Arturo

On 7th February 1857, after a delay of one year due to problems of copyright on a possible production of King Lear, Verdi accepted and signed a new agreement with the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples for an opera to be staged in January or February 1858. Not long after he had put behind the experiences of Simon Boccanegra (June 1857) and Aroldo (August), Verdi, then, had to face the issue of a new subject for Naples, which would no longer be King Lear, discarded for various reasons, and not even El tesorero del Rey by António García Gutiérrez or Ruy Blas by Hugo, to which he had given more serious thought, but Gustave III by Eugène Scribe, a play written in 1833 for Daniel Auber in which the king of Sweden is assassinated, in 1792, by a group of noblemen led by Jacob Ankarström. The composition of the score, between October 1857 and January 1858, went hand in hand with Verdi’s complex relationship with the Neapolitan censors, who would end up distorting the libretto and unnerving the composer to the point that he ended up refusing to stage the opera and breaking his agreement with the theatre.

An album with a remarkable journey through music from Latin America and the Caribbean plus Mexico’s son jarocho, it’s a collaboration among multi GRAMMY® winners Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, together with featured guests: the Conga Patria Collective, that includes Patricio Hidalgo, Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández, Tacho Utrera, Wendy Cao Romero, Fernando Guadarrama, and Jorge Francisco Castillo (founder, Fandango Fronterizo).

What does integrity do in the face of adversity / oppression? What does honesty do in the face of lies / deception? What does decency do in the face of insult? How does virtue meet brute force? These four questions posed by the great African American civil rights activist and author W. E. B. Du Bois in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk are expounded upon in a speech given by Dr. Cornel West based on his book, Black Prophetic Fire, given October 9, 2014 at Town Hall in Seattle.

In this edition Deutsche Grammophon brings together for the first time all the performances by pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli that have appeared on the "Yellow Label" as well as the legendary early recordings of Beethoven and Scarlatti made for DECCA. Excellent documentation includes numerous rare photographs and a new appreciation of the enigmatic pianist by DG producer, conductor and longtime Michelangeli collaborator Cord Garben.

The war over, the Milanese set about the immediate rebuilding of the bombed La Scala. By 1946 the work was complete in time for Toscanini to return – by public demand – to his old house to direct the opening concert, a truly legendary occasion now at last officially available on CD in tolerable enough sound to enjoy its many virtues. Chief among them are the old maestro’s inimitable, indeed unique way of inspiriting singers and orchestra to perform Rossini and Verdi as perhaps never before or since.

The war over, the Milanese set about the immediate rebuilding of the bombed La Scala. By 1946 the work was complete in time for Toscanini to return – by public demand – to his old house to direct the opening concert, a truly legendary occasion now at last officially available on CD in tolerable enough sound to enjoy its many virtues. Chief among them are the old maestro’s inimitable, indeed unique way of inspiriting singers and orchestra to perform Rossini and Verdi as perhaps never before or since.

In this edition Deutsche Grammophon brings together for the first time all the performances by pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli that have appeared on the "Yellow Label" as well as the legendary early recordings of Beethoven and Scarlatti made for DECCA. Excellent documentation includes numerous rare photographs and a new appreciation of the enigmatic pianist by DG producer, conductor and longtime Michelangeli collaborator Cord Garben.