This 2CD collection of more than 200 selections taken from various song recitals given 1956-2010 is released in celebration of the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss. + No less than 18 exceptional Strauss singers perform here, listed below in the order they are heard in this edition: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Lisa Della Casa, Irmgard Seefried, Nicolai Gedda, Christa Ludwig, Hermann Prey, Leontyne Price, Peter Schreier, Edita Gruberova, Jessye Norman, Edith Mathis, Marjana Lipovšek, Heinz Zednik, Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Thomas Hampson, Diana Damrau and Michael Volle. + The songs range from famous early songs such as Die Nacht and Zueignung via excerpts from the rarely heard Krämerspiegel to late settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert.

Classical Music

This great and popular series continues from Audite. This performance is taken from the Bavarian Broadcasting Company tape of a concert in Munich on October 8, 1982. Other titles in this series are Symphony No. 1 (Audite 95.467), #5, (Audite 95.465) and # 9, (Audite 95.471). This series will sell. Check now and make sure you have at least one in stock in each store.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni is a staple of operatic repertoire. The two-act opera is tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide. Don Giovanni is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional womanizer and seducer, and has a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. This release is a recording from 1985, conducted by Rafael Kubelik. One of the last century’s most revered conductors, Kubelik only made a few complete opera sets, and this opera is the only Mozart among them. Alan Titus performs as Giovanni. Opera magazine praises him as he “generates lively spirit in his scenes with Rolando Panerai, a Leporello into in 60s but still able to inflect his lines with verbal point as well as expressive colour: the Catalogue aria is quite masterful in its slightly seedy relish.”

CLAUDINE VON VILLA BELL

Bach, J.S.: Geschwinde, Ihr Wirbelnden Winde / Oboe D'Amore