The two-act comic opera L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) by Gaetano Donizetti was written hurriedly in only six weeks. It has endured massive success in its life, and remains one of Donizetti’s most performed works. The recording featured here is from 1952, and features the Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Roma della RAI, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Soloists featured here include Alda Noni, Cesare Valletti, Sesto Bruscantini, Afro Poli, and Bruna Rizzoli.

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Capriccio Italien, Romeo & Julie

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (Orch. Ravel) - Rimsky

Rossini: L'Italiana in Algeri

The Great Transcriptions

Verdi & Wagner: Overtures

Tchaikovsky's Symphonies are strangely not included in Kubelik's discography. This Album proposes a rare live recording with the same quality as that of a studio. Kubelík was the sixth of the eight sons of the distinguished Czech violinist Jan Kubelík and the Hungarian-born Countess Marianne Csaky-Szell. Between 1921 and 1929 he studied the orchestral repertoire daily by playing four-hand piano arrangements with his uncle František Kubelík, prompting this comment from his father in 1926: ‘He could realise great things. He is eleven, plays splendidly violin, piano, sight-reading scores and has a good knowledge of the orchestra. Some time ago he had a look to one of my orchestral works and asked me to add a horn to a particular part: he was right!’ He entered the Prague Conservatory in 1929 where for the next four years he studied piano, violin and composition. The present release showcases Kubelik with the Weiner Philharmonic, as they perform Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6, as well as Romeo and Juliet. The original recordings were made in 1960 and 1955.

The sylloge proposed in this album contains five quartets belonging to different years. Each of them has been composed on the basis of common formal characteristics, but each of them develops its own peculiarities too. The variety of musical choices, the different traditions, solutions and combinations in these quartets shows how Donizetti conceives the quartet form as a compositional workshop. The Mitja Quartet was founded in 2008 by four musicians from Naples, Cosenza, Potenza and La Serena (Chile). The ensemble was formed in the most prestigious academies in Europe (the Fiesole Music School, the European Academy of the Quartet of Florence, the W. Stauffer Academy of Cremona, the Pro Quartet Academy of Paris, the Jeunesse Musicale Deutschland of Weikersheim, the International Piano Academy Incontri col Maestro of Imola), studying with internationally renowned musicians and ensembles, such as the Artemis Quartet, the Alban Berg Quartet, the Casals Quartet, the Kuss Quartet, the Cremona Quartet, Antonello Farulli , Andrea Nannoni and Alfred Brendel. Important Scholarships have been recognized at Mitja by the Fiesole Music School and the Pro Quartet of Paris.”

Is there is any other pianist of the twentieth century who, like Marcelle Meyer (1897-1958), can boast such a close relationship with the composers of which she would later become the interpreter. Born in 1897 in Lille, she spent her life in Paris. She was a student of Marguerite Long and Alfred Cortot, and then of Maurice Ravel. Meyer collaborated with a very young with Debussy and performed the first ever recital entirely dedicated to the composer, including the famous Preludes and premiering the Etudes, at the Salle Gaveau. Meyer also became Erik Satie's favored pianist and she premiered Francis Poulenc's Sonata for piano four-hands together with Poulenc and also collaborated with Chabrier. Marcelle Meyer became the favored pianist of Les Six, also performing for Stravinsky and Milhaud. Indeed, Marcelle is the central figure in the famous portrait of Les Six by Jacques-Emile Balance. (The painting depicts Jean Cocteau, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Louis Durey, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc and Jean Winer). In the last years of her life, Meyer fortunately recorded in stereophonic sound the best of her repertoire and between 1955 and 1957, she recorded the integral of Debussy's Preludes and the best of Emanuel Chabrier's piano works, recordings that this double box faithfully reproduces.

Little is known about Francesco Zappa, Milanese composer and cellist of the mid-eighteenth century. This recording allows us, for the first time in modern times, to appreciate the qualities of a musician who, in his lifetime, was welcomed with general, broad esteem. His six Duets for violin and cello, published in Paris and presented here, sound like a polite parlor conversation. If Zappa chooses a classical gallant style, his music is never superficial, and he clearly proves a first-rate composer whose unmistakable trait is his Italian melodiousness.

This 2-disc recording of Verdi’s Requiem is a live version from Berlin in 1960. Ferenc Fricsay, who is noted for his outstanding Verdi interpretations, conducts the RIAS Symphony Orchestra in this recording. In addition to the Requiem, this album also contains Verdi’s 4 Pezzi sacri and Sinfonie e Preludi which features preludes from Nabucco, La Traviata, La forza del destino, and Aida. The 4 Pezzi sacri and the Sinfonie e Preludi presented here are recordings from 1952 and 1953, respectively.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann & Ravel: Piano Concertos

This new release features Pierre Fournier in his first recording of Beethoven's works for cello and piano in 1959 with Friedrich Gulda. Pierre Fournier (1906-1986) was born in Paris on June 24, and known in his lifetime as "the aristocrat of cellists," because of his lyrical playing, and for his impeccable artistic sensitivity. Fournier was the son of a French army general, and as a child was taught piano by his mother. At the age of nine he suffered a mild case of polio, and lost some of the dexterity in his legs and feet. No longer able to master the use of the piano pedals, he searched for another musical instrument, and turned to the cello. He quickly made good progress on his new instrument, and was able to win entrance to the Paris Conservatoire, where he became a pupil of Paul Bazelaire, and later Anton Hekking. He graduated at the age of seventeen, in the year 1923. Maurice Marechal called him "the cellist of the future." Even at such a young age, Fournier had tremendous virtuosity, and was famous for his bowing facility. He enjoyed modern music, as well as classical. Many modern composers wrote works for him, including Martinu, Martinon and Poulenc. As a teacher Fournier insisted that his students develop a smooth tone, and a high elbow for the right arm. He believed that the Sevcik violin exercises were valuable for cellists who wanted to perfect bowing technique.

British conductor Sir John Barbirolli is remembered most for his relationship with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, having saved the ensemble from dissolution in 1943. He spent the rest of his life with this ensemble. This two disc set features Barbirolli conducting the Halle Orchestra, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Sinfonia of London. The works on this release are all by English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, and were recorded between 1957 and 1962.

The Mass in C minor for 5 voices by Francesco Maria Zuccari is included in this priceless collection and is heard here in it's absolute world premiere recording. The piece was first drafted in Assisi in 1723, when Zuccari was Kapellmeister, with a second version with instruments being drafted in 1745, when the musician was first organist at the Santo. The work has, however, presumably not been performed again since that year. The Magnificat in F major also hails from Assisi. It was composed in 1725 and revised later in Padova in 1748. In this recording, the ensemble uses Vallotti's typical tuning, which favors the use of flats and limits the interval of the fifth, showing a greater precision in the interval of third. The Orchestra Barocca di Cremona, conducted by Giovanni Battista Columbro, performs here on original instruments.

Kuhlau: Fantaisies & Divertissements for Solo Flute

Classical Music

At the beginning of the Sixties, one of the pioneers of the modern philology, Karl Richter, finally recorded, in German, the first modern discographic edition of Handel's Der Messias, which has here been restored. Karl Richter is best remembered for his interpretations of Bach and Handel. His performances were known for their intense and festive manner. He avoided tempo fluctuations that were common in interpretations of his era, and he devoted much attention to ensemble balance. His recordings are notable for "discipline, rhythmic tautness and expressive intensity." This production features soloists Maurice Andre, Hedwig Bilgram, Elmar Schloter, as well as the Muenchener Bach-Chor and the Muenchener Bach-Orchester.

Written around 1740, this collection of Sonatas was likely composed to celebrate the arrival of the illustrious Salvatore Lanzetti, an incredible cello virtuoso, at the official court of Turin. It was at this noble destination that the fifty-year-old Giovanni Battista Somis, forefather of the Piedmontese school of violin that included the most famous interpreters of Italian music, wrote these works and elaborated upon his compositional idea of extreme elegance that differed from the works being composed by his peers. Here, the works are recorded by Ensemble Il Continuo, which consists of Gioele Gusberti, Claudio Frigerio, and Marija Jovanovich, all renowned soloists and chamber musicians in their home countries.

Nicolas Siret, minor composer of the French Aria, is known for his works for hapsichord written between the XVII and the XVIII Century, at the same time of Couperin, his great friend. We got only few compositions of his and the discography counts few issues. This release collects, for the first time, the complete works for harpsichord played by Fernando De Luca, academic and researcher of the philological practice of the XVII and XVIII Centuries.

Schubert, Wagner & Beethoven: Orchestral Works

Classical Music

Puccini: Turandot (Recorded 1955)

Among the most active composers of the past century, Jean-Michele Damase undoubtedly occupies a prominent place. Student of the ecole francaise, he has always been linked to the great musical institutions, and he dedicated his activity to the musical theater, ballet, instrumental music and he gives particular attention to the flute and harp, for which he composed works in honor of Jean-Pierre Rampal and his mother Micheline Kahn, great harpist and direct interpreter of the works of Faure. His music ''refined and sincere'' is correctly interpreted in this album by the duo Luise-Parrino after 4 years from the composer's death.

Puccini: Suor Angelica - Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana