Purcell Arthur

1931 was the breakthrough year for 32-year-old Hungarian immigrant Eugene Ormandy. First, he was engaged by the Philadelphia Orchestra to deputize for his idol Toscanini, who was briefly indisposed. Then, a few months later, he was asked to step in for the conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, also indisposed – but in this case permanently. Soon Ormandy was hired to take over that rising Midwestern orchestra. At the end of his five-year tenure in Minneapolis, which produced a considerable discography for RCA Victor (available in an 11-CD Sony Classical box set), Ormandy was called back to Philadelphia, this time to become its co-conductor with Leopold Stokowski. In 1936, he began recording regularly for Victor with his new orchestra, picking up the pace in 1938 when he became its sole music director.

During the last 10 years of his life Alfred Deller made approximately 50 recordings for Harmonia Mundi, and here, 25 years after his death in 1979, the label celebrates and commemorates the work of this uniquely gifted and influential artist. By all accounts of his colleagues (several tributes are included in this set's liner notes)–and evidenced by nearly every note he sang–Deller was a master of expression, of breath control, of the most gentle phrasing and subtle shadings of pitch, always in service of the text and in devotion to the beauty of the musical line.

To celebrate its 50th Anniversay, harmonia mundi presents 50 masterworks in the development of Western classical music, performed by undisputed masters in their field. This set features over 36 hours of music (all complete works, no excerpts) of music in audiophile-quality sound, elequently packaged in a deluxe boxed set and offered at a very low price. Whether you are an inquisitive novice or a discerning connoisseur, you will be thrilled to experience the sonic triumphs of the world's most innovative independent label.

Alison Balsom & Quentin Thomas - Music for Trumpet and Organ
Works by J.S. Bach, H. Purcell, O. Messiaen & others
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 222 MB | Full Artwork: 55 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: EMI Classics "Debut" # 7243 5 75683 2 6 | Country/Year: Europe 2002
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Contemporary, Trumpet, Organ

"The EMI Debut series has now been successful in drawing a number of exceptionally promising young artists to public attention, amongst them Thomas Adès and, more recently (and currently particularly newsworthy) the bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu, hailed by some as the next Bryn Terfel and having just picked up a Gramophone award for best debut disc. (…) Alison Balsom is a player we are likely to hear considerably more from in the coming years and this debut disc will do much to galvanise her already growing reputation." ~musicweb-international

Daniel Taylor is a Canadian countertenor, one of a group that has come on the scene in recent years and given promise that soon the countertenor voice will be considered less an exotic specialty and more a generally cultivated voice type. Taylor, perhaps more than other countertenors active today, sounds as though he is engaging in a natural kind of voice production rather than channeling his voice into circuitous channels. His sound is quite awesomely smooth, little touched by vibrato or strong passion, restrained, extremely elegant, and modest in dimension – perfect, in short, for the Dowland songs and mostly smaller Purcell airs that make up the bulk of this two-CD compilation, drawn from a pair of earlier releases.

The first recording on Challenge Classics by the wonderful Dutch baroque orchestra, La Sfera Armoniosa. For its debut, La Sfera Armoniosa and its artistic director Mike Febtross have chosen orchestral music and arias from operas by Henry Purcell. Well-known baroque specialist, soprano Johannette Zomer joins the orchestra in this live recording.