Capriccio (1987)

Some of Stephen Hough’s most exquisite recordings come from his collaborations with EMI and Virgin Classics during this early period, offering a taste of the pianist’s impeccable touch, his musical and intellectual rigor, and his fondness for the short showpieces that filled late 19th-century salons and peppered the 78 rpm records of golden-age pianists. In the two all-Liszt recitals, Stephen Hough is also in his element, creating atmospheric colors, with notes flowing like streams of pearls, shaping and magnifying the dramatic depth of these works. From Mozart to Schumann, Brahms to Britten, looking back at the great virtuoso tradition while looking forward through his own arrangements, Stephen Hough presents, through these early recordings, a fascinating portrait of a young artist whose brilliant, artistic intellect and appetite for creativity remains unmatched today.

Clementi, with his customary intransigence, proceeds down his solitary road, which in recent years has led him to the use of the so-called "informal" borrowed from certain experiences in painting. (…)
Clementi shapes his music with the transparency and essentiality of means that make master-works.

from sleeve text

This is a gem of a recording with flawless and assured musicianship and a wonderful pure, warm sound. Includes many hard to find works and one of the finest recordings of the Bach double violin concerto. Stanley Ritchie and Jaap Schroder are two giants in the field of baroque violin performance and scholarship but in this album they also display an inspired musicality. This is a must have recording for devotees of baroque music.

This is another sensational performance of Saint-Säens’ Oratorio de Noël. If this ain’t a masterpiece, it’s so damned close. The singers and choir are stellar. The Dresden Philharmonic brings more of a symphonic strength to Opus 12 than its French counterpart: being the man I am, I appreciate this. Perhaps ‘Expectants expectavi Dominum’ is more seductively sung in the French version but there ain’t much between them.

Ned Rorem (b. 1923) is one of our most distinguished composers, perhaps best known for his songs; certainly he is one of the finest composers we have when it comes to word-setting. But this disc is given over to chamber works, and a fine disc it is; it features the British chamber group Fibonacci Series, which consists of seven instrumentalists (led by violinist Jonathan Carney, brother of the American String Quartet's second violinist, Laurie Carney).

The legendary label, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, releases a special 50 CD boxset featuring star performers such as Hille Perl, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dorothee Oberlinger, Simone Kermes, and Nuria Rial and more!
This collection displays the sheer variety available from theDHM archive. A perfect collection ranging through medieval, Renaissance, baroque and Romantic music.