London Primavera

Noted for his exquisite, beautiful playing and a technical wizardry, Accardo is most associated with Paganini. DG are proud to present these legendary Paganini in a deluxe 6CD + Blu-ray Audio package remastered from the original sources. These incredible virtuoso solo violin works are heard in astounding detail in this new 96kHz/24-bit remastering. Accardo's instrument is a Stradivarius dating from 1717.

On this, the largest set ever compiled of one of the last century's most popular composers, we may not only renew our familiarity with the Concierto de Aranjuez, or perhaps with one of the other ever-melodious guitar concertos that sustain his reputation with audiences, but also discover chamber, instrumental, choral and especially vocal works which testify to a creative imagination confident in the formation of its style but never satisfied with repetition, one which responded directly to poetic and lyric inspiration, and transformed its ideas with unfailing skill and respect for the idiom under consideration.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

The most famous violin concertos ever written are well represented in this 10-CD set of Menuhin's finest performances-but so are many less-familiar works that Menuhin resurrected. Beginning with The Four Seasons by Vivaldi; Violin Concerto in E by Bach, and many more pieces by both composers, the set moves on to Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in C Major Haydn; Violin Concertos. Nos. 4 & 5 Mozart; Violin Concerto in D Beethoven; Violin Concerto in A Minor Dvorak; Violin Concerto in D Brahms; Violin Concerto in B Minor Elgar, and more!

Sony Classical peresents 50 Baroque masterpieces including Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Bach, J S: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV1041, Bach, J S: Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major, BWV1042, Bach, J S: Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV1043, Bach, J S: Concerto for Oboe & Violin in C minor, BWV1060, Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV351 and more.