Classical Music

'Films are fantasy - and fantasy needs music' (Jack L Warner / Warner Bros.)

The most successful and best-known Welsh Male Voice Choir, now in a popular budget collection.

Disaster was prophesized for a Choir which sang Psalm tunes and Hebridean airs, but Hugh Roberton and his Choir proved (them) wrong... He made arrangements pieces of great beauty and warmth, shaped to fi t their voices... With this Choir, which became his life's work, he strove to preserve the folk music of Scotland, to make people realize that tunes they knew and loved were of great musical worth and that... there is a rich treasure house of melody which must not be allowed to wither and die. He strove, in his own words, 'to do a fine thing finely', and he succeeded nobly.' (Christi an Science Monitor).

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

crisp, clear-sighted approach, all proceeds at a proper tempo and, where appropriate, with a spring in it's heels. The slow movements are sensitively expressive... this is basically how such works would have been heard in their time, you may feel this is the way it should be... The strings are 'authentic' and respectful of every element... I thoroughly enjoyed this and the superb recording "Ivor Bolton is close enough to be heard in realistic balance, (his) clean and incisive fingers bring the music to life in these most enjoyable recordings." (Gramophone)

Grammy Nomination 2014; Gramophone Magazine's Editor's Choice; MusicWeb International's Recording of the Month: '[Davis'] last-ever Berlioz recording, demonstrates yet again his unique empathy with and understanding of Berlioz's music as well as his authority in conducting it.' Classical Source: 'Those two concerts in Saint Paul's were colossal events. I attended the first and have rarely been so moved by the magnificence of stately music superbly rendered... and captured here with remarkable fidelity.' The Arts Desk: 'This is an essential purchase - a first-rate reading of a religious work combining entertainment and spiritual uplift.'

(in the year before Dr. Walter's own death.. his friend Mahler's own 9th symphony) "he unerringly builds up consistent structure, controlling tempo closely... middle movements are sharply focussed, and the finale tough and stoically strong" (3 stars) (4th) "sound has attractively vivid detail, naturally glowing... everything Reiner does sounds spontaneous... Viennese influence strong... slow movement striking intensity... Lisa della Casa in ravishing voice" (both Penguin Guide)

Some of Tchaikovsky's most famous works came from his ballets. This recording features performances of his most popular ballet works including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty by the brilliant Evegeni Svetlanov conducting the USSR State Symphony Orchestra.

Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alberto Ginastera are two of the most popular South American classical composers to have lived. Paired here with composer Carlos Ch�vez, this recording features some of the best orchestral music Latin America has to offer.

Bloch's Israel Symphony is a large-scale work anticipating the Hollywood film composers' styles for biblical epics... The vigour and spontaneity of Abravanel's Utah performances... transferred to CD with great success" [Penguin Guide] "Nelsova's Schelomo, with Abravanel's support, is a fitting setting for the cellist who was Bloch's own choice for the work." "The Three Jewish Poems hints towards Respighi's Roman triptych (then yet to be composed)... Bloch's subtly coloured canvasses seem custom-built for an age increasingly attracted to late-romantic musical tone-painting. We are therefore greatly indebted to Sedares for these clear-headed, sensitively turned performances, extremely well engineered. Anyone with a taste for atmospheric evocations cannot fail to enjoy" [Gramophone]

[Syms.1&2] "two performances of masterpieces: marvellous orchestral playing and a carefree feeling to the music-making... playing is highly detailed and relaxed. The lack of bombast and aggression in the louder passages is to be applauded... performances unbuttoned and refined... sound quality is vivid, forward and clear" (MusicWeb) ; [5th MC3106] "Right at the opening, the listener notes the extremely rich, dynamically full-powered and yet transparent sound of the Westdeutsche Sinfonia, also rich in it's tonal quality. Under the gripping direction of Dirk Joeres, the symphony becomes a first-rate sound experience" [7th] "Joeres is not influenced by any (other) styles. He conducts a classically shaped and full-blooded Seventh in which the focus is on the music, On the accompanying note, he fully explains the symphonies and his interpretive concept with a great deal of knowledge" (Pizzicato)

Overall the performances are excellent. Among the highlights are the slow movement from Vivaldi's lute concerto which is played with great sensitivity by Karl Nyhlin (MusicWeb)

The lyrical Second Symphony is haunted by a restless melancholy... yet the result is in no way depressing. Chamber Symphony No.2 is a relatively late work and although it is freely rhapsodic, the mood is more positive and often songful... The nostalgic feeling returns in the central movement, but the atmosphere darkens in the long drawn finale which reaches a passionately plangent climax before it's quietly resigned coda with a single tympani stroke resolution... both played with great eloquence and warmly and naturally recorded. (Penguin Guide 3 stars)

The Chamber symphonies come from the last decade of his life, the First for string orchestra, from the same year as the 18th symphony... it is pastoral in character, closer in feeling to a divertimento or sinfonietta... The Fourth... unremitting as late Shostakovich, and strongly valedictory in feeling. A haunting piece, music of real substance. (Penguin Guide 3 stars)

The [4th Symphony] is especially interesting: not previously issued; furthermore, it may well be new to the Davis discography. Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony receives a terrific reading... first movement full of teeming energy and the recorded sound adds to the impact... an expertly judged slow movement offers refined playing but they and Davis make the climaxes ardent. The Scherzo is really incisive... The finale explodes into life and the LSO brass is on trenchant form... Davis keeps the performance rock-steady and they achieve great clarity... hard to understand why it was never issued separately - greatly to be welcomed" (MusicWeb). [5th symphony]: "I found these performances far more communicative... Marriner conveys a greater sense of radiance and warmth and a greater awareness of the underlying forces beneath the surface (the final movement is particularly well done)" (Gramophone)

He was very well thought of by Stanford, at the Royal College of Music; and not just out of sympathy with allowing a black composer a hearing in London. The Clarinet Quintet (that pleased Stanford) also received approval from Joachim. It is a very agreeable quintet, most acceptably performed and recorded, and as easy on the ear as it's more famous predecessors (Mozart and Brahms). Petite suite de concert: lovable music; Other of the piano music could have great appeal: especially so could the arrangements of Spiritual Melodies with their easygoing simplicity (MusicWeb)

altogether this is as tempting a Hummel collection as any we know... His G major (mandolin) Concerto here in even more agreeable form, as Op.73 Piano Concertino, and Martin Galling is even more persuasive, helped by a very spirited backing in Berlin... also La Galante, a lilting Rondo for solo piano... Zukerman and Faerber return for Hummel's Bassoon Concerto, impressive to be discussed in the same breath as Mozart's, particularly with this splendid soloist, who is deliciously jocular in the characterful finale. The disc concludes with Septet Militaire, Op.114: the very happy finale, with it's ingenious upward scale, is most felicitous (Gramophone)

Measham proves a splendid advocate of the Symphony, securing a passionately committed performance... The Essays for Orchestra are also very well played, as is the hauntingly evocative movement Night Flight � Penguin Guide 3 stars

this first important black female composer has become celebrated recently as we discover her works. This includes her best Symphony and major Suite (Alto)... *"history bears down on the opening of the Third Symphony... big moments where Price clearly feels the burden of the African American experience but allows it to fuel her soul. It's easy to forget that she's a contemporary of George Gershwin. In fact, (he) attended the premiere of Price's Symphony No.1. So how do we tell this story, recognising on the one hand... she's been neglected in this historiography, but... also she's very much a part of the American symphonic scene?" (*Gramophone)

[Concerto: Richter insisted on playing Dvor�k's originally-conceived version and not the then-standard, as transcribed by Vil�m Kurz]... "Richter pronounced that it was the most difficult concerto he had ever tackled but somehow he made Dvor�k's original, unrevised piano-writing - sound totally convincing" [Quintet] "Quick and sensitive as Richter's playing is,... with the Borodin Quartet supporting him sympathetically the performance has vigour and charm" (Gramophone)

[K.219] (his) innate musicality shone through... (he) should be heard if you don't mind a much fuller tone in Mozart... distinguished by the beautiful phrasing of David Oistrakh, very sympathetically supported by the Dresden Orchestra and Konwitschny." (Gramophone); [K.218] "very romantic... a legendary violinist at his absolute peak, recorded in better sound than possible then in his own country and sympathetically supported" [K454] "a warmly cosseted account of Mozart's great B flat Sonata, with Yampolsky providing trim pianistic support." (Gramophone)