bedrich Smetana

Czech Philharmonic - Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra - V.Talich

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Mahler

Kathleen Ferrier - Julius Patzak
Gustav Mahler
Berliner Symphoniker - Wiener Philharmoniker -
New York Phillharmonik Orchestra - Bruno Walter

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Herbert von Karajan

Mozart, Brahms, Grieg u. a.
Herbert von Karajan
Berliner Philharmoniker - Wiener Philharmoniker / London Philharmonic Orchestra

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Wilhelm Furtwängler

Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, Wagner u.v.a.
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Berliner Philharmoniker - Wiener Philharmoniker u. a.

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Andrès Segovia

Bach, Albéniz, Villa-Lobos, Turina, Castelnuovo-Tedesco u.a.
Andrès Segovia

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10 Great Sopranos

R.Wagner, V.Bellini, G.Verdi, R.Schumann u.a.
Kirsten Flagstad - Maria Callas - Ljuba Welitsch u.a

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10 Great Tenors

Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Bizet u.v.a.
Enrico Caruso - Beniamino Gigli - Richard Tauber - Peter Anders u.a.

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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

Bach - Scarlatti - Mozart - Beethoven u. a.

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Bach - Das Orgelwerk 1

Wolfgang Stockmeier

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J.S. Bach - Das Orgelwerk 2

Wolfgang Stockmeier

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George Gershwin

I Got Rhythm - Liza - Rhapsody In Blue
u. v. m
 

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Johann Sebastian Bach - Orgelwerke

 Helmut Wacha

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Requiem

Dvorak, Faure, Verdi, Brahms, Mozart a.m.o.

An Overview over 200 years of liturgical choir music. With current recordings and lots of famous choirs and orchestras

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 Maria Callas - Her greatest Arias and Scenes

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 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Opern

Wiener Philharmoniker u. a.
 

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Domine Jesu Chirste

Bach - Beethoven - Mozart u. a.

De Sabata - Beecham - Karajan - Toscanini u. a.

This 10 CD set contains
Johann Sebastian Bach - St. Matthew Passion
Johannes Brahms - A german Requiem
Pergolesi - Stabat Mater
Georg Friedrich Händel - Messiah
and many others

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Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Sonatas

Artur Schnabel

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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Bach u. a.

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Plaisir Des Operettes

F. Lehar, K. Zeller, P. Lincke u. a.

This 10 cd set includes complete recordings, arias and airs from famous operettas by

Emmerich Kálmán (1882 - 1953) - Karl Zeller (1842 - 1898) - Paul Lincke (1866 - 1946) - Eduard Künneke (1885 - 1953) - Carl Millöcker (1842 - 1899) - Franz Lehár (1870 - 1948)
 

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Viva Coro Dell'Opera

G. Verdi, R. Wagner, G. Puccini, W.A. Mozart u. a.

This 10 CD set presents the following works:
Giuseppe Verdi: Aida, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Un ballo in maschera,
La forza del destino, Otello, Luisa Miller, Macbeth
Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,
Parsifal, Der Fliegende Holländer
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème, Turandot,...

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Guiseppe Verdi - Verdissimo

Maria Callas - Beniamino Gigli - Jussi Björling u.a.

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Piano Masters

Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven u.a.

A. Rubinstein - A.B. Michelangeli -
D. Lipatti - E. Gilels u.a

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Masters Of The Strings

F. Kreisler-D. Oistrach-Y. Menuhin-J. Heifetz-N. Milstein

Bach, Tartini, Mozart u.a.
 

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20th Century Masters

Furtwängler, Toscanini, Karajan, Böhm u. a.

Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Strauss u. a.

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Great Voices Of The Opera

Verdi - Wagner - Mozart

Maria Callas - Enrico Caruso - Beniamino Gigli

0 cds with hours of great operas, sung by some of the most famous singers of the world. Maria Callas in "Tristan und Isolde", Rosa Ponselle in "Aida", Giuseppe di Stefano in "La Traviata" lots of other famous singers and arias.
 

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Frederic Chopin - Klavierwerke

Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein, Dinu Lipatti u.a

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Cantori Gregoriani, Stirps Iesse
Canto Gregoriano
Cantori Gregoriani-Fulvio Rampi
Stirps Iesse-Enrico De Capitani


The Gregorian Chants of the whole church year are concentrated on this 10 CD collection.
Adoration of Mary - Advent - Last Supper - Epiphany - Pentecost - Easter - Resurrection - Christmas - Lent - Holy Week

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Ludwig van Beethoven - Klaviersonaten

Anne Oeland

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Richard Wagner

Great Singers Sing Wagner

F. Leider - M. Bäumer - J. Gadski - H. Traubel u. a.

This 10-cd-set contains recordings of great Wagner-operas from between 1908 and 1950. The singers belong to the greatest stars of their time: Frida Leider, Lotte Lehmann, Maria Callas, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis - with arias from Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, The Flying Dutchman, The Mastersingers - just to name some of them.
 

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

46 Sinfonien

Italiana Philharmonic Orchestra - Alessandro Arigoni
 

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Count Basie

Swingin' The Blues


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Glenn Miller And His Orchestra - On The Sentimental Side

Glenn Miller And His Orchestra

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Billie Holiday Vol. 2 - All Of Me

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Woody Herman And His Orchestra
At The Woodchopper's Ball

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Astor Piazzolla Vol. 2


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Santa's Christmas Collection

Various Artists

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Bella Italia - I grandi Classici della Nostalgia - Swing - Canzone - Jazz

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Sidney Bechet

Petite Fleur

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Bing Crosby

Black Moonlight

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Teddy Wilson

Jumpin´ For Joy

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Lester Young

Lester Leaps In

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Existentialism - Revival Jazz of the 60's Title:

Chris Barber, Sidney Bechet,
Monty Sunshine, Ken Colyer u. a.

In the 1950s arose the stereotype of the melancholic, mostly black-dressed young existentialist, who oscillated between jazz-cafe and university. A general reorientation of ideology preceded the new style. Promoters were not only the American Rock ‘n‘ Roll records, but also the traditional jazz of Ken Colyer, Chris Barber and other dixieland aficionados. At that time, Paris became the second home of many black jazz musicians, because there was no discrimination.

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Oscar Peterson

Date with Oscar

The Canadian pianist and composer Oscar Emmanuel Peterson is one of the most important figures of the modern jazz-mainstream. During his career he was awarded several prices: seven Grammy awards between 1974 and 1991, 1993 with the Glenn-Gould-Award and in 1999 with the Praemium Imperiale of the Japanese Art Association for his lifework. This 10 cd set contains among others:
Blue moon - Gipsy in my soul - Stippin‘ out with my baby - Angel eyes

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El Tango

pasiòn y emociòn

This 10 CD-set contains a superb Tango collection, for example:
La Cumparsita
Barrio De Tango
Tango argentino
Milonguita a.m.o.

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 Gypsy Music

This 10 cdD box contents a fervant collection of authentic gipsy music from Hungary - Transylvania - Greece - Albania - Serbia - Turkey - Andalusia - Romania - Balkan and Macedonia. The passional rhythms and the violin virtuosos open the listener a totally new world - a world of freedom and feelings.

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Louis Armstrong

Hotter Than That - Vol.2

Louis Armstrong was the most important popular music figure of the 20th century. This 10 CD set contains a compilation of his works, for example: Savoy Blues, Tiger Rag,  Surrender, Dear,Coquette, Muskrat Ramble u.a.

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Jazz Ballads

Prelude To A Kiss

Billie Holiday - Oscar Peterson - Stan Getz - Coleman Hawkins u. a.

The strong point of atmospherical jazz ballads is their timelessness. The titles that excited the audience already at the beginning of the 19th century did never lose their magic. We present over 170 recordings of unforgotten jazz artists:
Billie Holiday - Oscar Peterson - Stan Getz - Coleman Hawkins - Django Reinhardt - Louis Armstrong and many others

Lionel Hampton

Flying Home

When Lionel Hampton established the vibraphone in jazz, he already had a reputation as the fastest drummer of the world. He became famous because of his performances with the Benny Goodman Quartet, one of the most important bands of the swing-era. He was well-known for his emphatic style of playing the vibes, drums and the piano. This 10 cd set contains among others
On A Slow Boat To China - The Sheik Of Araby - Old Man River - Flying Home - Jeepers Creepers

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Dizzy Gillespie

Salt Peanuts

This compilation gives - from A like Ain‘t Misbehavin‘, B like Blue ‘N‘ Boogie and C like Cool Breeze, up to Y like Yesterday - a capacious insight into the opus of one of the most popular trumpeters in history of jazz - Dizzy Gillespie. He belongs to the greats of bop, who revolutionized jazz in the 1940s.

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Charles Mingus

Mysterious Blues

One of Charles Mingus‘ brandmarks was the powerful sound of his double bass performance. His immaculate solos and the tricky bass lines delivered the bass permanently from its image as a pure rhythm instrument and established it as a solo instrument. This 10 cd set contains among others
Little White Lies - Extrasensory Perception - Ghost Of A Chance - All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother - Boppin’ In Boston

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Thelonious Monk

Off Minor

Beside Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian and Kenny Clarke, Thelonious Monk was one of the inventors of bebop. His headstrong piano style made Monk being considered as one of the great individualists and considerable innovators of modern jazz.
April In Paris - Who Knows - Mysterioso - I Want To Be Happy - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes a. m. o.

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Celtic Souls

Seamus Tansey / Finbarr Dwyer / Tara Folk

This 10 CD Box contains a compilation of Irish Celtic Ballads & Traditional Music.
South Wind, Au Coulin, Fields of Athenry, Light Jig, The Long Not a.o.

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The Wild Rover

The Best of Irish Music

Jim Finnigen, Brian Coll, John McCormack u.a.

A little more 250 best of Irish songs with The Shannon Singers, Jim Finnigan, Brian Coll, John McCormack, Killarney Singers a.o.

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Wellness

(Vodjani, Vangelis, Parsons u. a.

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Goin' Mad Blues

Lightnin' Hopkins - John Lee
Bukka White - Ma Rainey

After the development of records in the 1920s, the blues fastly distributed and even reached Europe, the whole genre started to evolve equally quick. Some of the best known blues singers are for example Bukka White, Ma Rainey, Big Bill Broonzy and Bessie Smith. This is a compilation of the most beautiful blues recordings on 10 discs, interpreted by renowned artists. With Mit Lightnin‘ Hopkins - John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson - T-Bone Walker - Memphis Slim a. o.

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Swing Time for dancing

Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, Barney Bigard u. v. m.

In the 1920s and 30s a new style, which became very popular because of its vibrancy and danceability, arose in the USA: the swing was born. The spread of swing is inseparably linked with the nascensy of the big bands, whose complexity opened a wide variety of new musical possibilities. This box contains 10 cds, including
At The Woodchoppers Ball - Them There Eyes - Two O‘ Clock Jump - Honeysuckle Rose and many others

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Die Großen Deutschen Tanzorchester

Peter Kreuder, Kurt Henkels, Albert Vossen u. v. m.

Between 1933 and 1945 jazz was ill-reputed as "unwanted music" by the German government. big band leaders - to prevent unnecessary inconveniences - changed the definition of their music into dance music. That is why suddenly there were no more unwanted jazz bands but a lot of well reputed dance orchestras. Certainly the music did not change at all, and the dance orchestras carried on playing finest jazz music.
Kleine Mädchen tanzen gern - Darf ich bitten - Blinde Kuh - Peter, Peter wo warst du heute nacht
and many others

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Vive la chanson - Vol. 2

Best of works by Edith Piaf, Gilbert Bacaud, Juliette Greco, Jean Jabin a.o. on 10 CD Set:
Bravo pour le clown (Louiguy - Contet), Quand tu danses (Delanoe - Becaud - Gerald), Les feuilles mortes (J. Kosma - J. Prevert), Quand on s‘promène au bord de l‘eau (M. Yvain - J. Duvivier) u.v.a.

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Edith Piaf

Adieu Mon Coeur

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Miles Davis

Just Squeeze Me

The elaboration of blues in the 1950s would hardly be imaginable without Miles Davis. His inimitable tone colour inspires the following generations of trumpeters until these days. Davis‘ style distinguishes itself by the crystal clear, warm sound of his trumpet, the spare improvisations place every note consciously. This 10 cd set contains his most beautiful blues ballads, for example:
Bluing - The Serpent‘s Tooth - The Leap - Doxy - Green Haze - Swing Spring a. m. o.

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Nuevo Ritmo De La Tierra

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Louis Armstrong

It' s Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was one of the first important soloists in history of jazz and up to this day unmatched. This 10 CD collection contains for example
Love, You Funny Thing, Public Melodie Number One, I‘ M Shooting High, Rhythm Saved The World

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Jazz Original Masters

Piano Masters

The pianists have always taken a key role in jazz, due to the enormous versatility of the piano. On one hand, it can create breathtaking melodies, harmonies or discords; on the other hand it can be used as a rhythm instrument. On each disc you will hear another terrific jazz pianist:
Teddy Wilson - Bud Powell - Erroll Garner - Earl "Fatha" Hines - Oscar Peterson - Thelonious Monk - Art Tatum - George Shearing - Albert Ammons - Pete Johnson

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Rhythm & Blues

Roy Milton - Ivory Joe Hunter - Lil Armstrong
u. v. m.

Rhythm & Blues was the leading style of Afro-American pop music in the 1940s, whichfrom later developed rock ‘n‘ roll. It is a sort of blues, with a strongly accentuated rhythm. This 10 cd collection comprises the greatest recfordings of everybody who is anybody in the world of Rhythm & Blues, from Roy Milton with "Milton‘s Boogie" and Earl Williams‘ "Shout Baby Shout" up to Brownie Mc Ghee‘s "House Rent Party".

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Boogie Woogie

Albert Ammons, Cow Cow Davenport, Turner Parrish u. v. m.

Boogie Woogie is a solo piano style, related with blues. Indeed, the boogie is much faster and requests several technical knowledge. In the late 1920s the boogie style developed and pianists like Clarence ‘Pinetop‘ Smith and Jimmy Yancey initiated the boogie-boom of the 1930s and 40s.
Albert Ammons - Pete Johnson - Meade Lux Lewis - Speckled Red a. m. o.

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La Legende de la Chanson

Richard Anthony - Jaques Brel - Juliette Gréco
u. v. m.

This 10 CD set contains the most beautiful chansons of the famoust french chansonniers. Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour and many other artists with songs like
Donne moi ma chance, La vie en rose, Quelque part dans la nuit, and others

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Fats Waller

Thomas Wright Waller was a well-known jazz pianist, composer and vocalist, who had great influence on the evolution from early jazz to swing. This 10 CD set contains amongst others
Old Plantation, Black Maria, Squeeze Me, Lonesome Road

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Benny Goodman

I Had To Do It

"The King of Swing" was the first celebrated bandleader of the Swing Era. In the early 1920s Goodman played with the bands of Red Nichols, Isham Jones and Ted Lewis. In 1934 he founded his own big band, the first at all to unite black and white musicians. With their perfection they won acceptance (not only of jazz fans!) within a few years. This 10 cd set includes for example
Flat Foot Floogie - Ciribiribin - Music Hall Rag - Lullaby In Rhythm

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The Big Band Era

Benny Goodman - Count Basie - Duke Ellington
und viele andere

Big Bands became popular in the 1920s in the USA and were characterizing for the style of the swing era. The term ‘big band‘ is also used for big dance orchestras, regardless of their style. Big bands are often indivisibly associated with the names of their band leaders, some of the famoust are for example: Artie Shaw - Benny Goodman - Harry James - Woody Herman - Glenn Miller - Benny Carter

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Charlie Parker

Now's The Time

This 10 CD Box includes amongst others the tracks
The Jumping Blues, Sweet Georgia Brown, Embraceable You, What Is This Thing Called Love
Merry-Go-Round, Estrellita, They Can‘ t Take That Away From Me

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Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington was the most important composer in the history of jazz. On this 10 cd collection you can enjoy for example Watermelon Man, Portrait of the Lion, Sophisticated Lady

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Ella Fitzgerald

Everyone's Wrong But Me

For more than half a century Ella Fitzgerald embodied the ideal of the swinging jazz singer. This 10 CD Set contains for example Just A Simple Melody, If Dreams Come True, Wacky Dust and many others

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Django Reinhardt - derzeit nicht lieferbar
Djangology

Djang