He was closely associated with EMI for the majority of his recording career (specifically from 1946 to 1960 and then again from 1969 to 1984). While Beethoven’s symphonies, so central to Karajan’s recorded legacy, embody music’s transition from Classicism to Romanticism, this set presents symphonies by Beethoven’s great Classical predecessors – Mozart and Haydn – and his admiring Romantic contemporary, Schubert. It also offers a rarity: the overture to Cherubini’s opera Anacréon.
A luxurious and authoritative 64CD orchestral and concerto set, celebrating one of the world’s great orchestras and their 64-year relationship with Decca Classics. Few labels can claim to be so associated with a city as inextricably as Decca is with Vienna. No history of classical recordings would be complete without a chapter documenting how both Decca and the WP worked to perfect the art of recording in the city’s great concert halls, most notably in the famous Sofiensaal.
A luxurious and authoritative 64CD orchestral and concerto set, celebrating one of the world’s great orchestras and their 64-year relationship with Decca Classics. Few labels can claim to be so associated with a city as inextricably as Decca is with Vienna. No history of classical recordings would be complete without a chapter documenting how both Decca and the WP worked to perfect the art of recording in the city’s great concert halls, most notably in the famous Sofiensaal.
This is another release in EMI’s highly successful 50 BEST series. This 3CD set contains 50 tracks from the finest EMI recordings of the famous Wiener Philharmoniker, know in English as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, under some of the world’s greatest conductors including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, André Cluytens, Riccardo Muti and many others.
Ultimate Classical Chill Out: The Essential Masterpieces basically delivers what it promises: a large selection of mellow classical music appropriate for unobtrusive background listening. The pieces are from a variety of genres, including orchestral, symphonic, vocal, chamber, and keyboard music. Most are gently lyrical and are from the Romantic and post-Romantic periods, but there are also pieces from the Baroque, Classical, and Modern eras. The performances come from Decca's extensive archive and are consistently top-notch in quality, and the notes identify the performers of each piece. The sound ambience varies somewhat from track to track, but it is never less than very good. This five-disc set with over six hours of music is a good bargain for anyone looking for a broad assortment of quiet classical pieces.