A first international CD issue for two contrasting albums of light-orchestral Mozart from Joseph Keilberth and Thurston Dart. The two albums reissued here exemplify the postwar revolution of Classical-era performance styles. Having begun to make records in 1938, the L'Oiseau-Lyre label worked in the vanguard of the period-performance movement, yet in 1951 the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and it's long-time principal conductor Joseph Keilberth were engaged to record the Symphony KV 201 and the two sets of German Dances. They did so in Paris, the day after giving a concert in the Salle Pleyel to open a tour of France, Spain and Portugal. The sessions prompted a laconic diary reflection from Keilberth - 'How hard it is to stick to a really secure 3/4 pulse' - but the authors of The Record Guide observed an unexpected lightness of touch about the results. L'Oiseau-Lyre's founder Louise Dyer continued, however, to engage artists who were scholars as much as musicians - none more eminent than Thurston Dart, who had produced a scholarly edition of Couperin's keyboard works on which much of the label's reputation was founded, and who directed his own ensembles such as the Philomusica of London with a sure and lively touch. This recording of Eine kleine Nachtmusik was the first - and still one of the only - to insert a replacement for the work's missing first minuet: in this case, Dart's own orchestration of a movement from a piano sonata, following a suggestion made by Alfred Einstein. It was also the first album of Mozart's orchestral music where the instrumentalists used 'period' bows, lighter and differently balanced, lending a natural shapeliness to the phrases.

A master Beethoven conductor in his prime - a 12-CD set presenting the 'London' Beethoven recordings of Sir Colin Davis, including the Symphonies, a selection of Overtures, the five Piano Concertos (Stephen Kovacevich), Violin Concerto (Arthur Grumiaux) and the two Masses. These broadly-sung and spacious performances, unexaggerated yet alive, are collected together for the first time. When Colin Davis became it's Chief Conductor in 1967, the BBC Symphony Orchestra was known as the house band for the BBC Proms, specializing in new music, and a radio orchestra first and foremost. With this series of Beethoven recordings the orchestra entered the mainstream commercial market and showed itself the equal of many more glamorous ensembles, not least thanks to the rich and rounded sonority cultivated by Davis. A 1961 recording of the Seventh Symphony with Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had gathered much critical praise, but Davis's 1976 remake with the LSO proved that the elemental fire of the early recording was no fluke. These are broadly sung and spacious performances, unexaggerated and yet alive with the strong accents and inner detail that marked out Davis's readings of music from Mozart to Tippett. The five piano concertos with Stephen Kovacevich quickly became a staple of the Philips catalogue, but the symphony recordings fell out of print: they have been compiled here for the first time, receiving new remasterings and first publications on CD, as are several of the overtures. There is an opportunity to compare the young firebrand Davis and his calmer self in middle age with two accounts of the Pastoral Symphony: with the LSO in 1962 (from the same sessions as a previously unpublished Second Leonore Overture - unpublished until now!) and with the BBCSO in July 1974. The First Symphony also receives it's first appearance on a Universal Music label. The BBCSO cycle was left incomplete, and Davis recorded both the Mass in C and Missa Solemnis with the LSO - again, full-bodied readings that have maintained their place in the catalogue and drawn praise for their unaffected, straightforward eloquence - but his first recorded Ninth had to wait until 1985, once he had become Music Director of the Bavarian Radio SO in Munich. The playing here is superbly refined and animated by a springy articulation that was a Davis specialty and set him apart from the German Romantic tradition in this repertoire, as did the observance of repeats. The most complete compilation of Davis's 'London' Beethoven ever issued, the set is published with a new essay by Peter Quantrill, and a tribute by Costa Pilavachi, who worked with Davis during his time at Philips.

LIMITED EDITION. SINGLE PRESSING ONLY. From a landmark Jan�cek album to a previously unpublished Schubert/Mozart recording, this collection presents the Deutsche Grammophon, British and American Decca, and Westminster legacy of Rudolf Firku�n� (1912-1994), acclaimed by Stereo Review as 'the outstanding champion of Czech piano music on the international circuit'. 30 years after his death (on 19 July 1994), there are still works in the piano repertoire that have become indelibly associated with the artistry of Rudolf Firku�n�: most of all, the piano works of Leo� Jan�cek, whom Firku�n� knew as a young student in Prague. The pianist went on to make his US debut in 1941, when he played not a repertoire warhorse but the neglected Piano Concerto by Dvor�k, under Sir Thomas Beecham. Firku�n� made six recordings of the Concerto across the course of a long career; the Westminster version newly remastered here was made in 1963 and conducted by L�zsl� Somogyi, and has often since been placed at the head of the work's discography along with the version recorded Sviatoslav Richter and Carlos Kleiber. Firku�n�'s 1960 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition also attracted favourable comparison with Richter for it's plain-spoken virtuosity. It seemed to listeners at the time that the pianist's patrician technique and finely-wrought musicality had been rounded out by a new passion to his playing in what became the middle of his career. Although record labels tended to pigeonhole Firku�n� in Czech repertoire, his sympathies were wide, as the span of this set suggests. His 1973 recording of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto on Decca (with the New Philharmonia under Uri Segal) has been forgotten, though reviewers at the time thought it was finer than the more familiar Capitol recording with William Steinberg. A 1974 album of sonatas further underlines his Beethovenian credentials, though he had already established them on Decca in a partnership with the violinist Erica Morini which yielded four albums. As well as four Beethoven sonatas, they made enduringly elegant recordings of sonatas by Mozart, Brahms and Franck. By ranging in this way across Firku�n�'s remarkably sensitive reflexes as a concerto, chamber and solo pianist, this Eloquence set demonstrates the truth of Tully Potter's verdict: 'Of all the notable 20th-century Czech pianists, Firku�n� was surely the greatest'. Perhaps most valuable of all is the inclusion of previously unreleased recordings of Mozart's Dupont Variations and Schubert's final Piano Sonata in B flat D.960. These were made in January 1963 for the American branch of Decca, but then shelved for reasons unknown. They present Firku�n� at the peak of his powers, his phrasing typically natural and unostentatious. An essay by Jed Distler surveys Firku�n�'s life and career in the context of the albums newly remastered within this Original Jackets collection.

Eugen Jochum's complete recordings of choral / sacred music for Philips collected together for the first time. Includes the rare Rudolf Mengelberg Magnificat. Born into a Catholic family of Bavarian musicians, Eugen Jochum was playing the organ and conducting his father's choir as a child. Late in life he became renowned as a Bruckner specialist, as he acknowledged, 'but I began with the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. And it is to their music that I still feel closest'. Even as the period-instrument movement gathered momentum during the 1960s, Jochum refused to relinquish Bach to historical specialists. He wrote an extensive essay on the interpretation of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the 1960s. 'Even nearer to my heart,' he said, 'is the B minor Mass, the most spiritual work in the repertory.' For Philips he recorded the four great pillars of Bach's sacred music between 1958 (B minor Mass) and 1973 (Christmas Oratorio). His interpretations tread a scrupulous, devotional middle way between stylistic traditions: 'I don't think it matters too much if you use a large or a small choir, old or new instruments; what they must be is lively and dramatic. Expression is the heart of the matter'. The understanding of dance rhythm and momentum which distinguish Jochum's Bruckner performances also inflect his Bach recordings, notably enhanced by his ability to get singers to engage with the meaning of the text. Jochum established his Wagnerian credentials early in his career with a superb Tannh�user, and his passions extended far beyond music for the church and concert-hall. He had a huge musical personality, but what continues to impress across his discography is his ability to know when and how to apply the components of that personality to the repertoire at hand. This master of rubato could stick with a lively and steady tempo to great effect in the great choral fugues of Haydn's Creation and Beethoven's Missa solemnis, and this master of forward motion also knew when to stop and let the music breathe, in the Beethoven's 'Sanctus-Benedictus' above all. This Eloquence box is offered as a companion to Jochum's complete orchestral recordings for Philips. It is enhanced by some of the finest Bach singers of their day - Ernst Haefliger, Walter Berry and Agnes Giebel notable among them - and the superb principals of the Concertgebouw such as Han de Vries (oboe), Hubert Barwahser (flute) and Anner Bijlsma (cello), all of whom went on to pursue careers as solo-musicians. The Christmas Oratorio and The Creation feature the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and local choirs, with whom Jochum had enjoyed a fruitful relationship since becoming their principal conductor in 1949. Niek Nelissen provides the insightful notes, including fascinating observations surrounding the recording sessions, and the booklet is enhanced with several rare photographs.

The most comprehensive collection ever issued of Clemens Krauss's commercial legacy of recordings, newly remastered and presented as an original jackets limited edition. In Mark Obert-Thorn's new remasterings for this Eloquence box set, we can appreciate anew the genius for colour, pacing and timing which made Clemens Krauss the unrivalled conductor of his day in the music of Johann and Richard Strauss. He began recording for Decca in 1947 - three sessions of Brahms in London including a famous account of the Alto Rhapsody which found Kathleen Ferrier in glorious voice - allowing for less than eight years of activity in the studio before the conductor's untimely death from a heart attack in May 1954, hours after conducting a concert in Mexico City. In that time, however, Decca secured Krauss in much of the repertoire for which he was renowned as a peerless interpreter. A Richard Strauss series captured all the major symphonic poems except the Alpine Symphony, plus a complete Salome with Christel Goltz, and, for Polydor (Deutsche Grammophon) the rapturous final Trio from Der Rosenkavalier recorded in pre-war Berlin with his wife, the soprano Viorica Ursuleac, as the Marschallin. Unlike many later recordings, these are not performances which pull out the modernist strands in Strauss's form and harmony. Rather they place the composer in a lineage of lyricists and musical dramatists stretching back to Mozart. Strauss himself apparently regarded Krauss as the supreme conductor of his generation, supporting the younger man's rise to a succession of top jobs of 1930s and 40s Austria and Germany. During the war, Krauss founded the tradition of New Year's Day concerts in Vienna, and Decca capitalised on their popularity with three albums which have become touchstones of interpretation in the music of the Strauss family - 'by turns committed and distanced, never pasteurized or bent on proving anything', as Carlos Kleiber remarked of the Decca recording of Die Fledermaus, which became a library choice for the work as soon as it was released in January 1951. The trio of Beethoven concertos with Backhaus has also been a perennial favourite among collectors; much less familiar is the album of Leonore/Fidelio overtures which marked the premature end to Krauss's Decca career, charged with visceral intensity and elevated by needle-point rhythmic detail. Sleeves feature the original Decca covers and the booklet includes a survey of Krauss's remarkable life and times by Peter Quantrill.

Limited Edition 7CD Box Set. The late chamber recordings made by the great Catalan cellist with longstanding friends and colleagues, including two versions of Beethoven's 'Ghost' Trio, the 1956 'Hommage � Pablo Casals' LP, and the Schubert String Quintet with the V�gh Quartet. Includes CD premieres. In September 1958, the 81-year-old Pablo Casals took part in the (now annual) Beethovenfest held in the composer's home city of Bonn. His music-making had lost none of it's carefree spirit, and Philips quickly issued these live recordings of Beethoven sonatas and piano trios made in the intimate space of the music room of the Beethoven House. They preserve the cellist on liberated and exhilarating form in a transcription of the Horn Sonata and the Second and Fifth Cello Sonatas, accompanied by the Polish pianist who had been a chamber-music partner since the 1930s, Mieczyslaw Horszowski. These understated masters of an essentially 19th-century playing style were joined in three piano trios - including the 'Ghost' and 'Archduke' - by a Hungarian violinist from a younger generation, S�ndor V�gh, whose sweet tone and supple rubato also comes from another age. Three years later, at the cellist's festival in his adopted Pyreneean home of Prades, Philips captured an equally spontaneous account of the First Cello Sonata with Wilhelm Kempff (a mere 66 at the time) and another 'Ghost' with V�gh and the Swiss pianist Karl Engel. These are performances embodying Casals's wise and patrician personality as a musician, yet never solemn and always responsive to his colleagues and the spirit of the occasion. Also captured at the 1961 festival, the account of the Schubert Quintet featured gains special warmth from the Hungarian line-up, in which V�gh leads his compatriots S�ndor Z�ldy, Georges Janzer and Paul Szabo, with Casals taking the second cello part. The 'Ghost' Trio with Horszowski receives a first release on CD in this box, along with another Philips LP made live at the Sorbonne in Paris in October 1956. Casals conducts the Lamoureux Orchestra in a deeply felt performance of Faure's El�gie, with the solo part taken by the orchestra's fine cello section in unison. A 25-minute rehearsal sequence brings fascinating insights into Casals's working methods and his passionate but practical engagement with the music at hand. Casals as conductor in Paris also neatly rounds off the set: the 1960 LP of concertos by Haydn and Boccherini with his pupil Maurice Gendron: aristocratically moulded versions that retain their musical virtues in these period-aware times, and the first-ever recording of the Boccherini to return to the original score rather than the heavily rewritten Gr�tzmacher edition. Tully Potter's new essay completes a set which should appeal to Casals enthusiasts, collectors and cellists alike.

Described by The Australian as 'a boon for lovers of the piano and those keeping an ear on exciting musical talent', the Sydney International Piano Competition (The Sydney) has become a fixture on the classical music landscape. This unique retrospective chronicles more than 100 fascinating performances. They were recorded by 77 pianists during seven events over two decades (1992-2016). Over it's 14 hours, the eleven CDs in this Limited Edition encompass music by more than 55 composers from Agnew to Zaderetsky and the anthology is organized in seven categories: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Twentieth Century, Transcriptions & Encores, Australian Piano Music and Piano Concertos. Anyone who has followed The Sydney will recognize the excitement, the fever pitch as this great quadrennial festival of pianism heads towards the final rounds. This set provides the listener then with a cornucopia of pianism. You can hear lyrical grace in so many of the Scarlatti sonatas, and particularly Rustem Khairutdinov's 1992 performance of the D minor, Kk.9. Poise and rapt stillness informs Roberto Cominati's 1996 Debussy (Images - Book II), and the clarity of voicing is carried through in his performance of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, where, you're swept away with the excitement, but hear all the notes! Excitement is to be found on virtually each disc in the set, but particularly in the 'Transcriptions & Encores' volume, as well as in the Rachmaninov and Sancan performances by Olivier Cazal, Yuki Takao's Hexentanz (Macdowell), and Tatiana Kolesova's Petrushka pieces. The anthology also gives us the opportunity to experience Australian piano music as interpreted by a range of pianists from, among others, countries like Russia, Canada, China, the United States, Sweden and Japan (and, of course, Australia). Many are called, few are chosen, as the saying goes, but the philosophy in putting together this collection was purely the merit of an individual performance, no matter which stage it's performer reached in the event. Therefore, it matters little as to where individuals participating in this competition may be now. Fate and time have their own plans for participants and their future paths. But playing that is as good, unique and memorable as that here represented is worthy of preservation. As a snapshot of some outstanding playing across several Sydney winters, this collection is sure to entertain those unfamiliar with the performers and bring back memories for those who were there. The booklet includes full recording details, and introduction by The Sydney's chairman Virginia Braden, and notes by Piers Lane (Artistic Director of The Sydney), and Cyrus Meher-Homji, who initiated a long-running series of recordings from The Sydney from 1992 onwards and curated this boxed set.

The Westminster label legacy of a master Chopin interpreter, issued complete for the first time in an 'original covers' box of new remasterings. Almost half a century before Lang Lang, the pianist Fou Ts'ong took Europe and then the US by storm. With his third-prize finish at the 1955 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, listeners and critics alike were astonished to encounter a mature and seemingly instinctive feel for the uniquely Polish rhythms and passing harmonies of Chopin's music, under the fingers of a 21-year-old from Shanghai. Having undertaken further studies in Poland, Fou Ts'ong left his family behind and settled in London to escape the looming shadow of Chinese authoritarianism. He entered into a relationship with the Westminster label, for whom he would record nine albums between 1960 and 1967, all newly remastered and gathered together for the first time in the present collection. They encompass a good range of his repertoire predilections, as well as the scope of his youthful artist maturity. He is also joined by Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy for a joyous traversal of Mozart's concertos with two and three pianos in a 1972 Decca recording. His Westminster collection of 12 Scarlatti sonatas was praised at the time for it's crisp, modern approach and vividly naturalistic touches. An album of Bach and Handel similarly reveals the intelligence, taste and inherent musicality which Fou Ts'ong brought to this repertoire on the modern concert grand. Several more Westminster albums demonstrate Fou's affinity for Mozart: not so surprising, given that he imprinted on his father's record collection with it's 78s of Artur Schnabel and Wanda Landowska. The pianist may have forsaken his homeland for good, but his musicianship encompassed both European and Chinese aesthetic ideals. He praised Chinese poetry for it's strength of feeling without excess: 'It has to remain dignified, spiritual and always beautiful'. These qualities also illuminate the albums of Beethoven and Schubert sonatas collected here. 'The Chinese are also very concerned with detail,' he said: 'Every part must be right, but on the other side the expression must be spontaneous and true,' and an appreciation for this fine balance made him associated above all with the music of Chopin. Although he recorded Chopin's Mazurkas at different times throughout his career, the group of eighteen issued by Westminster arguably represents his interpretations at their freshest and most creative. The Four Ballades likewise established a benchmark of sensitivity among a younger generation of Chopin pianists. The Second Concerto of Chopin, and it's original coupling of the Schumann Concerto appear in stereo on CD for the first time. The new collection makes a timely tribute to the artistry of a pianist who died of Covid-19 late last year.

The Decca legacy of WILHELM KEMPFF, one of the last century's greatest keyboard poets. Wilhelm Kempff is known, with good reason, as a Beethoven interpreter of sublime simplicity, with several cycles of the concertos and sonatas to his credit, all of them recorded for DG. However, he began recording as early as 1918 and made records for Polydor before the war, as well as for Decca during the 1950s. While his DG recordings have rarely been out of the catalogue, his legacy on other labels has never been so comprehensively documented as it is on this newly remastered set from Eloquence. Offered as a 'historical' appendix are Kempff's Polydor recordings of Beethoven sonatas with like-minded and recreative partners including the violinist Georg Kulenkampff (the 'Kreutzer') and the cellists Pablo Casals (Cello Sonata Op. 5 No. 1) and Paul Gr�mmer (Cello Sonata Op. 69), better known as a long-standing member of the Busch Quartet. These pre-war and mid-war recordings, newly remastered, add significantly to our understanding of Kempff as an artist of extraordinarily wide sympathies and imagination. The same could be said of his Decca legacy, which in it's complete form should dispel the tenacious myth that he was first and foremost a Beethoven pianist. In 1950 he began recording the solo music of Brahms in the 78 era, with repertoire which he then recorded again in 1953 for LP. In the 1953 sessions he also recorded the composer's late piano music, which is touched with an elusive grace that very few pianists find as surely as Kempff. Of interest to many will be previously unpublished material (Rameau, Brahms) as well as Kempff's first - and extremely rare - recordings for Decca of music by J.S. Bach, receiving their first release on CD. In the booklet essay for the box, Alfred Brendel explains how he particularly esteems Kempff's Decca recordings, for the piano sound captured at the company's studios in West Hampstead in London, and also how he prizes the pianist's recordings of Liszt above all: 'truly legendary'. He recalls seeing Kempff play Schubert's Sonatas D.845, which Decca also captured, as an inspiration for his own subsequent dedication to the composer's piano sonatas. A pair of Mozart concertos, KV 219 and KV 450, finds Kempff's phrasing at it's most limpid and apparently effortless. His Decca discography concluded in fine style in 1958 with sessions which yielded three LP albums of Chopin. Several of these recordings have previously appeared in previous sets dedicated to Kempff but this is the first complete survey of his Decca legacy. Combined with the rare pre-war recordings, new remasterings and detailed editorial support (including a discographical essay by Michael Gray and one by the late Michael Steinberg), this set of Wilhelm Kempff will attract the attention of all pianophiles. 'When he is at his best, he plays more beautifully than any of us.' (Alfred Brendel)

The second limited edition volume of Sir Adrian Boult's Decca legacy brings together the conductor's Messiah recordings of 1954 and 1960, plus Baroque and sacred music recitals from Kenneth McKellar, Kirsten Flagstad and Kathleen Ferrier. While hardly a 'period-instrument' pioneer, Sir Adrian Boult had a much surer sense of authentic Handelian style than most of his contemporaries. Editions and performances of Handel's masterpiece were still often cut and loaded with Romantic trappings in 1935 when Julian Herbage prepared the most complete version of the score yet made, with Handel's original instrumentation. Boult began performing this version in 1942 and it was the obvious choice for a new, refreshing perspective on the piece when he came to record it for Decca in 1954. Listeners and critics alike were struck by the energy of Boult's direction, the purity and simplicity of the solo singing and the vivid Decca engineering. These qualities also distinguished the stereo remake, made with similarly slimmed-down forces and featuring Dame Joan Sutherland on the top line. She also contributed to the success of Boult's Acis and Galatea from 1959, and the box is completed with a series of glorious vocal recitals, from the tenor Kenneth McKellar, the soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the contralto Kathleen Ferrier, all accompanied by Boult in Baroque repertoire with the sensitivity to line that made him so underrated and underused as an opera conductor. Ferrier recorded this selection of Bach and Handel arias a year before her death in 1952, but eight years later Boult and the LPO returned to the studios to produce a stereo accompaniment for the album, which the Decca producer James Walker mixed with Ferrier's part from 1952: an early and remarkably successful example of the technology later used to 'update' classic recordings of Caruso and Callas.

The apotheosis of Viennese style: Mozart, Strauss and more under the baton of JOSEF KRIPS. An Original Covers collection of classic Decca albums recorded between 1947 and 1955, including several recordings new to CD. Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centers of activity. Mozart was forever Krips's hero: 'My maxim is that everything has to sound as though it were by Mozart, or it will be a bad performance. When you perform Mozart, everything has to be crystal clear, everything has to be in balance, and everything has to have a relaxed sound.' Compiled here for the first time, as one of a two-volume Krips edition, are the conductor's complete mono recordings for Decca beginning with Kingsway Hall sessions in October 1947. Mozart symphonies, concertos, overtures and arias appeared on 78s - newly transferred for this set by Andrew Hallifax. From the early LP era comes the first-ever complete recording of Die Entf�hrung aus dem Serail, with a cast entirely drawn from the Vienna State Opera company, and (also from 1950) a remarkably forward-looking account of the Requiem, recorded with a cathedral-style all-male chorus including boys on the top line, much closer to Mozart's world than contemporary, symphonic-style versions of the piece. Combined with Decca's famous 'ffrr' sound, these Mozartian qualities also illuminate Krips's mono recordings of symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert, concertos by Schumann and Dvor�k, Johann Strauss waltzes and a version of Mendelssohn's Elijah which combines the best of the British oratorio tradition with an operatic momentum and a gently glowing orchestral palette. Distinguished soloists on these recordings include Clifford Curzon and Mischa Elman in Mozart; Zara Nelsova in Dvor�k's Cello Concerto; and Hilde Gueden, Maria Reining, Anton Dermota and Richard Lewis singing opera arias (recorded on 78, several receiving their first CD transfer in this box). A companion volume from Eloquence is dedicated to Krips's Decca and Philips recordings from the stereo era (1955-72) and will be released next month. The booklet for each set contains session photos and an essay on Krips's life and legacy by Niek Nelissen.

LIMITED EDITION. SINGLE PRESSING ONLY.

'Fire-eating virtuoso' is how Stereo Review described the finales of the Rachmaninoff concertos recorded by pianist Rafael Orozco (1946-1996) with Edo de Waart. Collected here are the complete Philips recordings of one of Spain's piano aristocracy, winner of the 1966 Leeds Piano Competition. There is passion and poetry in equal measure, and an instinctive feeling for the ebb and flow of a phrase in these recordings of works by Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff. Barnstorming virtuosity from a distinguished member of Spain's piano aristocracy: the complete Philips albums of Rafael Orozco include several recordings new to CD.

At age 20, Rafael Orozco came to the world's attention at the 1966 Leeds Piano Competition. The fire and poetry of his Chopin, Liszt, and Albéniz won him first prize, and then a contract with HMV/EMI which led to several acclaimed albums such as the Chopin Préludes. However, Orozco entered his full artistic maturity around the time of his recordings for Philips, made between 1972 and 1975.

A solo album of Rachmaninoff is one of the newly remastered treasures which have been forgotten over time, but it confirms the depth of Orozco's touch at the keyboard and his instinctive feeling for the ebb and flow of a phrase. Orozco projects the volatile mood-swings of Schumann's Kreisleriana while holding close control over details of line and texture.

In his booklet appreciation of Orozco, Jed Distler compares the album of Chopin's Scherzos to meeting an old friend after a long absence: 'I had forgotten the nuanced scintillation in the first Scherzo's demonic outer sections, not to mention the uncommon precision and centeredness of the triplets in No. 2's famous main theme.' He points out the coruscating impact but also strong architectural feeling of the Liszt Sonata recording which stands out among the solo repertoire on the set.

Orozco also found a meeting of minds with the young Dutch conductor Edo de Waart. Aided by transparent Philips engineering, they explored all the refinements of dialogue in concertos by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff. His playing of them strikes a rare balance between refinement, passion and a sense of abandon. However, his Philips catalogue has rarely been reissued on CD, making this first-ever collection of his recordings for the label a valuable reminder of Orozco's place in the pantheon of Spanish pianists, alongside the likes of Alicia de Larrocha and Esteban Sánchez.

Decca studio recordings made between 1947 and 1949 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, newly compiled and remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn and including material new to CD. Decca first presented it's 'ffrr' technology - full frequency range recording - in 1944, originally developed by the company's engineers as a means of detecting and identifying German submarines through their engine noises. Following the success of Stravinsky's Petrushka with Ernest Ansermet (made in 1946 and reissued by Eloquence in it's comprehensive series dedicated to the Swiss conductor) other major artists visiting London were invited to make records at the acoustically excellent Kingsway Hall. One of them was Erich Kleiber, who had attracted a considerable following in London through his concerts. 'Audiences did not merely listen and applaud,' remembered his friend, the scholar Jacques Barzun. 'They knew what they were doing.' His repertoire for Decca mirrored his concerts: symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven, overtures by Dvor�k and Handel, and Strauss-family favourites, all done with superb attention to rhythmic lift and dynamic balance so that, combined with Decca's pioneering technology, listeners could (and still can) hear inside the scores to a degree still remarkable for the late 1940s. The old ideal of classical 'objectivity' was Kleiber's inspiration for Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony: he was 'a conductor's conductor', observed The Spectator's reviewer, seeing Kleiber in concert at the time of these recordings, who obtained precisely what he wanted with 'instinctive ease and economy of means'. The French conductor Jean Martinon also had a short-lived relationship with Decca in London before making most of his records in the US for RCA. They include deliciously light-textured accounts of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and Chabrier's Suite Pastorale as well as another gramophone rarity: the farewell aria for Joan of Arc in Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans, sung by the Polish mezzo-soprano Eugenia Zareska.

Three Decca albums of popular Romantic classics remastered complete for CD and compiled for the first time. Recorded at London's Kingsway Hall early in 1957 and first released in the US by RCA Victor, 'Overtures in Spades' was a collection of operatic openers that enjoyed more popular currency then than they do now: Supp�'s Light Cavalry still features on radio playlists, less so his overtures to Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna or The Queen of Spades, while three 19th-century pieces of polished craftsmanship by Adam, Auber and H�rold are hardly known today. Reissued as 'Overture! Overture!' the album took another 12 years to be incorporated within the Decca catalogue, though the reviewers had enjoyed the dynamic Decca sound of the original recording as well as the full-bodied, exciting performances of a London studio band under the directorship of Raymond Agoult, a seasoned, Hungarian-born conductor of popular and light classics. In 1958 Agoult and the New Symphony Orchestra made a second record for RCA/Decca - 'Clair de lune', featuring gentle Andantes and tender Adagios - by the likes of Debussy, Elgar, Tchaikovsky and Massenet. Newly remastered from the original tapes, both albums are coupled on this Eloquence reissue with a rare LP of Waldteufel waltzes under the direction of another experienced, British-based session musician, the Australian-born Douglas Gamley. Waldteufel's art lay in combining the easygoing feel and nostalgic pull of the Viennese waltz with a more brilliant, French style of orchestration: a synthesis that endeared him to English audiences in particular. This collection fills out a portrait of the composer beyond the ubiquitous Skaters' Waltz to present six further waltzes and a Grenadiers march scored with surprising delicacy.

With the delightful original LP cover illustrations, this 'original jackets' presentation collects together for the first time the 33 Haydn Symphonies recorded by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields over a twenty-year period, from 1970-1990. Both the Polish and refinement of these performances, as well as the recording quality "of exceptional vividness and presence" (Gramophone), received widespread critical acclaim. Begun in 1970 with an album of Symphonies Nos 52 & 53, this series of Haydn recordings soon concentrated on symphonies with nicknames (none of them supplied by the composer). They attracted widespread praise for the precision of their playing, the excellence of the Philips engineering and the unassuming Polish and refinement of the readings, the only complaint being made that Marriner and his ensemble could not venture into all those other symphonic marvels which happened not to have attracted a nickname. Only towards the end of the series, in 1981, did they yield to this criticism by completing a set of the Paris symphonies with beautifully pointed accounts of Nos. 84, 86 and 87. However, with 33 individual symphonies eventually recorded, the series covers a substantial fraction of Haydn's legacy. Marriner took a flexible attitude to thorny academic issues such as whether or not to use a harpsichord continuo: 'The most important thing is to be practical, ' he said, and the series conveys a meeting of minds across the centuries between two supremely practical musicians. Some of these recordings last saw the light of day in a 1996 box of the 'named' symphonies. However, the present compilation restores the original couplings with 'original jacket' artwork. The booklet includes many session photographs of Marriner and the Academy in their natural habitat, as well as an enticing array of editorial contributions: from Max Harrison on Haydn's inexhaustible invention as a symphonist, from Philip Stuart on the ins and outs of the ASMF Haydn discography, from Rob Cowan on Sir Neville Marriner as a director of unfailing style and vitality in this repertoire, and a personal memoir from Costa Pilavachi who worked with Marriner in his capacity as A&R manager and later head of the Philips Classics label.

Limited 13 CD set. From Haydn to Eisler: the collected Philips recordings of Wolfgang Holzmair, a supreme art-song interpreter, including many long-deleted albums. Wolfgang Holzmair has long been recognised as one of today's most accomplished and intelligent Lieder singers. He brings a refinement and subtlety to his performances worthy of the great German Lieder baritones, but it is the silky elegance of his voice that has always seduced listeners and critics: the golden, tenorial top as well as his rich, soulful lower register. In celebration of his 70th birthday, this set brings together his complete Philips recitals for the first time, as well as his 1995 recording for Koch of the Hollywood Songbook by Hanns Eisler.

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 Dvor�k - 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.

Collected for the first time and newly remastered, the complete Decca and L'Oiseau-Lyre recordings (from 1931 to 1978) of Alfredo Campoli, including unpublished tracks and the classical 78s (newly remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn). Born into a family of professional musicians in 1906, Alfredo Campoli rapidly took to the violin, and before he turned eighteen, he was already secure in eleven major concertos. He subsequently toured with celebrated singers of the day including Nellie Melba and Clara Butt, before turning his attention to light music. During the 1930s he became a household name in the UK, known simply as 'Campoli', for his many recordings and broadcasts, especially with his Salon Orchestra. Campoli's impeccable technique and showman's instincts were combined with a rare purity of tone and beauty of phrasing, often likened to bel canto singing. He began recording for Decca in 1931, and these 78rpm discs have rarely been issued since, but they present the violinist on typically characterful form, in miniatures and arrangements which capture the essence of romantic violin-playing. Several tracks previously unpublished on Decca from a session in June 1940 include transcriptions of Chopin, Grainger and Stephen Foster, where Campoli turns on the charm in quintessential style. Decca captured the full range of Campoli's musicianship, from salon-orchestra serenades and Baroque-era sonatas to the first recording of the concerto which Sir Arthur Bliss wrote for him. He brought a special warmth and unmannered pathos to the Violin Concerto by Elgar, under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult in 1954, which stands out as a highlight of his legacy on record. A larger-than-life figure, keen on tennis and bridge and usually sporting a large cigar, Campoli continued to record for Decca during the LP and stereo eras, his technique undimmed by age. At the age of 73, he returned to the studio for the L'Oiseau-Lyre label, recording an album of Wieniawski which brought his career on record full circle, back to the virtuoso and popular repertoire that had made his name. This Eloquence set presents Campoli's legacy in largely chronological order, restoring the original LP couplings, and presenting for the first time on CD stereo versions of Saint-Sa�ns's Violin Concerto No. 3, the Kreisler/Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 and pieces by Sarasate and Wieniawski. The remastering engineer Mark Obert-Thorn contributes a note focusing on the violinist's early recordings on 78rpm. First-issue covers and many rare photographs are complemented by a new and illuminating essay by Andrew Dalton, who recalls Campoli in concert in the early 1960s: 'I was instantly captivated, for a Campoli performance was never routine'.

Astounding debuts and legendary piano treasures on disc: newly remastered albums of 21 pianists from the analogue era, including many first-ever digital transfers. Before he became a Decca icon, Vladimir Ashkenazy appeared on DG in performances recorded live at the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Their reissue here is complemented by a Rachmaninoff sequence with Ashkenazy's teacher, Lev Oborin. At the same competition five years later, Arthur Rubinstein was so outraged at the low placing given by his fellow jurors to the Belgian pianist Michel Block that he created a special prize for him on the spot, and DG responded likewise by issuing precious recordings of his live Chopin performances from 1960. Through the late 1960s and 70s, the 'Concours' and 'Debut' sub-labels on DG launched an array of pianists at the start of promising careers. They came from a rich variety of backgrounds and schools. Blockbuster Russians included Boris Bloch and Youri Egorov. New-World stars in the making included Steven de Groote and Zola Mae Shaulis. Among the young artists from the central European traditions were Veronica Jochum von Moltke (Eugen Jochum's daughter) and Claude Helffer. A few of these musicians, such as Ashkenazy, went on to enjoy long careers. Some disappeared from the limelight, lending to their legacy on record both rarity value and a melancholy sense of potential left untapped. David Lively, Alexander Lonquich and Ewa Poblocka are still performing today, but their DG Debut albums have never been reissued on CD. Dino Ciani, Youri Egorov and Steven de Groote died tragically young while their careers were still in the ascendant. Other pianists retreated from the spotlight and became teachers, such as Roberto Szidon and Boris Bloch. Alongside the fire-breathing virtuosity of Mikhail Faermann and Steven de Groote, the box reissues Beethoven sonata recordings made by Elly Ney at the end of her long career, and a mono-era account of the Diabelli Variations by the Swiss pianist Paul Baumgartner. These artists represent a link with the Clara Schumann school of pianism, while Erik Then-Bergh's 1951 account of Reger's Telemann Variations embodies an intellectual German style. Pianophiles of every stripe will find something here to astonish and intrigue them. The recordings are issued in the Original Covers format, and the booklet includes an introduction to each of the pianists by the piano-specialist Jonathan Summers.

A Limited edition original Jackets treasury of analogue-era pianism by legendary and lesser-known names from the catalogues of American Decca and Westminster. Spanning 1950 to 1963 - Clara Haskil in Scarlatti to Guiomar Novaes in Chopin and Debussy - the recordings in this set document the end of some distinguished careers (notably Benno Moiseiwitsch and Egon Petri) and the early flourishing of others, such as Jörg Demus and Nina Milkina. Classic examples of German, Russian, French, Hungarian, Romanian and American pianism illustrate the characteristics of their national schools, but most of all underline the personal artistry of musicians such as Haskil and Moiseiwitsch who always turned a phrase or a chord and made it their own. The four solo LPs for Westminster recorded in 1956 by Raymond Lewenthal marked his return to the studio after an assault which had left him unable to play for several years. He would go on to become an early champion on record of the late-Romantic, ultra-virtuoso style, but these Westminster LPs capture him in repertoire from Beethoven sonatas and Scriabin preludes to popular encores. Excerpts from some of these LPs have appeared on CD before, but not the full albums as originally sequenced. This is also true of the treasurable August 1961 sessions in New York made by Benno Moiseiwitsch, playing inimitably inflected accounts of Beethoven, Schumann and Mussorgsky. There is a first-time CD release for Petri's 'Moonlight' Sonata, alongside it's original LP couplings of the 'Pathétique' and 'Appassionata', plus the 'Hammerklavier' and Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica from the same sessions in June 1956. Petri's aristocratic and intellectual style could hardly be more contrasted with the spontaneous rubato of the Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novaes, in Chopin's Barcarolle. A trio of previously unissued Chopin Mazurkas makes a precious addition to the legacy of the French pianist Youra Guller. Jörg Demus is now esteemed for his Bach and Beethoven, but his mastery of Franck and Fauré has been forgotten. Each of these LPs tells it's own story, of a forgotten pianist or a little-known recording, and the piano-specialist Mark Ainley supplies valuable context with new booklet appreciations of each artist.

Vienna, old and new, meet on this journey from Mozart to Schoenberg and then on to Berg, Weill, Gerhard, and Ligeti, with David Atherton and the London Sinfonietta. Central to this anthology is the pioneering set of music by Schoenberg recorded in 1973-74 critically acclaimed for its 'big line and attention to detail (Stereo Review) and for the "mellow but well-detailed recording' (Gramophone).

The London Sinfonietta is renowned across the world as one of the most adventurous groups commissioning and performing new music. From it's inception, however, the Sinfonietta played the classics alongside new and avant-garde pieces, and this new Eloquence set traces the engagement of the group with the Viennese tradition.

At the center of the set is the 5-LP survey of Schoenberg's chamber music - from the early and Wagnerian Verklärte Nacht to the late Phantasy for violin and piano - which the Sinfonietta recorded in 1973-4 to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. The recordings were bedded in by extensive performing experience, in a comprehensive concert series celebrating the music of Schoenberg and his Catalan student, Roberto Gerhard. The Sinfonietta's co-founder David Atherton had come to know Gerhard at Cambridge, and so these recordings bear the stamp of authority, as well as thorough preparation.

In a new interview for the set with note-writer Peter Quantrill, Atherton explains the genesis of the Sinfonietta as formed around the unique instrumentation of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. He and his colleagues shook up the London concert scene in the 1970s with their energy and commitment to modernist classics and living composers. However, the Sinfonietta brought the same incisive musicianship to Mozart's wind serenades and Schubert's sacred music, as these Argo recordings testify.

A further rarity is the album of clarinet concertos by Louis Spohr, with the ensemble's long-standing clarinetist, Antony Pay, as soloist. Recorded after a complete Stravinsky concert series, their version of Agon has long been recognized as a definitive account. The Gerhard album preserves all three of the composer's late and exquisite 'Zodiac' pieces, Gemini, Libra and Leo, the last two named after the zodiacal signs of Gerhard and his wife. The set also includes the 3-LP Weill set that Atherton and the Sinfonietta recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in 1975 and concludes with the Ligeti album recorded that same year by the ensemble for Decca's 20th-century HEAD series with soloists Aurèle Nicolet (flute) and Heinz Holliger (oboe). The set makes a significant contribution to the Schoenberg 150th anniversary year, as well as telling a compelling story of one of the UK's most innovative performing ensembles.

The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra breathed new life into the orchestral pops repertoire, told new stories and brought in new audiences when it was revived under the conductor John Mauceri in the 1990s. At the centrepiece of this collection are all of the original HBO albums released by Philips from 1991-1996. From Gershwin to Ligeti, The Firebird to Edward Scissorhands, The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra breathed new life into the orchestral 'pops' repertoire, told new stories and brought in new audiences when it was revived under the conductor John Mauceri in 1990. From the start, they played to capacity audiences at the Hollywood Bowl, where the Los Angeles Philharmonic had been giving concerts since 1922. Now reformed as a separate ensemble - 'the world's greatest pick-up band', auditioned by Mauceri and his colleagues from freelancers across the West Coast - the new Hollywood Bowl Orchestra played a huge repertoire of classical, contemporary, film and Broadway, and recorded the highlights for Philips. The mastermind behind their artistic success and uniquely diverse repertoire was Mauceri, a prot�g� of Leonard Bernstein, who had long worked with equal success in opera, the symphony and musical theatre. Mauceri made the connections that link Holst and Ravel to John Williams and Hans Zimmer, the Korngold and Schoenberg of Vienna to their later identities in California. He showed in sound as well as word how 'Golden Age' Hollywood film scores developed from the world of European late-Romanticism and modernism. Mauceri and his colleagues dug deep into studio libraries to unearth the best, the most original and complete scores available for pieces such as The King and I and familiar 'standards' often heard in much later orchestrations. They worked with great singers from all backgrounds, including (featured in this set) Julia Andrews, Patti LuPone and Sylvia McNair. Each individual HBO album was curated by Mauceri to tell a familiar story - love scenes, nightmares, waltzes, the space age, the passing of a day - from an unexpected angle. The box also includes Mauceri's Decca albums of My Fair Lady, starring Kiri Te Kanawa and Jeremy Irons, and 'Schoenberg in Hollywood' (part of the label's Entartete Musik series). A booklet essay by Peter Quantrill traces the genesis of the revived Hollywood Bowl Orchestra through Mauceri's reflections. Costa Pilavachi, who masterminded many of these recordings for Philips offers his own personal insights. Whichever side of the musical tracks you're from, 'The Sound of Hollywood' will take you on new journeys, to unfamiliar destinations.

The most comprehensive collection ever issued of the recorded art of Herman Krebbers (1923-2018) featuring the great Dutch violinist as concerto soloist, chamber musician and concert master and issued to mark the centenary of his birth. An original jackets collection of a much-loved musician, with an introduction by Bernard Haitink, written shortly before his death. For many years, the concerto recordings made by Herman Krebbers were staples of the Philips LP catalogue. The critical praise and popularity awarded to them was all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Krebbers never pursued the path of an international soloist. Instead, he put his family first and chose the vocation of as an orchestral concertmaster, firstly with the Hague Philharmonic under Willem van Otterloo. With them he made his first recordings in the early 1950s, of Bach and Beethoven and Vieuxtemps. Around this time, Philips also recorded Krebbers in duo-violin repertoire with his fellow student and lifelong friend Theo Olof. The albums of Bart�k Duos and the Double Concertos by Bach and Henk Badings are among several recordings in the collection receiving their first international appearance on CD in this collection, which also includes recordings of the Bruch and Dvor�k concertos made in 1973, on the occasion of Krebbers's 40th anniversary as a soloist. In 1962 Krebbers became leader of the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink, and went on to make celebrated second recordings of the Beethoven and Brahms concertos, as well as the taxing peaks of the 'concertmaster' repertoire, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. The box also includes the Benedictus from Beethoven's Missa solemnis, with it's long and sublime solo-violin part, in two Concertgebouw recordings made in the 70s with Eugen Jochum and Leonard Bernstein, as well as 'Erbarme dich' from Bach's Matth�us-Passion also with Jochum. Krebbers brought to these parts a soloistic finesse and temperament which was central to the success of the interpretations as a whole. Krebbers's parallel career as a chamber musician is represented by a Philips collection of Mozart, including the Oboe Quartet with Heinz Holliger. Further rarities in the set include a second, Swiss-made Bach 'Double' Concerto with Arthur Grumiaux, and a Dutch radio recording of Brahms's Double Concerto with the Concertgebouw's longstanding principal cellist, Tibor de Machula. More than 40 years on from Krebbers's premature retirement after a boating accident, the aristocratic poise and golden warmth of tone to his playing retains it's appeal. This comprehensive tribute features a survey of the violinist's career, and valuable behind-the-scenes insights into many of these recordings, by the Dutch writer Niek Nelissen.

A Limited Edition, Original Jackets collection showcasing the artistry of the magnificent American soprano, Kathleen Battle. Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice. James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle's debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched. She had been admired as a gifted singer since the age of eight, and a 1985 article in Time magazine declared that she was 'the greatest lyric coloratura soprano in the world'. Her performances at the Met of Susanna, Despina, Pamina and other lyric roles in the great Mozart operas, conducted by Levine, established her as one of the world's leading interpreters of this repertoire. Recorded near the end of her DG association, Battle and Levine recorded arias from those roles for an album which became a radiantly beautiful souvenir of an era when they formed an artistic team as celebrated and accomplished in their way as Schwarzkopf and Karajan or Nilsson and Solti. However, Battle had already recorded for several labels, and this Eloquence box uniquely brings together selected albums she made for Angel (the US branch of EMI - those which have repatriated to Universal Music Group) with the DG recitals. They include an imaginatively programmed guitar recital with Christopher Parkening and excerpts from a Messiah led by Sir Andrew Davis in Toronto. These Handel arias feature on a new compilation within the album, 'Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music', which also features excerpts from her appearances in Levine's DG recordings of The Creation by Haydn and the C minor Mass by Mozart, as well as Poulenc's Gloria and the 'Pie Jesu' from Faur�'s Requiem. Two further albums showcase excerpts from more complete albums: one of Handel and Mozart arias, including the celebrated Semele recording with John Nelson, and another of operatic and concert arias, including a staggering 'Grossm�chtige Prinzessin' (Ariadne, with Levine) and the touching songs from the Ozawa recording of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Featuring a new essay on the soprano and the background to her meteoric career by David Patrick Stearns, the set will be an essential acquisition for all lovers of lyric soprano artistry.

Limited Edition � Original Jackets Collection. A tour de force of thrilling orchestral playing and brilliant audio engineering, Antal Dor�ti's mono recordings are collected for the first time. Newly remastered, this collection comprehensively documents a golden era in American classical recording and most of these vividly characterized recordings appear on CD for the first time. The Hungarian conductor Antal Dor�ti joined the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra as it's music director in 1949, and immediately began making it into one of the orchestral powerhouses of the post-war United States. Mercury began recording the ensemble in 1952 and continued to do so until his departure in 1960. Dor�ti's 51 albums (24 mono, 27 stereo) are a testament to what he achieved with the orchestra during his eleven years there. They reveal a musical personality centered on dynamism, intensity, and an exceptional ability to persuasively articulate rhythms. Eloquence presents the most complete ever reissue of the Dor�ti/Minneapolis legacy in two 'original jackets' boxes, faithfully representing the contents of the albums as they were first issued. New remastering made or supervised by Thomas Fine, son of Mercury's long-time chief engineer and producer, as well as original remastering for CD by Wilma Cozart Fine, bring this legacy to life as never before. Thomas Fine contributes a 'sessionography' to each box detailing the technical facets of the Mercury Living Presence recordings, and Dennis D. Rooney is the author of authoritative booklet notes surveying the history of the partnership on record as well as his personal memoirs of the period. The mono box begins with a blistering Firebird Suite of Stravinsky and ends with a contemporary Hungarian pairing of unrivalled idiomatic flair, brilliance (Kod�ly's Peacock Variations) and lurid, controlled violence (Bart�k's Miraculous Mandarin). Further highlights include the three Tchaikovsky ballets, in versions that quickly became gramophone classics and 'library choices' and stayed that way for decades. Particularly noteworthy is the first CD release of Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty recordings requested time and again for reissue. Dor�ti's feeling for dance is further underlined by more landmark Ballets Russes scores - Sacre, Petrouchka, Daphnis - and Viennese waltzes. The legendary 1812 Overture recording is reissued with the original 'Making Of' commentary by Deems Taylor. Taylor also narrates versions of Britten's Young Person's Guide and the Nutcracker Suite. Even rarer are the three musical stories originally released on Mercury's subsidiary 'Wing' label and narrated affectionately by Jerry Terheyden. 'Sonic spectacular' scores by Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi and Richard Strauss leap from the speakers in Mercury's Living Presence sound, remarkably vivid even in mono. Dor�ti's firm sense of rhythm and form gives strong contours to symphonies from Mozart to Copland. The last two albums on the set are devoted to the two LPs Dor�ti recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As sequels to the Eloquence boxes dedicated to Kubel�k in Chicago and Paray in Detroit, these Dor�ti collections comprehensively document a golden era in American classical recording.