Meyerbeer

Leslie Howard's recordings of Liszt s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard's Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt. Every known note of Liszt's piano music has been recorded and is included here: Leslie Howard's 57 original volumes plus the further 3 supplements. GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for the world s largest recording series by a solo artist.

Leslie Howard's recordings of Liszt s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard's Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt. Every known note of Liszt's piano music has been recorded and is included here: Leslie Howard's 57 original volumes plus the further 3 supplements. GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for the world s largest recording series by a solo artist.

The celebrated ‘mad scene’ from Lucia, a role which she will also perform in New York next season, was the starting point of her new recording ‘Dreams’. ‘My instinct was to look at mad scenes,’ she says. ‘But then I widened my horizons, and thought about characters who have found an escape in their dream lives. All the characters I sing here have a dream: for some it is positive, for others it is a kind of nightmare. They dream of a better life, or a prince charming, or being able to live free from fear. I wanted to explore what dreams and madness mean for each character.’

This recital, Héroïque, is tenor Bryan Hymel’s first studio recording for Warner Classics. Its imaginatively conceived programme showcases him in repertoire that he has made his own on stages such as the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden and the Bavarian State Opera: opera in French that demands a thrilling heroism in both voice and style – and a top register of outstanding brilliance, since the album offers a grand total of 19 top C’s.

Sooner or later every aspiring Italian composer of worth wanted to make his debut at the Paris Opéra. The 1830s and 1840s were its golden age under the management of Veron. The musical pillars of the Paris establishment were Auber, Meyerbeer and Halévy. Together they developed opera to greater complexity and to a scale that had not been seen before.

Robert J Farr

Michael Spyres is a singer who challenges and reshapes perceptions – as his albums BariTenor and Contra-Tenor have shown. Now, preparing for his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Summer 2024, he searches In the Shadows to reveal more about Wagner and the origins of his music dramas. “Wagner evokes a varying spectrum of emotions – awe, ecstasy, even trepidation,” explains Spyres. “This album endeavours to illuminate the composers who languish in the shadows, who formed the foundation of Wagner’s compositions and sculpted the framework of vocal writing for the Wagnerian tenor.” In the Shadows culminates with three arias by Wagner – from Lohengrin and the lesser-known Die Feen and Rienzi. Preceding them are early-19th-century arias by composers of the French, German and Italian schools: Méhul, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Auber, Spontini, Bellini and Marschner. Spyres’s distinguished companions in his exploration are the players of Les Talens Lyriques and their conductor Christophe Rousset.