Rachmaninov Bax

Alessio Bax plays an Italian-inspired programme, picking his favourite pieces taken from a rich history of music from one of the most romantic countries in the world. He opens the programme with a J.S. Bach transcription of an oboe concerto by Venetian composer Alessandro Marcello, which reveals a deep insight into Bach’s mind.

This fabulous five disc set is replete with some of those old Stokowski warhorses all recorded in absolutely mind boggling Phase 4 sound, overblown perhaps but astounding for its time. Decca's remastering is absolutely magnificent and the discs are jam packed with almost six hours of music. This is another fine memorial to a great conductor who remained astonishingly vital until the very end of his life.

The collection gathers the best relaxing tunes from the piano repertoire performed by most eminent musicians: Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand Chamayou, Aldo Ciccolini, Samson François, Hélène Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicolai Lugansky, Maria-João Pires, Maurizio Pollini, Anne Queffélec, Alexandre Tharaud and Alexis Weissenberg.

Today we take high fidelity sound quality for granted, but how did it start? When was the moment when compressed and scratchy sound gave way to natural, realistic sound that captured the whole picture of a performance? Decca Sound ‘Mono Years’ seeks to answer that question and shows how, 70 years ago, amidst war-time privations, a small team at Decca made technological breakthroughs that brought hi-fi to the world. This latest cube explores Decca’s earliest high-fidelity history, and restores some restores critically acclaimed albums from ensembles such as the Trio di Trieste, Quintetto Chigiano and Griller Quartet which have not been available since their original LP release more than sixty years ago. An equally impressive array of soloists includes pianists Clifford Curzon, Julius Katchen, Friedrich Gulda and Moura Lypmany and violinists Ruggiero Ricci and Alfredo Campoli. Several generations of cellists are represented with recordings by Pierre Fournier, Maurice Gendron and Zara Nelsova.

The English composer-pianist Freda Swain (1902–85) left a huge legacy of music that was largely unknown even while she was alive. Her compositions – hundreds of them, in a series of large boxes – found their way to the Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg, who begins his survey of her piano music with Swain’s three mighty sonatas. They are astonishing discoveries: big-boned, virtuosic pieces, full of wild energy, crossing from late Romanticism to a more modern idiom – from Rachmaninov to Bartók, so to speak – and with Bax’s fondness for Celtic seascapes and a hint of Debussyan Impressionism.

The Song of Destiny is a dramatic overture dating from 1907 and in it and the Two Preludes on this disc Glazunov commands attention strongly. The Song uses the famous Fate theme from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and in a spirit of well-orchestrated gloom bites and strikes outwards and upwards. The atmosphere is very strong indeed and a far from obviously superior soul-mate would be Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead. One of his most powerful scores lit by Rimskian flashes.