This 15 CD compilation pays homage to Leif Segerstam (1944-2024), one of the greatest Sibelius conductors of all time. Segerstam left a lasting mark in music history in numerous ways. His Sibelius recordings for Ondine were recorded during his more than a decade long tenure as the chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and form an integral part of his more than 30 albums for Ondine between 1994 and 2015. These recordings with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra are a fortuitous combination of the orchestra's tradition of performing Sibelius, going back to collaboration with the composer himself, with Segerstam's experience, sensitive ear and creative energy. Here the stars aligned in a truly remarkable way.

Marking the fifth anniversary of Bernard Haitink's passing, Decca is proud to present the third and final limited-edition box set in a series that began with the landmark Concertgebouw Orchestra edition and continued with the London recordings. The focus of this edition is Bernard Haitink's recordings with three of the world's leading orchestras: the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker. Also included are recordings of Mahler and Poulenc with the European Community Youth Orchestra, Fidelio from Dresden (with Jessye Norman,) and from the early stereo years, a partnership with David Oistrakh coupling Mozart with Stravinsky. Most intriguing perhaps, is music by Turnage recorded with the Chicago Symphony. This 31-CD set features the original jackets and a booklet with insightful notes by Andrew Stewart.

Hyperion presents Mozart: The Complete Violin Sonatas in a 10-CD collection, featuring Alina Ibragimova and Cedric Tiberghien in a celebrated cycle recorded between 2014 and 2016. Composed between his childhood years and the full maturity of his Viennese period, the violin sonatas chart the profound transformation not only in Mozart but in chamber music itself. The very earliest of them are essentially keyboard sonatas with violin accompaniment and were his first published works. By contrast, the mature works display a continuous dialog of equals between the instruments. Thus, they chart his growth from child wonder to fully fledged genius. The production team of Andrew Keener and engineer Simon Eadon assisted Alina and Cedric to illuminate the character of each of these 37 violin sonatas, while revealing the larger narrative that connects them across Mozart's compositional life.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt's relationship with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was one of the most transformative partnerships in modern orchestral history, lasting 38 years and totalling 276 concerts. What made the partnership unique was the mutual respect between the maestro and the ensemble. While many traditional orchestras initially resisted Harnoncourt's strict adherence to historical scores, the Concertgebouw musicians embraced his intellectual rigor. Over several decades, they developed a distinctive "Amsterdam style" of performing the First Viennese School - Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven - combining the orchestra's legendary warmth with Harnoncourt's sharp, dramatic energy. The recorded legacy of this collaboration remains a cornerstone of the classical catalog. Their famous cycles of Mozart and Haydn symphonies were highly acclaimed, as was their profound interpretation of Schubert's complete symphonic works, which continue to be benchmarks for critics and collectors alike. The box also includes the famous Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy (Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte), starring Thomas Hampson, works by Bruckner, Johann Strauss and Brahms, as well as four albums by Dvorak (his major symphonies and his piano concerto)

Also available on Blu-ray

“The Tutto Verdi series, in its goal of being complete, makes it possible to not only hear but see performances of works one seldom encounters outside of Parma...One does not have to be a Verdi completist like me to find a lot to enjoy in Tutto Verdi. The rarities are worth knowing to expand your sense of the composer’s output. The seven operas with Nucci are fascinating on so many levels, not the least of which is that his younger colleagues respond to his work not by being in awe but by allowing themselves to dig deeper and bring their performances to a higher plain than they imagined they were capable of. What would Peppino say?” – Fred Plotkin, WQXR

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Giuseppe Verdi
TUTTO VERDI – The Operas, Vol. 3 (1855–1893)
(11-DVD Box Disc Set)

I Vespri Siciliani (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)
Simon Boccanegra (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)
Un Ballo in Maschera (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)
La Forza del Destino (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)
Don Carlo (Teatro Comunale di Modena, 2012)
Aida (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2012)
Otello (Salzburg Festival, 2008)
Falstaff (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)

Bonus:
- Introduction to each opera

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 20 hours 41 mins (operas) + 1 hour 27 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 11 (DVD 9)

Limited five 180gm vinyl LP set. Herbert von Karajan's recording of Wagner's 'Die Walkure' features an outstanding cast, including Austrian star soprano Gundula Janowitz (Sieglinde), legendary bass-baritone Thomas Stewart (Wotan), Jon Vickers (Siegmund), and the dazzling Regine Crespin (Brunnhilde). It captivates with it's expressive range and lyrical accents. Karajan skillfully allows his orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, to take a back seat to showcase the great singers. As classical music magazine Gramophone aptly puts it, even half a century after it's release, his recording, "still has surprises in store." For the first time, the ORIGINAL SOURCE SERIES uses the original stereo master tape, a two-track audio tape, as it's source. Remastered by the Emil Berliner Studios on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in a 5-LP lift-lid box set. Limited and numbered.

Between 2005 and 2020 the Trio Wanderer explored all the piano trios of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms with the unique combination of rigor and poetry for which they are renowned. A landmark in the discography, this boxed set assembles for the first time their complete recordings of these masterpieces of German Romanticism.

This box brings together a collection of Decca recordings displaying the dynamism of Spanish conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, including material previously unreleased on CD. In the generation after Ataulfo Argenta, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos became the most prominent Spanish conductor, both at home and abroad. Just 25 when he was appointed Music Director of the Orquesta Nacional de Espana in 1962, he trained it into a formidably adaptable and accomplished ensemble. Through the 1960s, he became known to international audiences not least thanks to the Decca recordings compiled complete for the first time in this set. Of German parentage, but growing up in Burgos, Fruhbeck de Burgos had an innate sympathy with both musical traditions of his heritage, and Decca played to this strength. His Schumann (Rhenish Symphony) is impulsive and virile, his Mendelssohn (Midsummer Night's Dream) is springy and sparkling with detail. His label debut came in February 1965, as accompanist with the London Symphony Orchestra to the Romanian violinist Ion Voicu in a beautifully moulded version of the classic Mendelssohn/Bruch coupling on LP. Fruhbeck de Burgos also knew how to draw out an authentically vivid Spanish colour-palette from foreign orchestras. His 1966 version of Falla's El amor brujo (the mezzo soprano Nati Mistral) still enjoys classic status. In 1967, he recorded his own picturesque orchestration of the Suite Espanola by Albeniz, long unavailable on CD. Likewise, his collaborations with Narciso Yepes present a compelling spectrum of lesser-known guitar concertos when compiled together, from the elegantly neo-classical Concertino of Salvador Bacarisse to the more adventurous set of Tres Graficos by Maurice Ohana, which Fruhbeck de Burgos recorded in his sole album for Deutsche Grammophon. The pianist Alicia de Larrocha also found in Fruhbeck a congenial recording partner, who had a naturally idiomatic grasp of the concertos written for her by the likes of Montsalvatge and Surinach. Though she made several versions of Falla's Noches en los Jardines de Espana, her 1983 Decca recording with Fruhbeck is particularly atmospheric thanks to the conductor's grasp of the moods and feelings behind the notes. This digital-era album became his last Decca recording, included in this Original Jackets box, which includes a new essay by Peter Quantrill on the conductor's life and career.

A violinist-conductor who understood orchestras from the inside out: commanding power and Viennese warmth in the complete Decca symphonic recordings of Walter Weller. As the youngest ever leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, Walter Weller quickly established a natural rapport with orchestras at home and abroad when he swapped bow for baton in the late 1960s. Engaged as a regular conductor by the Vienna State Opera, he made his debut as a conductor in the studio with a 1970 recital of arias with the Spanish soprano Pilar Lorengar. As leader of the Weller Quartet, he was no stranger to Decca's studios, but he disbanded the quartet to focus on conducting. In Geneva with the Suisse Romande orchestra, then in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra, he brought his insider's knowledge of orchestral technique to bear on mostly Russian symphonies through the course of the 1970s. Critics identified Weller's total grasp of complex scores and his ability to get a rich yet transparent sound from his orchestras. The First and Ninth symphonies of Shostakovich in 1971 were followed up by equally acclaimed complete cycles of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. In 1974, Weller also made a compelling account of the Symphony by Paul Dukas, in this underrated work's first recording on a major label. Decca's full-frequency sound complemented the burnished gleam of string timbre which Weller elicited wherever he went. He proved a sympathetic and alert accompanist to Pascal Roge in a 1974-76 cycle of the Bartok piano concertos, and then drew on his own Czech heritage for a broad and loving traversal of Smetana's Ma vlast with the Israel Philharmonic. Near the close of his relationship with Decca (1979-82), Weller then returned to the repertoire he had grown up with as the son of a Vienna Philharmonic violinist, recording the Hungarian Dances of Brahms and the violin concertos of Mozart with the Japanese soloist Mayumi Fujikawa. This set stood out from the competition by including the two concertos published under Mozart's name after his death, later deemed spurious, but highly attractive in their own right. Accompanying this Original Jackets collection, Peter Quantrill contributes a new essay on Walter Weller's life and career, paying tribute to a true son of Vienna.

From 78 to stereo, this is Sir Malcolm Sargent's Decca legacy reissued complete, including several recordings new to CD. Sargent's broad repertoire and warm rapport with audiences made him easy to underestimate. Yet Schnabel and Toscanini, among other celebrated foreign musicians, held him in the highest regard. This new Eloquence collection of the conductor's Decca recordings should help modern listeners to understand and share Schnabel's admiration. In his booklet essay, David Patmore tells the story of Sargent's early career as an organist and rapid rise as a conductor in his 20s, leading the Ballets russes, Wagner's Mastersingers and a popular series of children's concerts. Having made records since the 1920s, he was an experienced conductor in the studio by the time he began recording for Decca, directly after the war. These 78-era sessions included symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert as well as overtures by Rossini and Suppe, several of them never reissued until now. They reveal what a direct and unmannered interpreter Sargent could be in canon repertoire, coaching orchestras to achieve the highest technical standards. He was always a dynamic conductor of English music: his Decca recordings of Holst's Planets, Elgar's Enigma Variations and Coronation Marches have lost none of their rhythmic drive and intensity. Sargent's concerto sessions with Sir Clifford Curzon (in Rawsthorne), Max Rostal (Bartok), Ida Haendel (Mendelssohn) and Ruggero Ricci (Tchaikovsky and Dvorak) bear out his reputation as a sympathetic accompanist. 'Messiah and Mikado' was how the conductor summed up his strengths in the eyes of the wider public: the box includes rare 1946 recordings of Handel arias and choruses featuring Kathleen Ferrier, as well as a live 1949 recording of Sargent accompanying her in his own orchestration of Brahms' Four Serious Songs. Having comprehensively covered the light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for HMV, Sargent remade both Yeoman of the Guard and Princess Ida for Decca in 1964-65. These records movingly document the final chapter in the conductor's career-long affinity with G&S, now leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and first-rate casts which include Elizabeth Harwood and Donald Adams in the principal roles of both works. Sargent was a conductor for all seasons, and this Eloquence box takes the measure of him.

Scintillating pianism in music from Mozart to Messiaen: the complete Argo and Decca recordings of John Ogdon. John Ogdon began to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1953, at the age of 16. Fellow students such as Alexander Goehr and Harrison Birtwistle were astonished by the speed of Ogdon's mind, matched by his facility at the keyboard. He could perform and make sense of the most complex scores, old and new, as though they were child's play. Further study elsewhere led to his triumph at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962, when he shared the gold medal with Vladimir Ashkenazy. He began to record for Decca six years later, in December 1968, with the piano cycle by Olivier Messiaen, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jesus, which renewed the Lisztian tradition of pianism for a new postwar age. Over the next three years he made four further albums for Decca, three of them with his wife Brenda Lucas. The diversity of repertoire testifies to the range of Ogdon's musical talent and intellectual curiosity. More elevated but virtuosic Messiaen (the Visions de l'Amen) sits alongside freewheeling youthful concertos by Mendelssohn and Shostakovich. Almost unknown at the time that Ogdon and Lucas recorded it for Argo in 1972, the Concerto pathetique is a two-piano version, made by Liszt in 1856, of a piece which had begun life as a Grand Solo de concert in 1849. Latterly taken up by the likes of Martha Argerich, the Concerto presents a heroic contrast on record with the restraint of the Six Canons and the poetic Andante and Variations by Schumann. Ogdon's career, both in public and on record, was brought to a sudden and tragic halt by a breakdown in 1973. Struggling with mental health for the rest of his life, he nonetheless returned to the studios briefly in June 1983, to contribute to a Decca set of Mozart's complete music for solo horn, led by Barry Tuckwell. In 1784, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold that the Quintet for Piano and Winds was 'the best thing I have yet written'; Ogdon, Tuckwell and their distinguished colleagues lean into it's mellow warmth while relishing the interplay of texture in Decca's demonstration-quality sound. This 'Original Covers' Eloquence box of Ogdon's Decca and Argo albums valuably restores the Mozart Quintet (and several other recordings) to the catalogue, accompanied by a new and illuminating essay on the pianist's life and career by Mark Ainley.

A quarter-century of postwar Bayreuth recordings, made live at the Festspielhaus by Decca, DG and Philips: this is an absorbing history in sound of Wagner interpretation featuring several albums of timeless authority. This survey of Wagner's mature operas, excluding the Ring, takes the listener from Parsifal in 1951 under Hans Knappertsbusch, through to Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg under Silvio Varviso in 1974. Both the 1951 Parsifal and Lohengrin from two years later, under Joseph Keilberth, were captured in 'ffrr' mono by the legendary Decca team of engineers under the supervision of John Culshaw. Decca continued to work at Bayreuth until 1955, capturing Der Fliegende Hollander, also under Keilberth, in a superb example of Decca's early stereo sound. The casts were often youthful, but coached by the Festival co-director Wieland Wagner into an intense engagement with text and music. Performances here by Wolfgang Windgassen, Hermann Uhde, Ludwig Weber, Birgit Nilsson and others reach a special level of long-breathed intensity almost impossible to sustain under studio conditions. None of the conductors involved had worked at Bayreuth before the war. Keilberth, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Karl Bohm all engaged with Wieland in finding a new, flowing but dramatically inflected style in Wagner. Something of this New Bayreuth style also infuses Knappertsbusch's 1962 Parsifal with a unique combination of mystery and rapture. The set includes a previously unpublished radio interview with Irene Dalis and George London, the Kundry and Amfortas in that performance. Like Knappertsbusch's Parsifal, the Tristan und Isolde under Bohm in 1966 was rapidly recognized as a classic of the gramophone and has hardly been out of print since then, but it is reissued here with the rehearsal sequence included on the final LP of the original set. This 'Original Covers' box also includes a booklet essay by Peter Quantrill which explores the history of post-war Bayreuth and the circumstances of each recording.

A gallery of Mozart performances from the mid-1950s, including many forgotten and newly remastered recordings. Deutsche Grammophon marked the 200th anniversary of Mozart's birth in 1956 with a 6LP 'Jubilee Edition'. Three 'evenings' of orchestral, chamber and vocal music drew on DG's most experienced and dynamic Mozartians, from Ferenc Fricsay and Clara Haskil to Maria Stader and Igor Markevitch. This is now republished complete for the first time, and expanded to three times it's original length, including many other fine Mozart recordings made at the time such as the pianists Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Helmut Roloff in concertos; Bernhard Paumgartner in one of Mozart's most substantial Salzburg divertimenti; Fritz Lehmann conducting early symphonies and opera overtures; and much more. While DG was commemorating Mozart in grand style, it's sister label Archiv released many new recordings of the composer which broke new ground either in terms of repertoire or performance style. The Piano Concerto K.414 and the Sonata K.331 were played on rare fortepianos from Mozart's own time. The Vocal Canons - illustrating the composer's ribald humor as well as his family's use of music as a private means of communication - were recorded by the choir of North German radio. Mozart's treasury of song was also documented for the first time, and in delicious performances featuring the soprano Margot Guilleaume and the fortepianist Fritz Neumeyer. In 1956 itself, Archiv released a live performance of the Requiem which had been given at the Stephansdom in December the previous year, on the date of his death, by Eugen Jochum. Issued as a liturgical reconstruction of what the composer's own funeral might have sounded like, this conveys a powerful mood of commemoration thanks to the conducting of Eugen Jochum and a line-up of soloists led by Irmgard Seefried. Many of these Archiv albums have never been reissued in the digital era, until now. They bring valuable context to a gallery of Mozart as he was seen and heard, two centuries after his birth. Drawing on ideas and recollections from several of the artists represented in the box, such as Irmgard Seefried and Wolfgang Paumgartner, the booklet essay by Peter Quantrill is complemented by a range of photographs as well as Original Cover artwork which evokes the mid-1950s.

Hyperion proudly presents the Complete Haydn String Quartets on period instruments in one 20-CD box set. These acclaimed performances from the London Haydn Quartet combine historically informed performance practice with performing editions published during Haydn's own lifetime. The release celebrates the 25th anniversary of the formation of the London Haydn Quartet.

'Karajan's producer' on the podium - the complete recordings of Otto Gerdes for Deutsche Grammophon, including previously unpublished material and displaying some of the most thrilling versions of orchestral masterpieces to be recorded. Reviews for these recordings reached for superlatives: "a stunning disc from first moment to last" (Brahms 4); "Luminous sound" (Eugene Onegin); "rather sweeps the field" (Dvorak 9); "silence[s] all criticism" (Tannhauser); "Trenchant interpretation" (Wagner Symphony in C). The 1961-62 cycle of Beethoven symphonies conducted by Herbert von Karajan is still celebrated for it's technical as well as musical excellence. The recording producer was Otto Gerdes, who had joined DG in 1956 after working as a producer for Eterna in the former East Germany. He had trained as a conductor under Hermann Abendroth in his home city of Cologne and continued to conduct opera and concerts in Germany and Italy through the 1950s and 60s. A notorious confrontation with Karajan led to Gerdes resuming his full-time career as a conductor, which led to a complete recording of Wagner's Tannhauser for DG, and the first stereo version of the composer's early Symphony in C. Tannhauser was cast with singers in their prime - Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - and German-language highlights of Eugene Onegin and Otello featured Fritz Wunderlich (as Lensky) and Fischer-Dieskau (as Otello). In the early 1960s, Gerdes made three 'test recordings' with the Berlin Philharmonic: The Fourth Symphony of Brahms, the 'New World' by Dvorak and a collection of Wagner preludes. When released on LP, the symphonies were enthusiastically received for their old-school ebb and flow and Romantic intensity of expression. The Wagner recordings show Gerdes in full command of 'Karajan's orchestra'. The complete album of Hugo Wolf's orchestral music is released on CD in it's entirety for this first time, recorded live at the Musikverein in Vienna in 1968. This features Thomas Stewart and Evelyn Lear in the composer's own orchestrations of his Lieder, as well as the Italian Serenade, and the rarely heard but enthralling tone-poem Penthesilea which shows Wolf at his most passionately inspired. Additionally, there is a whole disc of previously unpublished material - overtures, ballet music and intermezzi. Compiled together for the first time in an 'Original Jackets' box, the DG recordings of Otto Gerdes pay tribute to a forgotten but significant figure in the recording world of the 1960s. The eventful story of Gerdes's career is told in a new essay by Peter Quantrill, and all the recordings have been newly remastered.

A hymn to a sublime contralto: the complete Philips recordings of Aafje Heynis, remastered and compiled together, with original jackets, for the first time. Aafje Heynis grew up as a church singer, and her faith and modesty radiate from her performances, which began to capture the ears of Dutch audiences after the war. A momentous debut with the Concertgebouw and Eduard van Beinum produced an account of the Alto Rhapsody by Brahms - it hardly betrays her nerves on the occasion, despite her misgivings, and launched her international career. There followed a career path not dissimilar to her recent and eminent predecessor, Kathleen Ferrier, with Philips recording her in folk song and Lieder as well as sacred and spiritual repertoire. When Bernard Haitink made his first recording of the 'Resurrection' Symphony by Mahler, Heynis was the obvious choice to sing the pivotal 'Urlicht' movement, which she did with the grace, the nobility and gravity of expression she brought to all her performances. This Mahler Second has scarcely left the catalogue since it's first issue. Much less familiar now are Heynis's albums of Bach cantatas, and her contributions to Dutch-made recordings of the Dettingen Te Deum and Dixit Dominus of Handel. Rarer still are the short 'EP' albums of sacred arias, accompanied by the organists Pierre Palla and Simon C. Jansen, which were primarily issued for the local Dutch market. A Beethoven Ninth under Igor Markevitch, and a Lieder album with Irwin Gage, hint at what might have been, if Heynis had chosen to embrace the calling of a truly international career. Likewise, we have a single record of Heynis in opera, singing the role of Orpheus in excerpts from Gluck's opera, recorded in 1973. Compiled and remastered from rare sources, and issued as an Original Covers collection with extensive photographic illustration as well as a new and moving tribute to the life and art of Heynis by Jean-Charles Hoffele, this set will attract all collectors of great singers. Heynis could touch the heart of the listener like few others, and her voice, once heard, is never forgotten.

Despite a difficult start in life and an early reputation as a "conceited brat" (not helped by a father who tried to market him as a "new Mozart") Carl Maria von Weber developed into a disciplined professional through rigorous training under Abbe Vogler and years of practical experience managing theatres in Breslau, Prague, and Dresden. His breakthrough as a composer was closely tied to his collaboration with clarinettist Heinrich Joseph Baermann - Weber's mastery of the clarinet's technical possibilities leading to the famous concertos that paved the way for his operatic triumphs. His masterpiece, 'Der Freischutz' became a cultural phenomenon, praised for it's "Wolf's Glen" scene and it's balance between romantic nature and demonic forces. After a life of great musical discipline amidst continued adversities, Weber died in London at only 39 years old, shortly after the successful premiere of his final opera 'Oberon'. This box celebrates the range of Weber's genius via the selection of several highly recommended reference recordings.

A portrait of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players through the 1970s, through their complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips. This diverse range of repertoire receives luxury treatment from the musicians, always centered in beauty of tone and with the kind of joyful freedom of phrasing which world-class orchestral musicians produce when liberated from the authority of a baton. The Boston Symphony Chamber Players were created in 1964, to play at the Tanglewood Festival before the 'main event' of the Boston Symphony's concerts. Before long, the BSCP became the main event themselves, with a programme of concerts throughout the year, and a busy recording schedule. When the Boston Symphony Orchestra began to record with DG in 1970, so did the Chamber Players. Violinist Joseph Silverstein, cellist Jules Eskin and flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer all take starring roles on an album of late chamber music by Claude Debussy, and a new booklet essay by Peter Quantrill outlines the importance of these three superb musicians to the profile and the identity of the BSCP. As led by Silverstein, the repertoire of the BSCP also reflects the inclusive nature of the main orchestra's programming. There is high modernism, in an album of modern American chamber music by Ives, Carter and Porter. There is classic modernism, in immaculately prepared accounts of landmark works by Stravinsky and Schoenberg. There are core Romantic classics such as a Dvorak string quintet and the Clarinet Quintet by Brahms. Then there are delicious rarities such as chamber-scale arrangements of Johann Strauss waltzes. This diverse range of repertoire receives luxury treatment from the musicians of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, always centred in beauty of tone and the kind of joyful freedom of phrasing which world-class orchestral musicians produce when liberated from the authority of a baton. Coming to a close with a glorious pairing of the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms from 1993, led on Philips by the veteran clarinettist Harold Wright, this collection of 'Original Jacket' albums rewards lovers of chamber music with playing of consistent vitality and refinement.

The culmination of an extraordinary 9-year collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda, LSO Live proudly presents Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 1-15. A complete symphony cycle offers not only a comprehensive journey through a composer's artistic evolution but also a unique glimpse into history, revealing the world as they experienced it. Few composers embody this more than Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), whose career was profoundly shaped by the political pressures of Soviet Russia. His symphonies are known for walking the line between outward conformity and hidden defiance, often infused with irony and coded resistance. Renowned for his mastery of Russian repertoire, Noseda brings a rare depth of understanding to this recording, shaped in part by his work alongside musicians who personally knew Shostakovich. This new interpretation of the complete symphonies showcases his signature dynamism, insight, and flair-earning it's place among the most definitive recordings of our time.

Bernard Haitink was always a familiar figure in London where he was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic from 1967 to 1979 and was also seen at such prestigious British opera houses as Covent Garden and at Glyndebourne. This, the second of three volumes covering Haitink's complete recordings for Decca and Philips, focuses on his London years. The recordings cover a period of two decades, from 1967 (Dvorak with Heinrich Schiff) to 1986 (Rachmaninoff with Vladimir Ashkenazy.) Many of the hallmarks of Haitink's Concertgebouw recordings are present in these readings with the LPO. His unobtrusive authority - letting the score speak - was aptly summarized by Gramophone: "At no point is one remotely aware that the performance is being conducted. It simply is."

The culmination of an extraordinary 9-year collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda, LSO Live proudly presents Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 1-15. A complete symphony cycle offers not only a comprehensive journey through a composer's artistic evolution but also a unique glimpse into history, revealing the world as they experienced it. Few composers embody this more than Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), whose career was profoundly shaped by the political pressures of Soviet Russia. His symphonies are known for walking the line between outward conformity and hidden defiance, often infused with irony and coded resistance. Renowned for his mastery of Russian repertoire, Noseda brings a rare depth of understanding to this recording, shaped in part by his work alongside musicians who personally knew Shostakovich. This new interpretation of the complete symphonies showcases his signature dynamism, insight, and flair-earning it's place among the most definitive recordings of our time.

A complete collection of Julius Katchen's Brahms recordings, featuring him as heroic concerto soloist, dynamic chamber-music partner and rugged, scintillating protagonist in the solo-piano music. Includes previously unreleased versions of the clarinet sonatas with Michel Portal, and the First Cello Sonata with Janos Starker, as well as several fascinating repertoire duplications between recordings made in the mono and stereo eras. After Julius Katchen's untimely death from cancer in April 1969, aged just 42, the tribute paid by his record label Decca could claim without hyperbole that Katchen was 'one of the finest Brahms interpreters of his generation'. Less than 20 years earlier, he had burst like a firework onto the international scene with a record of Brahms's F minor Sonata, which became the first solo-piano LP to be issued by Decca. Critics and listeners were quick to admire the muscular, aquiline profile of playing that felt true to Brahms as the 'keyboard lion' of his own generation. In fact Katchen had made his debut on record a few months earlier, with the Handel Variations captured at Decca's West Hampstead studios in April 1949. He would go on to re-record the Variations in both 1958 and 1962, and this new Eloquence box presents all three versions side by side for the first time, demonstrating how Katchen's pianism matured during his brief career while losing none of it's barnstorming virtuosity. Katchen also recorded and then revisited the Paganini Variations, in 1959 and 1966, as well as the Third Sonata, as part of a stereo cycle of the complete solo piano works, made between 1961 and 1965. By then he had recorded both concertos, with the LSO conducted by Pierre Monteux and Janos Ferencsik. Towards the end of the 60s, Decca then captured him in timely manner as a sensitive partner to Josef Suk in the violin sonatas (which he had already recorded twice with Ruggiero Ricci in the 50s, both versions also being reissued here), the clarinet sonatas with Thea King, the cello sonatas with Janos Starker and piano trios with Suk and Starker. As Mark Ainley outlines in his booklet essay, surveying Katchen's meteoric career and special affinity with Brahms, the First Cello Sonata (a 1968 recording from Aldeburgh, made at the same time as the piano trios) was never issued; so too a 1967 set of the clarinet sonatas, in company with Michel Portal. With their first-ever release, this Decca Eloquence set presents the fullest possible portrait of Katchen as a sovereign interpreter of Brahms, capturing the music's muscular energy, refined nuancing, and emotional breadth.

Reissued complete for the first time, the recorded legacy of Sir Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Philips, including an unsurpassed cycle of Sibelius symphonies. Each element of the tricky chemistry came off when Colin Davis made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1967, in concerts of Berlioz, Stravinsky and Dvorak. In search of a new Principal Conductor at the time, the BSO offered the post to Davis, but he preferred to focus his energies on the directorship of the Royal Opera in London. However, he began making regular return visits to Boston, and in 1974 became the orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor. As the most 'European'-sounding of the great American orchestras, the BSO responded with natural affinity to Davis's sense of line and cultivated warmth in canon repertoire. When he began to explore Sibelius with them, both the orchestra and audience responded with cautious curiosity which blossomed into committed enthusiasm. Philips capitalised on this affinity by recording them together in the complete symphonies and selected tone-poems between 1975 and 1980, successfully capturing the intensity of the associated concerts. While the Sibelius cycle has maintained a firm place in the catalogue, other albums in the BSO/Davis discography have fallen from prominence. They include a fizzing Mendelssohn album of the 'Italian' Symphony and excerpts from A Midsummer Night's Dream; a delectably sprung set of excerpts from Schubert's Rosamunde, and one of the first-ever versions of the 'Great' C major Symphony to include all the repeats. Davis had a long-established harmonious working relationship with Claudio Arrau, and the Chilean pianist came to Boston to record magisterial, lovingly detailed versions of the concertos by Schumann, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. While Tchaikovsky is hardly a name associated with Davis, the conductor also drew remarkable tension, energy and volume from his Boston forces in Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Overture (complete with chorus, organ, bells and the rest). This Original Covers box from Eloquence comprises newly remastered recordings and includes a new booklet essay by Peter Quantrill, exploring the history of Colin Davis in Boston, the elements of their happy artistic chemistry and the stories behind the scenes.

Ataulfo Argenta and Enrique Jorda - two Spanish maestri in a single Decca collection, newly remastered, with 'original jackets', and several recordings receiving their CD premieres. LIMITED EDITION. When Decca developed it's revolutionary new 'ffrr' technology in the postwar 1940s, the label promoted it with a list of new recordings made by their most distinguished artists: Kathleen Ferrier, Victor de Sabata... and Enrique Jorda. Likewise, when Decca embraced the step-change of LP a few years later, they advertised it's high fidelity and convenience with recordings made in Geneva by Ernest Ansermet and the young conductor he had determined upon as his successor in charge of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande: Ataulfo Argenta. This set includes, for the first time, all the recordings made by Jorda in the 78 era and receiving their first official digital remastering; his LP discography is also included. Jorda (born in 1911) and Argenta (born in 1913) were the first Spanish conductors to win an international reputation. They did so with the unmannered, dynamically vital interpretations of Romantic and 20th-century repertoire which Decca preserved in these recordings. Both Argenta and Jorda were valued by orchestras and record labels as guarantors of authenticity in the Spanish orchestral repertoire by Falla, Albeniz, Turina, Rodrigo and others. But both conductors yearned to be recognized for their equal mastery of French and German repertoire. Listening now to Argenta conduct the Faust Symphony of Liszt and Schubert's 'Great' C major, and Jorda in Haydn No. 88 and Mozart's 'Linz' Symphony, we can hear the insights they bring to the Austro-German symphonic repertoire from a Hispanic angle. Both conductors made early and near-definitive recordings of Nights in the Gardens of Spain, by Falla, and this set presents a fascinating opportunity to compare their approaches. Argenta's career tragically ended with his death in 1958, aged just 44, while Jorda made a series of erratic career moves which culminated in an ill-starred tenure as music director in San Francisco. Under other circumstances, both conductors could have established a 'Spanish school' of conducting in the stereo age of the 1960s. This set illuminates the virtues of their common approaches to music, which through their Franco-German training in both cases brought together a sure grasp of form and rigor with a sensitivity to orchestral color. The nature of that formation is explored in a new booklet essay written by Peter Quantrill, and the recordings are reissued in Eloquence's 'Original Jackets' format.

18 CDs, cap box. For the first time, DG brings together all of it's celebrated early Maazel recordings. Iconic stuff in a handsome, limited-edition box, offered at an attractive price, with gorgeous original cover art. Highlights include Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6, Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 2-6 & 8 "Unfinished," "Romeo & Juliet" by Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, Prokofiev: "Peter and the Wolf" & more.