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.
In East Germany in the early 1970’s Martin Zeichnete worked as a sound editor for DEFA, (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft), the state-owned film studio. Like many young East Germans of the time he would listen furtively to West German radio at night and became infatuated with the Kosmische Musik or ‘Krautrock’ epitomised by the likes of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster emerging from his neighbouring country. Martin, a keen runner, hit upon the idea of using the repetitive, motorik beats of this new music as a training aid for athletes. He thought it could benefit the mind as well as the body with the pulsing, hypnotic music bringing focus. A ‘borrowed’ prototype of Andreas Pavel’s Stereobelt showed Martin the technology to provide music on the move already existed and could easily be adapted for runners.
Dutch rock band the Cats were popular during the late '60s and early '70s, releasing a bunch of English-language hits and full-length albums during this peak period. Founded in the mid-'60s in Volendam, the Netherlands, the band was comprised of Cees Veerman (vocals, guitar; born October 6, 1943), Piet Veerman (vocals, guitar; born March 1, 1943), Jaap Schilder (guitar, piano; born January 9, 1943), Arnold Muhren (bass; born January 28, 1944), and Theo Klouwer (drums; born June 30, 1947). the Cats made their album debut in 1967 with Cats as Cats Can, and at least one new album followed each year until the swan song release The End of the Show (1980).