To mark her highly publicised performance at the 2011 Classic Brits, DG are releasing this stunning 2CD set of some of her very best recordings. Arranged chronologically, the compilation’s sequence offers a comprehensive look at Anne Sophie Mutter’s Deutsche Grammophon career — from her Mozart debut in 1978 to her Brahms Sonatas in 2010, with all of her musical partners.
Itzhak Perlman, born in 1945, is the supreme violinist of his time. Warner Classics salutes him in his 70th birthday year with Itzhak Perlman: The Complete Warner Recordings, 59 albums on 77 CDs. Presenting his art in all its warmth, generosity and brilliance, this comprehensive edition unites the recordings Perlman made for both EMI and Teldec over a total period of more than 30 years. Available as a magnificent deluxe box set, or as 59 separate releases, Itzhak Perlman: The Complete Warner Recordings embraces every aspect of Perlman s art.
Given the depth, range and quality of the Deutsche Grammophon catalogue, it’s hardly been difficult to put together another anthology of great recordings and great artists. The structure is as before – here are 53 original albums (including three double-sets), featuring the great names of Deutsche Grammophon’s recording history, presented, once more, in alphabetical order of artist. Claudio Abbado leads off with a complete Carmen and Krystian Zimerman rounds off with his memorable account of the Chopin Ballades.
Given the depth, range and quality of the Deutsche Grammophon catalogue, it’s hardly been difficult to put together another anthology of great recordings and great artists. The structure is as before – here are 53 original albums (including three double-sets), featuring the great names of Deutsche Grammophon’s recording history, presented, once more, in alphabetical order of artist. Claudio Abbado leads off with a complete Carmen and Krystian Zimerman rounds off with his memorable account of the Chopin Ballades.
Decca's 2015 limited-edition box set of the complete Argo recordings of the King's College Choir of Cambridge, directed by David Willcocks, consists of 29 CDs spanning the period from 1957 to 1973. The albums, presented with their original jacket art, offer some of the choir's finest performances, which include three recordings of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (1954, 1958, 1964), anthems by Gibbons, Blow, and Handel, masses by Byrd, Taverner, Haydn, Tye, and Blow, and other great choral works by Bach, Allegri, Palestrina, Tallis, Vivaldi, Howells, and Vaughan Williams. The choir is world famous for its purity of tone and beautiful blend, and under Willcocks' masterly direction it became the exemplar of British choral singing, unmatched by any other ensemble of men and boys.
Authentic sound language for many eras with J. E. Gardiner
No living artist has won more Gramophone Awards than John Eliot Gardiner. "He proved that stylistic fidelity to sound is a moving feast," the Financial Times wrote about the British. Because at a time when original sound ensembles were still exclusively reserved for baroque music, Gardiner dared a step further and extended the practice to later eras. This edition, with its total of 64 CDs, covers a period of about two decades and presents the famous conductor in its entire artistic span: from the core repertoire with Monteverdi, Johann Sebastian Bach and other baroque composers to the 19th century Frenchmen revered by Gardiner for their sensuality, including Massenet, Bizet and Ravel. In its completeness, the edition is sure to be a worthy honour on the 80th birthday of this pioneer of historical performance practice..
The Szell/Cleveland Recordings Complete! In the heyday of George Szell s tenure as its chief conductor, declared Gramophone, The Cleveland Orchestra had few if any peers among the world s great orchestras. Coinciding with the orchestra s centenary in 2018, Sony Classical is excited to announce one of the most ambitious reissue projects of recent times, a comprehensive collection of the Clevelanders recordings made under the baton of their iconic fourth music director. These span the period between 1947 a year after Szell (born in Budapest in 1897) inherited a fine provincial orchestra from Erich Leinsdorf and began transforming it into the elite ensemble it remains to this day and 1969, a year before his sudden death shocked the musical world. Szell's dream was to create an ensemble that combined the Americans purity and beauty of sound and their virtuosity of execution with the European sense of tradition, warmth of expression and sense of style, in the words of his biographer Michael Charry.