Blessed Boys

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.

Alexandre Tharaud has always defied categorization—a rare musician who dazzles equally in J.S. Bach as he does in The Beach Boys, and everything in between. Pieced together from recordings made over 30 years, this collection finds Tharaud steering us on a four-hour journey through some of the piano’s greatest solo works, thrilling and beautiful concerto movements, and an array of ravishing discoveries including the charming, post-Impressionist worlds of French composers Paul Le Flem and Jean Wiener. Elsewhere, the variety on display is breathtaking, the programming daring as Tharaud moves seamlessly from Satie to Bach, Fauré to Gershwin, even Morricone to Poulenc. It’s a bold move to place Debussy’s sumptuous “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” after the crispness of Mozart’s “Alla Turca", for instance, but the contrast is spellbinding—as is every moment of this extraordinary piano treasury.