In the late 1940s, the pioneering Decca recording engineers perfected a new set of microphone techniques that allowed the full range of frequencies to be fully heard by listeners for the first time, and the term ‘full frequency range recording’ was launched. It was a major revolution in sound quality, and the beginnings of high fidelity.
The Berlin Philharmonic is consistently ranked as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. As is fitting such an eminent orchestra, they consistently work with the world's most renowned conductors and soloists, and this collection shows these great musicians coming together in eight classic recordings.
The Berlin Philharmonic is consistently ranked as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. As is fitting such an eminent orchestra, they consistently work with the world's most renowned conductors and soloists, and this collection shows these great musicians coming together in eight classic recordings.
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 huge set is "an initiative of Radio Netherlands (the Dutch World Service) and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra…" presented to Bernard Haitink on his seventieth birthday as a tribute to his consummate musicmaking." Haitink, born in Amsterdam in 1929, became joint chief Conductor of the Concertebouw in 1961, along with Eugen Jochum, and was its chief conductor from 1963 to 1988. Like his predecessor, Eduard van Beinum, Haitink also was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, from 1967 to 1979, and in 1978 became musical Director of the Glyndebourne Opera. Ten years later he became musical director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Haitink guest conducted most of the major orchestras of the world and has received numerous awards for his services to music. In January 1999 Haitink was named "Honorary Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra."
The compact disc, as a sound carrier, was still on the horizon when Herbert von Karajan urged his record company to utilize the new digital technology in his recordings. Consequently Karajan's Magic Flute, recorded in 1980, became the first release of a Deutsche Grammophon digital production and was first released on LP. By the time the maestro died in 1989, the CD had finally replaced the LP as the primary sound carrier, yet he was realistic enough to know that the pioneering early stages of the digital era would be followed by further technical development. This is reflected in Karajan Gold. In this series the later development of the digital process that occurs after Karajan's death could be turned to the benefit of the Maestro's own recordings. Thirty releases from the early digital era were remastered for this series using DG's special Original-Image Bit-Processing technology. They were issued between 1993-1995.
There were occasions during the three decades when the LP record ruled supreme - from the 1950s to the 1970s - when the chemistry between an orchestra, its conductor and their record company combined to work a magic that the commitment of long-term recording contracts quite often made possible. Karajan and the Philharmonia; Ansermet and the Suisse Romande; Dorati and the Minneapolis; Münch and the Boston Symphony, Cluytens and the Paris Conservatoire and Previn and the London Symphony are all prime examples of such collaborations. All of these produced recorded performances that are as fine today as they ever were and are all well-represented in the current CD catalogues. Until now there has been one successful recording collaboration that seems almost to have slipped under the radar: the Pittsburgh Symphony, William Steinberg and the Capitol Records producer, Richard C. Jones.
The Japanese company, BMG Japan, sorted the original RCA RED SEAL CDs according to the composers and the year when the music pieces were created. BEST100 series are the best representative CDs, which were carefully chosen from those music pieces by acting and recording, and they were released again with the mark of RCA BEST100. These CDs are the most impressive records in the classical field at RCA’s best. Theoretically, we could find the single originals of those CDs, but BMG Japan reorganised excellently for everyone. During BMG Japan period, it was released for the first time in 1999 and for the second time in 2008 after SONY took over BMG. BEST100 series belong to the latter.
The chemistry between tradition and innovation powered Sir Simon Rattle’s relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, above all during his time as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director (2002-2018). As the successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, his mission was to take this pre-eminent musical institution into the 21st century.