What unites two opera composers, Mayr and Donizetti, with an organist, Father Davide (born Felice Moretti, perhaps the most representative Italian organ composer of the first half of the 19th century)? It’s all about the piano, whether played with two or four hands, with this proposal of largely unpublished pieces by composers who surprise us as chamber music creators, yet never fail to betray a love for romantic melodrama.

The mixing of musical genres is now a widespread practice even among the so-called “classical musicians”; from the jazz influences that seduced Ravel and Stravinsky, to Mussorgsky Pictures reinterpreted in a rock key by Emerson Lake & Palmer, no matter what the musical form of origin and destination; the important thing is to experiment, and in the experimentation, keeping alive the character of the work itself, with a contribution of originality that brings different styles and audiences closer together.

Combined with the previous recording of Opus III and V, this publication completes the oeuvre of cello sonatas by Emanuel Siprutini. Born in a Jewish family, perhaps in Holland, he ar-rived in England following the “Jewish naturalization act” established in 1753 by King George II of England, and he settled in London as a wine merchant, concert performer and cello teacher, having among his students John Crosdill, the most famous British cellist of the eighteenth century. Leopold Mozart met Siprutini in 1764, during his stay in England. Struck by the cellist’s talent, he tried to convince him to con-vert to Catholicism, but Emanuel remained serenely Jewish. Between 1756 and 1775, he published four books of cello sonatas which the Mozarts certainly owned, as one might think by finding fragments and ideas in Wolfgang’s most beautiful works.

The catalog of sacred vocal compositions by Padre Martini is vast. From the library of the International Museum of Music and the Diocesan Archdiocesan Archive of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna, the orchestra of “San Pietro” has reconstructed one of the most moving liturgies for the Catholic liturgical year: the rite of the dead, which is proposed here in an accurate selection. To crown this work, an unusual (but not distant) psalm to the Office of the Dead: the De Profundis for solo baritone, filled with 4 voices and strings, representing the pinnacle of Martini’s compositional ability and complexity, both in instrumental and choral music.

Anyone who hears about Giacomo Puccini today is instinctively led to think of his most famous operatic compositions. However, not everyone knows that his production during his Milanese training years, which ended in 1883, was exclusively instrumental. The pieces included in this album belong to this artistic challenge, except for Crisantemi, which came later and will contribute with its two main themes to the last act of Manon Lescaut (1893).

Nikolai Golovanov (1891-1953) was one of the leading conductors of the Stalin era, for a long time at the head of the prestigious Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Fortunately, there are countless recordings of works by Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Mussorgsky recorded by him on the Melodya label. In these two CDs we have opted to collect, with excellent sound quality, some of his extraordinary interpretations of Tchaikovsky’s work. Among them one of the most singular interpretations of the Symphony No. 6 and a monumental edition of the First Piano Concerto with Emil Gilels.

In the 1960s, once the stereophonic technique was available, the first recordings of the entire symphonic cycle of Gustav Mahler’s works were begun, and three were by conductors who dedicated themselves to this great production: Leonard Bernstein for CBS, Georg Solti for Decca and Erich Leinsdorf for RCA. While the complete editions of the first two directors have been available on the market for years, Leinsdorf’s version is absent. However, it is a great interpretation, supported by excellent sound quality. After having published (WS 121.410) the Symphonies n. 5 and 6, we are now making the precious version of Symphony no. 3 available, to which a rare edition of the orchestral extracts of Goetterdaemmuerug is added.

A tribute to Italian Baroque, Antonio Caldara and his Gloria a 8 voci, transcribed, performed and recorded for the first time ever, a masterpiece of pompous Venetian sacredness to which the wonderful Lauda by Ottorino Respighi was wanted to be juxtaposed. Two centuries later, the Bolognese composer gives a perfect example of rewriting together medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. A way to reaffirm the strong bond between Baroque and the 20th century, always a source of great inspiration.

Remained manuscript for centuries, the Sonatas offered on this disc, almost all of which are first recordings, are an authentic representation of the multiform musical universe known to Pavona, a world whose sonata taste oscillated between the ‘old’ Scarlattian model, monothematic and bipartite, dear to the Venetian masters, and the ‘new’ two-theme sonata-form, already widely in vogue, especially in the Austrian area.

With the making of this CD, we wanted to choose the works most representative of the different stylistic tendencies that animated Lombard symphonism during the years of the French occupation. This would like to be a large fresco that, without any pretension to exhaustiveness, helps the listener to get an idea of the music that was heard in Milan’s theatres, churches, educational institutions, and festivals in the early 19th Century.

Among the numerous Albums of Wagner’s symphonic pieces (Overtures and Preludes) available on the market, the interpretations offered by Hans Knappertsbusch, despite the passing of the years, still defies the time. Unfortunately Knappertsbusch did not record his Wagnerian repertoire for a single label: in this way many of his important records, over time, were lost or became difficult to find. With this box we offer the best of his recordings taken from the Decca and Westminster archives, plus the great interpretations for the Hamburg NDR, all with a perfect sound, in most cases stereophonic. In any case, it is the largest and most significant Wagnerian anthology, sought after by collectors and worthy of always being present on the market as an irreplaceable historical Wagnerian lesson.

This CD is devoted to some of the most significant pieces for trumpet and piano, a formation that was born, literally, at the beginning of the last century. No prominent nineteenth–century composer has left us chamber pieces, let alone duo pieces, that involve the solo use of the trumpet; and it might be worth briefly questioning the reasons for the instrument’s nearly total absence from the repertoire. With this Album With this publication we will try to identify the reasons and to dis-cover some of the most evocative passages dedicated to it.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Lennon–McCartney. Names which not many people would expect to hear in conjunction with a string quartet. But the boundaries between classical music and other music — pop, rock, jazz, ragtime — are not so well–defined. In fact, in the ten years between the 20st and 21st centuries, they have become ever more blurred.

Karl Weigl’s music will not be lost. We will return to it after the storm has passed. We will return to those who have written real music. (Pablo Casals) I always considered Karl Weigl as one of the best composers of the old school; one of those who continued the glittering Viennese tradition. He truly preserves this old culture of musical spirit which represents the best of Viennese culture. (Arnold Schoenberg, 1938)

Supported by Liszt, praised by Brahms, friend of Vieuxtemps Hubay is a Hungarian violinist and composer, famous throughout Europe in his time. Today he belongs to that group of artists that musicology is slowly rediscovering with results both in concert and recording practice. The present CD represents a summary of his production for violin and piano, capable of synthesizing the elegant Central European taste with elements of the Hungarian.