Richard Hickox Haydn

Hickox has a wonderful feel for this music…In short I would put Hickox at the top of the list… Seasoned collectors may well have the major Haydn masses well covered, but if you want the less-known early works, along with interesting fillers, all superbly done and neatly put in a single box, you’ll want this as well. There is splendid music here, full of vitality as only Haydn could express it.

–American Record Guide

Hummel's choral music, like that of his rival Beethoven, lies pretty far down the list of his compositions in terms of overall renown. But some of it originated in a very famous spot: Hummel succeeded Haydn as a composer of large-scale choral works for the use of the noble Esterházy family at its vast palace. The Mass in D minor heard on this album was composed in 1805, when the "Lord Nelson" mass in the same key by Haydn would still have been very much in the air and ears at Esterháza. Faced with the unenviable task of trying to top it, Hummel turned not to Haydn as a model but, as liner-note writer David Wyn Jones points out, to Mozart: the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor provides Hummel's mass with its tense general mood, its flexible shifts between the soloists and the larger group, and its flashes of lyrical light.

This important release follows Hickox and Collegium Musicum 90's award-winning recordings of the Masses of Haydn and Hummel. It continues the Esterházy theme since Beethoven's Mass in C succeeded ones commissioned by the prince from Haydn and Hummel. There are few recordings of this repertoire on period instruments, and with the addition of the two rare cantatas, this CD is especially important.

It is astonishing that such fine pieces have been so completely neglected.They here inspire Hickox and his team to performances just as electrifying as those they have given of the great series of late Haydn masses.

For many their first encounter with classical music will be through its use in films and this collection makes a fantastic entry point to this rich and diverse world. Helpfully all tracks list the films alongside the music, so there will be no doubt as to where the music is familiar from. Classical music has been used to memorable effect in films many times from Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now to Barber s Adagio in Platoon and from Also sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Beethoven s Ninth in A Clockwork Orange. Occasionally, as in the case of Mozart s Piano Concerto No.21 used in Elvira Madigan, the film title has provided a lasting nickname for the music. All these favourites are included here.

A collaboration between Edgar Fruitier, classical music expert and collector, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, this 6 CD collection of sacred music is a classical's music lover's dream.

Leonard Bernstein was a musical titan of the 20th Century as a composer, a conductor and a communicator. This Limited Numbered Edition boxed set is the largest of DG’s suite of beautifully-conceived albums and sets marking the 2018 centenary of a remarkable human being and musical legends.
“The greatest pianist among the conductors, the greatest conductor among composers, the greatest composer among pianists … He is a universal genius” - Arthur Rubenstein.

Greatest Ever Classical Gold is a wide-ranging collection of classical favorites, drawn from the best-loved concertos, orchestral music, chamber works, and keyboard pieces. The selections come from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, and the greatest composers in history are represented, among them Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and many others. Newcomers to classical music will likely recognize most of the pieces immediately, and the few that are unfamiliar to them are instantly accessible and highly memorable.

Treasures is a new series of 3-CD sets drawn from the catalogs of Virgin Classics, presenting the best loved and key works of the classical repertoire at a very attractive price. These timeless masterpieces are performed by world-class performers including Natalie Dessay, Yehudi Menuhin, Mikhail Pletnev, Riccardo Muti, and Andre Previn. The Treasures series provides a wide overview of the must haves in each of these popular genres.