Offenbach Overtures

"Between 1980 and his death in 1989, Herbert von Karajan recorded the incredible amount of 78 CDs worth of orchestral and choral music for DGG. In the final decade of his creative life, he made quintessential recordings of major works he had not recorded before: Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 “The Inextinguishable” and Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony. Among the highpoints of Karajan’s late years is the major part of his collaboration with Anne-Sophie Mutter, the “wunderkind” Karajan discovered in the late 1970s and mentored throughout the 1980s.

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 equally majestic follow-up to one of the most successful box sets in recent memory: After KARAJAN 1960s here comes KARAJAN 1970s. Between 1970 and 1979, Herbert von Karajan recorded the incredible amount of 82 CDs worth of orchestral and choral music for DG This was the period that saw Karajan delve deeply into important repertoire that he never really tackled before or after – from Vivaldi to Mahler, to Berg, Schoenberg and Webern as well as Orff. Not to forget Christmas Concertos, National Anthems, and Prussian Marches.

This limited edition box set includes 35 sonic spectacular albums from the early golden age of digital when Decca’s engineers created a new DECCA SOUND. This set is a celebration of the nearly 25-year partnership between conductor Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. Highlights include recordings of Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Bizet, Respighi, Stravinsky, Holst, Debussy and much more.

This 53-CD set is more than the sum of its parts. While not all the performances and recordings are top-notch, the overall quality is very high and as a historical overview of a label known for its sonic as well as musical merits, it's full of treasures. The Mercury sound at its best is vivid and still sounds remarkable and many of these recordings - such as the marches, show tunes and orchestral showpieces conducted by Frederic Fennell - demonstrate this amply. But it's not all lollipops by any means.

This limited edition box set includes 35 sonic spectacular albums from the early golden age of digital when Decca’s engineers created a new DECCA SOUND. This set is a celebration of the nearly 25-year partnership between conductor Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. Highlights include recordings of Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Bizet, Respighi, Stravinsky, Holst, Debussy and much more. This box coincides with Dutoit’s much anticipated return to Montréal after nearly 15 years. 2016 also marks the return of Decca recording in Montreal in their brand new Symphony hall with rare repertoire in a new association with Kent Nagano.

This 53-CD set is more than the sum of its parts. While not all the performances and recordings are top-notch, the overall quality is very high and as a historical overview of a label known for its sonic as well as musical merits, it's full of treasures. The Mercury sound at its best is vivid and still sounds remarkable and many of these recordings - such as the marches, show tunes and orchestral showpieces conducted by Frederic Fennell - demonstrate this amply. But it's not all lollipops by any means.

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.