Klemperer Beethoven

This is a superb collection! It contains first-class performances by first-class artists of the complete works of Beethoven. That's a tall order, but it's fulfilled. CD's appear to lend themselves to complete editions, such as this. Ready for your MP3 player!

This collection offers a glimpse of Yehudi Menuhin’s artistry in the Beethoven repertoire, through the most iconic of his numerous recordings. It includes two versions of the concerto (with Klemperer and Furtwängler), a florilegium of sonatas and other chamber pieces with Louis Kentner and Hephzibah, lieder sung by Janet Baker and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau… and even recordings in which Menuhin drops the violins for the baton, conducting François-René Duchâble in piano concertos!

Faisant partie de la grande diaspora des chefs hongrois qui ont fui l’Europe à l’avènement du nazisme, George Szell (György Széll) fut un des plus grands chefs d’orchestre du XXe siècle. La guerre l’ayant surpris alors qu’il revenait d’une tournée en Australie en passant par les États-Unis, il s’installa avec sa famille à New York en commençant, comme beaucoup d’exilés européens, à enseigner. Mais George Szell n’était pas un inconnu. Après avoir longuement travaillé à Berlin où il avait succédé à Otto Klemperer), à Prague et à Düsseldorf, il avait fait ses débuts aux États-Unis avec l’Orchestre Symphonique de Saint-Louis dans les années trente.

On its onward journey across the major secular and sacred landmarks of Italian Renaissance polyphony, La Compagnia del Madrigale now turns its attention to Claudio Monteverdi s 1610 Vespers. This new recording on Glossa presents the award-winning [Gramophone 2014] ensemble in its prime and in the company of Cantica Symphonia and La Pifarescha, all under the direction of Giuseppe Maletto: a veritable cornucopia of present-day early music performers!

National Socialism had devised its own notion of the value of German art and culture. This was ruthlessly put into practice when the Nazis took over power in 1933. The more than 175 "degenerate" recorded musical items in this extraordinary 10-CD box set, 'Forbidden But Not Forgotten', relate to the shocking consequences due to that "cleansing". The burning of the Reichstag (7th April) provided the pretext for the prosecution of all who held other political opinions, for the burning of books (10th May) whose authors were on the index of disfavoured and banned writers, for the law that amended entry to the civil service (7th April) that excluded all non-Aryans and led to wholesale dismissals of Jews, especially in orchestras, the administration, among singers, conductors and instrumentalists. By means of the exhibitions "Degenerate Art" (Munich, 1937) and "Degenerate Music" (Düsseldorf, 1938) art and artists who were now to have no place in Nazi Germany were pilloried.

Great Conductors of the 20th Century celebrates the so many superstar performers of the last century, conductors who collectively shaped the course of classical music.
Sixty volumes were planned with hopes for even more. Unfortunately it seems that only forty will be issued. Thus, rather than a proud celebration of the full wealth of this keystone of classical art, the truncated result is tinged with regret for what might have been.