Peter Harris

SOMM Recordings is delighted to mark the 100th anniversary of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s birth with seven first recordings of arrangements for violin and piano played by Peter Fisher and Margaret Fingerhut.

No figure in 20th century American classical music had as prominent or controversial a career – or did more to sell classical music to the general public as something genuinely exciting, and worth getting into a sweat over – than Leonard Bernstein. For more than 30 years, from his assumption of the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958 until the final concerts that he conducted in obviously failing health near the end of his life in 1990, he was the most prominent and widely recognized American-born conductor in the world, and the dominant personality in American classical music as both a conductor and, to a lesser degree, a composer. A flamboyant public figure, he burst three different times on the musical world – twice in classical with a rush of success on Broadway in between – in a blaze of glory, in the space of 15 years; and over a career lasting from the early '40s until the beginning of the '90s, he never lost an opportunity to advance his reputation as well as the cause of music.

The best of Jet Harris and Tony Meehan after they left The Shadows. Jet Harris scored a couple of hits before teaming up with Tony, but it was the duo reuniting that led to massive hits like Diamonds (#1), Scarlett O'Hara (#2) and Applejack (#4). All the hits are included on this essential collection for fans of early 1960s instrumentals.