Rachmaninov Symphonies 1 3 Piano Concerto 1 4

All of Rachmaninov’s music - from his earliest student compositions to his final masterpieces – has been collected together for the first time on 32 CDs, in what is definitively the most complete and comprehensive edition of Rachmaninov’s works ever released.

Ferenc Fricsay died at only 48 years of age – suffering a death from illness that was as tragic as it was untimely. Even though Fircsay’s career as a recording artist barely lasted 12 years, almost every connoisseur of Classical music considers him a legend, the epitome of the enlightened master conductor, who was good at everything he touched, a role model for figures like Abbado or Harnoncourt. The sleek and slender aspects of Ferenc Fricsay’s conductorial style paved the way for many facets of what we consider informed conducting today, especially in Mozart, and he still (almost) equalled Furtwängler in transcendental romanticism – when it suited the music.

Deutsche Grammophon unites all of its Fricsay recordings into 2 volumes, of which this is the first. FERENC FRICSAY – Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon Vol. 1 presents Fricsay's orchestral output in its entirety, covering symphonies, concertos, waltzes, overtures, ballets etc.

It seems, and was, ages ago that I last reviewed a disc of Estonian Heino Eller's orchestral music. That disc from Bella Musica-Antes is still worth hunting down as it overlaps with this Ondine example only in relation to the single-movement 24-minute violin concerto. The Ondine recording is unflinchingly forward and vivid. Eller's Violin Concerto has about it much the same rhapsodic air as the concertos by Delius and Moeran and RVW's Lark.

It seems, and was, ages ago that I last reviewed a disc of Estonian Heino Eller's orchestral music. That disc from Bella Musica-Antes is still worth hunting down as it overlaps with this Ondine example only in relation to the single-movement 24-minute violin concerto. The Ondine recording is unflinchingly forward and vivid. Eller's Violin Concerto has about it much the same rhapsodic air as the concertos by Delius and Moeran and RVW's Lark.

Few record labels from the dawn of the LP era are recalled with more admiration and affection than Westminster Records – its first records from 1950 established Westminster as a pioneering source, exploring new and exciting corners of repertoire.