Hall, Arthur

Warm, lyrical, and aristocratic in his interpretations, Artur Rubinstein performed impressively into extremely old age, and he was a keyboard prodigy almost from the time he could climb onto a piano bench. He came from a mercantile rather than a musical family, but fixated on the piano as soon as he heard it. At age three he impressed Joseph Joachim, and by the age of seven he was playing Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn at a charity concert in his hometown. In Warsaw, he had piano lessons with Alexander Róóycki; then in 1897 he was sent to Berlin to study piano with Heinrich Barth and theory with Robert Kahn and Max Bruch, all under Joachim's general supervision. In 1899 came his first notable concerto appearance in Potsdam.

Artur Schnabel was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th century's most respected and important pianists, his playing displayed marked vitality, profundity and spirituality in the Austro-German classics, particularly the works of Beethoven and Schubert. He was the first pianist to record all of Ludwig van Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. The recordings were made in Abbey Road Studios in London on a C. Bechstein grand piano from 1932 to 1935, seven years after electrical recording was invented. Originally recorded on 78 rpm phonograph records for the His Master's Voice recording label, the recordings have since been reissued numerous times. These recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975 & into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2018.

Four CD set. This latest instalment of Arthur Baker Presents Dance Masters finds the production/songwriting/remixing maestro taking the spotlight for a long overdue snapshot of his own classic 12" mixes during a crucial evolution of dance music, club and pop culture. Arthur Baker helped codify the remixer as artist. His genre fluid approach to projects has resulted in a joyous myriad of classics that spans many decades. This 80 's focused Dance Masters collection offers a welcome glimpse at Baker's illustrious career and many long out of print 12" versions and previously unavailable mixes. This 43 track, four CD edition includes a wide array of selections from the likes of Robbie Nevil's "C'est La Vie", Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love," Neneh Cherry's "Buffalo Stance", Jeffrey Osborne's "Soweto", Freeez's "I O U", Rockers Revenge's "Walking On Sunshine" and of course the juggernaut "Planet Rock" with Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. Complete with in depth liner notes by Bill Coleman, track by track notes written by Arthur Baker himself, previously unseen session photos from Arthur's personal archives and a signed insert. All tracks remastered by Nick Robbins at Sound Mastering.

In succession to the Tudors, the flourishing court culture of the Stuart royal dynasty fostered one of the greatest periods in the history of British music. Director and organist Andrew Arthur unites his forces in this compelling programme of works by three composers who flourished in the Jacobean period – Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins – around the theme of the Word of God. The choral items on this disc exemplify a rhetorically-aware sense of what it means to sound the Word enriched with music in order to teach, move and delight.