Welleda Maria Baldon

Acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of Mozart, Portuguese pianist Maria-João Pires is an artist who combines exquisite stylistic refinement with a serious effort to plumb the intellectual complexities and spiritual depths of music. Refusing to conform to the traditional image of a concert virtuoso, Pires emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of music, always searching for hidden meanings which may elude the analytical performer. This remarkable reverence toward works of music, clearly manifested in her performances of Mozart, was made explicit by her remark that, as a performer, she acts as a channel for the composer's ideas.

Maria Yudina is hailed by many to be among the greatest of the Russian female pianists. Yudina (1899-1970) not only studied piano, but conducting, the vocal arts, organ, philosophy and history. She and the great Sofronitsky had the same teacher for a while, and both went in different directions and had glorious careers at least in Russia. There is a huge world cult for Maria Yudina's recordings. I've discovered that piano afficianods either love her or hate her. The interest in the pianist is so strong that a new company by the name of Vista Vera, domiciled in Russia, has just issued their apparent final—volume 13—of both live and Melodiya-made recordings.

The third part of Lydia Maria Blank’s LMB Collection is a compilation of harpsichord music from the eras of Louis XIV to Louis XV with the main focus on France.

The amazing success of Maria Callas was not only related to her unique voice, but also to her stunning scenic charisma. The alchemy of the magnetic duets she shared with the elite of male Italian singing, then at its apex, have contributed to the legend of the Scala evenings. This collection of the most moving duets in Italian opera features such singers as Giuseppe Di Stefano, Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker and Tito Gobbi.

Maria Callas was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy. Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

Celebrated violinists Maria Milstein and Mathieu van Bellen pair Bela Bartok's 44 Duos for Two Violins with Luciano Berio's 34 Duetti per Due Violini. Bartok's miniature masterpieces have inspired and delighted countless young musicians.

A recording of Bellini's Norma is essential for every Callas collection.

Maria Yudina’s legacy has been released on disc before. Many volumes were devoted to her by Vista Vera and in my lengthy review of the first fourteen I devoted some space to the variable nature of the performances and of the original recordings.

While Puccini’s Tosca became closely identified with Callas, she appeared only rarely in other post-Verdi operas once she had risen to fame.