Driving intensity, rhythmic flair, and demonstration-quality sound are brought to the fore in a new anthology of Antal Doráti's early recordings with the Philharmonia Hungarica on Mercury and Philips. Founded in 1956, the Philharmonia Hungarica emerged from turbulent post-war times as a crack ensemble of émigré Hungarian musicians who had fled Communism for the West. While they gave concerts in Europe and the US, it was through these seven albums on Mercury and Philips that they became famous, and synonymous with the name of the conductor Antal Doráti. Together, Doráti and the Philharmonia Hungarica would go on to make a celebrated cycle of Haydn symphonies for Decca in the early 1970s. But these early recordings already demonstrate what a potent artistic combination they were, as forerunners both to that monument of gramophone history, and to the modern-day Budapest Festival Orchestra. As reviewers at the time remarked, the strings play with a particular unanimity and attack which sounds uniquely 'Hungarian'.

A booklet essay by the music historian David Patmore tells the story of the Philharmonia Hungarica and their debut on record. All six Mercury albums were recorded at sessions in June 1958, held in the Vienna Konzerthaus: a spacious but analytical acoustic, well suited to the label's trademark high-impact sound. The repertoire played to the strengths of both label and musicians: mostly Hungarian music from the last half century, vividly colored and coursing with rhythmic energy.

There is an early taste of the ensemble's feeling for Haydn, in the 'Surprise' and 'Drum Roll' Symphonies. Doráti's established reputation as a masterful conductor of ballet brings a sweeping sense of line to a collection of Viennese waltzes. The ace in the pack of the Mercury/Philharmonia Hungarica albums was Respighi's suites of Ancient Airs and Dances, which soon became a demonstration disc for audiophiles worldwide. Never previously collected together, this Mercury legacy is complemented by the two albums which the Philharmonia Hungarica and Doráti recorded for Philips. The ensemble's first-ever recording, made in October 1957, appeared on the Fontana imprint, coupling Bartók's Divertimento with Leo Weiner's Hungarian Dances. From 1974, the second Philips album returns to Bartók, with gripping interpretations of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Dance Suite.

Long out of print, Deryck Cooke's invaluable 'Introduction to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen' reappears on CD, with it's original LP couplings of Siegfried Idyll and Kinderkatechismus. Almost as soon as it reached completion with the release of Die Walkure in 1966, the Decca Ring cycle conducted by Sir Georg Solti was recognized as the greatest achievement in the history of recorded sound. Three years later, the cycle was issued complete for the first time, and it came with a significant appendix: a three-LP introduction to the music-drama, written and narrated by Deryck Cooke. An English writer on music, Cooke had come to international attention through his completion of Mahler's sketches for the Tenth Symphony. He was a friend of the Decca Ring's producer, John Culshaw, who invited him to make this introduction. No academic, but a broadcaster on the BBC's Third Programme and a pioneer in what might be called popular musicology, Cooke presumed no prior knowledge on the part of his listeners, only a willingness to immerse themselves in the world of the Ring and in it's universal themes of love, power, self-knowledge and tragedy. Outlining the musical leitmotifs which underpin the drama of the Ring, and the part they play in moving it ever onwards, Cooke drew for illustration on excerpts from the complete Decca recording. In addition, Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic recorded many excerpts especially for this introduction - played slower or extended or without voices, to aid comprehension. (Some of these excerpts may have been recorded during rehearsals for various orchestral sections.) Countless listeners have since had their understanding of the Ring immeasurably enhanced by engaging with Cooke's introduction. In complement to Decca's recent remastering of the original recording, Eloquence now reissues Cooke's introduction on CD, presented just as it was in the original box. Unlike previous digital-era issues, this set also includes the recordings of the Siegfried Idyll, led by the Vienna Philharmonic violinist Walter Weller, and the charming Katechismus which Wagner composed as another birthday present for his wife Cosima. All six LP sides fit on two generously filled CDs, and the booklet includes full details of the track points as well as newly inscribed musical examples, to help listeners navigate their way around the narrative. Much more than a period-piece, this set remains the ideal introduction to Wagner's Ring, with much to teach both newcomers and experienced listeners to a perennially challenging and rewarding work of theatrical genius.

Several legendary but long-unavailable recordings freshly remastered in a comprehensive 'original covers' set of Ruggiero Ricci's recordings for American Decca during the 1960s. With definitive accounts of the Tchaikovsky Concerto and the Paganini Caprices recorded in 1950, Ruggiero Ricci became established as a Decca artist in the early days of LP. A decade later he began recording for Decca's American division, and between 1960 and 1970 he made nine albums of solo, recital and concerto repertoire which are gathered here in one set for the first time. Ricci had already recorded some of the solo Bach sonatas and partitas, but in 1967 he made his first complete set for American Decca. Tully Potter's illuminating booklet essay explains how a snowstorm forced Ricci to hole up in a hotel for several days prior to the sessions, and his devoted his time to perfecting his interpretations of Bach. Ricci was renowned for the astonishing virtuosity that enabled him to tackle the Caprices and Concertos of Paganini without breaking sweat - he became the first great exponent of the composer in the LP era with his Decca recordings - and he remade the Second Concerto for American Decca in 1964 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Max Rudolf: one of several albums here receiving it's first international release on CD. The American Decca legacy of Ricci also included several 'concept albums' which soon became collector's items. The set opens with the first of them from 1964, on which the violinist plays The Four Seasons of Vivaldi on four different Strads, one for each concerto, with a string ensemble fielding another ten Strads for a uniquely rich string sound. Two years earlier, Ricci had made "The Glory of Cremona", which saw him play fifteen priceless violins in sessions attended by two security guards. Even these two projects pale beside the astonishing virtuosity on display in "Bravura!", which collects some of Ricci's favourite "knuckle-breakers" by Paganini, Wieniawski and Ernst. The set closes with another album new to CD, "Violin Plus 1" from 1970, which paired Ricci with five different musicians for a unique display of his versatility, accompanying soprano Lee Venora in Villa-Lobos, taking the spotlight in a Saint-Saens Fantaisie for violin and harp, and meeting David Nadien as an equal in the Sonata for Two Violins by Prokofiev. As well as one of the last century's most spell-binding technicians on the violin, Ricci was a complete musician, to whom this set pays eloquent tribute.

Issued complete for the first time, including several albums new to CD, is the Philips catalogue of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble - an ensemble that made a defining contribution to Dutch musical life in the 1970s. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble began life in 1959 as a wind quintet, but soon expanded to play Classical-era serenades and divertimenti which were hardly known at the time but have since been recognised and enjoyed as masterpieces of entertainment music, notably the Gran Partita of Mozart, the late Octet by Beethoven and the wonderful Octet-Partitas by his Viennese contemporary, Franz Krommer. Starting to record for Philips in 1968, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble immediately won critical praise for the technical precision of it's playing as well as the brilliance and wit of it's interpretations, whether led by it's regular conductor Edo de Waart (himself a former oboist and member of the ensemble) or played as true chamber music. The ensemble made one of the first comprehensive recordings of Mozart's wind music, including miniatures, no less delightful for their brevity and rarity, and a precious but little-known collaboration with the much-loved Dutch soprano Elly Ameling. The youthful, funky vibe of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble was captured by Philips both in exceptionally vivid recordings as well as kooky cover designs, which are reproduced on the sleeves of the issues. A booklet essay by Peter Quantrill outlines the history and character of the ensemble, drawing on a new interview with Edo de Waart. The repertoire extends into the nineteenth century with a classic account of the Wind Serenade by Dvorak - the ensemble's debut on disc - as well as ingenious arrangements of overtures and arias by Rossini, and a unique collection of 'little marches by great masters'. The Netherland Wind Ensemble's long-standing commitment to modern music is represented by the wind music of Richard Strauss and Stravinsky, and the pioneering Jazz Symphony by the Franco-American 'bad boy' of classical music in the 1920s and 30s, Georges Antheil, recorded live at the 1976 Holland Festival.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

A song recital new to CD from a peerless lyric soprano, coupled with classic recordings of Ravel and Verdi. In 1971 Andrew Porter wrote that Margaret Price's voice was among the things that make one 'glad to be alive'. In the 1960s she had recorded for a small Welsh label a recital of Welsh, German and Italian songs that would become signature items for her over the coming decades. Reissued in 1969 by L'Oiseau-Lyre, the album makes it to CD for the first time in this compilation. In favourites such as Schubert's Heidenroslein, Verdi's Ave maria and five Welsh folksongs, Price is on sovereign form, with a gleaming upper register and engagingly fresh phrasing. Also from the early 70s is a rare foray into contemporary music inspired by her Welsh heritage, with Alun Hoddinott's setting of a text by Emyr Humphries, Roman Dream. She recorded this for Argo along with a set of Gaelic folksongs by Phyllis Tate; these, too, are transferred to CD for the first time. More familiar delights are offered on CD2, with Deutsche Grammophon capturing her voice in full and glorious maturity in a 1987 album of Verdi songs and a recording of Ravel's opulent, oriental song-cycle Sheherezade, in which she is sensitively partnered by the London Symphony Orchestra under a long-time musical partner, Claudio Abbado; together in 1971 they had recorded the Altenberg-Lieder of Berg which fill out CD1. Thus Price sings in five languages through the course of the compilation, and shows herself a gifted word-painter in each of them: it's a comprehensive tribute to the art of a soprano esteemed by Sir Georg Solti as 'a musician's singer and a conductor's singer'.

The rich and colorful fruits of Lorin Maazel's first important orchestral tenure, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra: repertoire from Bach to Stravinsky molded with the conductor's renowned finesse and attention to detail. Maazel took over the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin after the death of Ferenc Fricsay in 1963. He and the orchestra had already worked together extensively, both in concert and on record, ever since he made his Berlin debut with them in 1955. The DG albums of Falla, Franck and Stravinsky are all enduring examples of Maazel's art at it's most sonically brilliant and dynamic, cultivating performances of the greatest agility and contrasts of color from his players. For Philips, Maazel and the RSO Berlin recorded mostly Baroque-era repertoire in an intensive series of sessions shortly after the beginning of his tenure as music director in September 1965. The Philips engineers had found an acoustically optimal venue at a church in the Spandau suburb of Berlin, and they set down several major works by Bach as well as the Water and Fireworks Music of Handel and the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, with a magnificent vocal duo in Evelyn Lear and Christa Ludwig. Even at the time, the symphonic grandeur of Maazel's interpretations was regarded as running counter to commonly accepted notions of Baroque style. But then, as he explained to an interviewer, 'We cannot recreate the outer circumstances that gave rise to artistic works of the past... What we can and should do is try as best we can to live up to their greatness in our own manner.' Maazel's manner is not so much old-fashioned as individualistic in it's contrasts of tempo, smoothly cultivated string sound and high-impact attacks: this is hi-fi spectacular Bach. The Philips series continued with symphonies by Mozart (Nos. 38-41) and Dvorak (No. 9), also raised to rare peaks of expressive intensity. These recordings have never been compiled before, and they shed fresh light on the spectacular early career of a prodigy of the baton. Original Cover artwork is complemented by archive photography and a new essay on Maazel's Berlin years by Peter Quantrill.

LIMITED EDITION. George Szell's reputation as a perfectionist is legendary, and these recordings, taped between 1949 and 1970, offer a vivid portrait of a conductor whose clarity, discipline and structural command set new standards in orchestral performance. The New York Times praised his 'uncompromising precision and taut rhythmic control' and critics have long admired the 'incisive, diamond-cut playing' he drew from orchestras, yet also the elegance and lyricism that balanced his rigour. These recordings, described by Gramophone as 'models of orchestral refinement and integrity' bring together Szell's complete legacy for Decca, Philips and Deutsche Grammophon, preserving performances that still set benchmarks of style and authority. Besides purely symphonic repertoire, including Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Dvorak's Eighth and Brahms's Third Symphonies, a fiery account of the incidental music for the composer's Egmont, and luminous versions of Rosamunde (Schubert) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn) the set also includes concerto recordings with Clifford Curzon (Mozart, Brahms and Tchaikovsky) and his sole recording for Deutsche Grammophon, Dvorak's Cello Concerto with Pierre Fournier. Included by way of bonus is a 30-minute rehearsal extract for the recording of Handel's Water Music - never before published. Even while involved with the Cleveland Orchestra (from 1947 until his death in 1970) Szell continued to work with the great European ensembles in London, Amsterdam and Vienna even after taking up the post in Cleveland. Their mutual respect and affinity is evident throughout this set. Szell may have earned his reputation as a podium autocrat, but he knew how to get the best out of orchestras, who valued the fact that he never wasted a word or a gesture. The 1962 account of Brahms's First Concerto with Clifford Curzon was acclaimed as a definitive recording on it's first release, and has hardly been toppled from that peak since. Also made with the LSO, the Handel collection is more of a period piece, featuring Hamilton Harty's reorchestrations of the Water Music and Fireworks Music, but Szell's Romantic-era phrasing holds it's own charm. A fascinating new essay by Tully Potter surveys the life and career of a conductor who never settled for anything less than perfection. The booklet includes rare session photographs.

These magnificent recordings of the Ravel Piano Concertos have taken a far too long leave of absence from the Decca catalogue and are now back, with generous Faure and Franck couplings. Beautifully recorded sound too.

Decca signed an exclusive contract with the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet) in the summer of 1948 as a commercially motivated move: a sweetener to the deal that also poached the Philharmonic Orchestra from EMI. The ensemble had been formed only a year or so previously around the Boskovsky brothers, violinist Willi and clarinetist Alfred. Soon enough, audiences at home as well as in concert were enjoying the sound of a quintessentially Viennese ensemble, it's members drawn from the ranks of the Philharmonic, in Classical-era music that could have been written for them, starting with the Septet by Beethoven and the Octet by Schubert. The sweet, silvery tone of the Octet and the easy give-and-go of it's phrasing established the Octet as the latest in a line of distinguished Viennese chamber ensembles, from the Rose Quartet of Mahler's era to the Barylli Quartet documented by the Westminster label. The Vienna Octet enjoyed the advantage of Decca's top-of-the-range engineering, and they continued to set down classic interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert through the course of the 1950s, for the new LP format and then for stereo. In 1956 their Decca albums began to reflect the diversity of their concert programs, with the Octet written for them by the Belgian composer Marcel Poot. While they continued to enjoy free-spirited partnerships on record with the likes of Clifford Curzon and the Viennese pianist Walter Panhofer in Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet, they also recorded lesser-known Romantics such as Spohr, Kreutzer and Berwald, and modern repertoire by Britten, Hindemith and Egon Wellesz. By the time of the Vienna Octet's final recording in November 1972, only two members of it's original lineup were left, including clarinetist Alfred Boskovsky, but critics and record buyers had continued to recognize that, especially in the central repertoire, an unselfconscious authenticity set the ensemble apart from it's rivals.

LIMITED EDITION. A meeting of minds in Amsterdam: the complete Philips recordings of Sir Colin Davis and the Concertgebouworkest made in the orchestra's acoustically optimal home and featuring classic accounts of Haydn, Berlioz, Dvorak and Stravinsky. Davis lends these readings rhythmic impetus and unassuming authority; the orchestra and audio engineers respond with sonic warmth and transparency. Colin Davis made his debut with the Concertgebouw in 1966, and conductor and orchestra quickly established a mutual affinity. Interviewed by Niek Nelissen for a new appreciation of their legacy on record, a Concertgebouw violinist recalls his 'typically British' humour in rehearsal. Davis gave the musicians of 'the orchestra a lot of freedom. He kept control in a good way, which made him popular with the orchestra.' It took another eight years for Davis and the Concertgebouw to make their first records together, but they made up for lost time. The albums of Beethoven's Violin Concerto (with Arthur Grumiaux) and the Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz were universally praised for their rhythmic impetus, and for the kind of unassuming authority that became a hallmark of Davis's conducting. In both cases, the new recordings superseded earlier versions by the same artists (Davis's LSO Berlioz, and Grumiaux's previous Beethovens with the Concertgebouw) not least because of the warmth and the transparency of the Philips recordings, made in the orchestra's acoustically optimal home. There followed, over the next eight years, a string of artistic and commercial successes. The Concertgebouw had not recorded much Haydn before, but Davis harnessed their richness of tone and supple responses, and trained it on Haydn's late symphonies with revelatory results. Even while period-instrument performers began to bring new perspectives to Haydn, Davis's lively sympathy showed itself in the buoyant rhythms, the cultivated eighteenth-century phrasing and the exuberance which always belongs to his symphonies. Together, they recorded the complete 'London' symphonies followed by the 'Paris', and this set also features a bonus of No. 84, which Davis recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra for L'Oiseau-Lyre in 1960. This is the first time all of Davis's Haydn symphony recordings with the Concertgebouworkest have been issued collectively. Equally acclaimed was a Dvorak series featuring the last three symphonies, the concertos for violin and cello (with Salvatore Accardo and Heinrich Schiff) and the Symphonic Variations. Throughout his long career, Davis took particular pleasure in bringing out the nostalgic side as well as the Czech-accented rhythms of Dvorak's music, just as his approach to Igor Stravinsky never lost it's cutting edge, as displayed here in Concertgebouw recordings of the three early Diaghilev ballets. While these recordings have rarely left the catalogue thanks to their popularity, hearing them together sheds new light on the remarkable idiomatic strength of the Concertgebouw/Davis partnership. Original couplings and covers have the ring of nostalgic authenticity, complemented by Niek Nelissen's new essay and many archive photographs of conductor and orchestra.

Michael Tilson Thomas's complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (1970-2003) and Argo (1992-1995) encapsulate the conductor's restlessly exploratory nature and masterful handling of the modern orchestra. The recordings in this collection demonstrate his superb ear for complex rhythms and textures, an orchestral builder, as well as an inspired interpreter of the widest imaginable range of music. Even the most cynical of critics set aside their Beckmesser's slate when Michael Tilson Thomas stepped on to the international stage in the early 1970s when Deutsche Grammophon released albums of Tchaikovsky, Debussy and American music. They were made near the start of his tenure as the Boston Symphony's Assistant Conductor, and they demonstrated a preternatural assurance as well as a superb ear for complex rhythms and textures. Tilson Thomas's first period with DG was relatively short-lived - just a couple of years - but it also took in his scintillating pianism, accompanying BSO principals in Debussy sonatas, and a viscerally exact Stravinsky Rite of Spring, as well as, of course, the luminous account of Tchaikovsky's 'Winter Dreams' symphony (still considered a benchmark recording of this work). All the repertoire played to his strengths and demonstrated his considerable talents as an orchestral builder as well as an inspired interpreter of the widest imaginable range of music. Once installed as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, Tilson Thomas rekindled his DG relationship with two definitive albums of music by his mentor Leonard Bernstein. On The Town and Arias and Barcarolles both feature Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson, who were also close and long-standing associates of the composer. The LSO/DG partnership also featured typically insightful and sympathetic performances of concertos with pianist Jean-Marc Luisada and cellist Mischa Maisky. With Il sogno, Elvis Costello's ballet score for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the conductor's skill at shaping the most eclectic range of styles comes to the fore. Finally, the set brings together for the first time the Argo recordings made by Tilson Thomas with the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1997 as a 'training orchestra' but which rapidly established itself as an international-calibre ensemble, capable of taking on the most challenging repertoire. With them, Tilson Thomas produced an exhilarating album of Latin American dances (Tangazo) a sensuous survey of Morton Feldman's orchestral music, and finally a loving tribute to his teacher from college days, the composer Ingolf Dahl. If Dahl's music is still too little known, the reissue of this album should bring it new friends. Reissued with original jackets, the set includes a new appreciation of the conductor's career by Peter Quantrill.

"We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart" said Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague Irmgard Seefried. Collected here are Seefried's complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her recordings of opera and sacred music for the label and includes material both unpublished and new to CD.

Irmgard Seefried was a revered artist among lovers of natural singing, wrote the critic Alan Blyth. 'The emotions, grave or gay, are expressed directly, unfussily, genuinely, in that peculiarly outgoing manner that was this artist's supreme gift.' This gift illuminates song repertoire from Bach to Bartók and beyond in a newly compiled and remastered set of her recital albums recorded by Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s and 60s. 'If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers,' wrote Blyth on another occasion (a reissue of the 1953 'Liederabend' anthology of concert performances). 'If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or to cry I would find her the perfect companion.'

The core of the set is formed by several albums of Romantic Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. As well as an imaginative collection of Goethe settings, there is an album of Heine and Schumann, poetry and song, in which the recited portions are reissued on CD for the first time. The set includes two appendices, both also new to CD: Seefried's contribution to the DG audio documentary series 'Erzähltes Leben', and 'Erik Werba Accompanies You', in which the soprano's regular recital partner plays the piano part for famous Lieder (with the idea that the listener at home will take the sung line for themselves).

Seefried also made several opera recordings as well as sacred music for Deutsche Grammophon. Generous excerpts from these - often including entire scenes, not just arias - are included as newly-compiled anthologies across five CDs.

Seefried's voice was renowned for it's beauty and tonally purity, with minimal vibrato. Her diction was exquisite, as were her phrasing and legato in Schumann's cycle of Mary, Queen of Scots Lieder. Especially in folksong repertoire such as the Liebeslieder-Walzer of Brahms, she contrived to give the impression that her art came easily to her, and that it's expression was an inevitable extension of her personality, devoid of any suggestion of imposing her will upon the music. But this impression was the essence of Seefried's greatness, and it transferred to modern song repertoire, too: not only the opulent romanticism of Respighi's Il tramonto but Werner Egk's German-Mediterranean Quattro canzoni, and a selection of sacred solo motets by Paul Hindemith that surprised and delighted many critics on it's first issue.

All the material in this Original Covers collection has been newly remastered, and the set is richly illustrated and accompanied by a new essay on Seefried's art by Tully Potter as well as an English translation of Ein Selbstporträt by Fer van Campen.

The complete Westminster recordings by ARTUR RODZINSKI date were made in London and Vienna from 1954 to 1958. While they represent a true autocrat of the podium, Rodzinski drew from orchestras every last ounce of energy as well as cultivating their virtuoso talents. Most recordings in this set appear internationally for the first time, together with some (previously unpublished) rehearsal extracts. Like his colleagues and fellow emigres Fritz Reiner, George Szell and Arturo Toscanini, Artur Rodzinski did not seek to make friends in the process of making music. His rehearsal methods were as ruthless as his conducting style was fiercely driven. His caustic manner extended to fellow professionals in the business such as soloists and agents, and the new essay by James H. North for this Eloquence collection includes stories of his dictatorial behaviour. But then Rodzinski's musical values also represent another era, and he drew from orchestras every last ounce of energy as well as cultivating their virtuoso talents. Once he had emigrated to the US, Rodzinski played an instrumental role in making the Cleveland and Chicago Symphony orchestras into the superbly responsive ensembles for which they are world-renowned today. Having retired from the stress of directorships, in the mid-1950s and in variable health, he produced a remarkable Indian summer of recordings for the Westminster label. Made mostly in London between 1954 and his death in November 1958, these Westminster albums centred on the late-Romantic and early-20th-century repertoire which responds to a virtuoso conductor's concern for subtle orchestral colours and extremes of speed and dynamic: Mussorgsky Pictures, Kodaly Dances and Richard Strauss's tone-poems. Rodzinski plays insightful accompanist to piano concertos with Paul Badura-Skoda, Youri Boukoff and Jorg Demus, but he achieved a special affinity with Erica Morini in the violin concertos of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Rodzinski's decades of experience in the theatre bring sweeping authority to 'bleeding chunks' of Wagner, suites of Bizet and Tchaikovsky ballets. Further highlights in this set of newly-remastered mono and stereo albums include a Shostakovich Fifth which testifies to Rodzinski's early commitment to the composer in the West. Other, enduringly robust interpretations of canon symphonies include Dvorak's Ninth, Prokofiev's First, Tchaikovsky Nos. 4-6, and his very last Westminster album, of Beethoven and Schubert. At the end of the sessions, Rodzinski thanked the orchestra in a speech which was captured for posterity and reissued here. More rarities unearthed especially for this set include several rehearsal sequences, capturing Rodzinski's inimitable manner and dedication to his craft.