Vin Dam

Hector Berlioz, France’s greatest Romantic composer, exemplifies the spirit of his age – yet his genius was also ahead of its time. Reflecting his colourful life, his music is astonishing for its originality and ambition, and for orchestration of groundbreaking brilliance. This, the first-ever complete Berlioz edition, comprises carefully selected recordings and even includes works completely new to the catalogue. The accompanying booklet, lavishly illustrated, contains a fascinating commentary from Berlioz biographer David Cairns, whose words bring the composer’s music still more vividly to life.

Baritone Simon Keenlyside is a rarity in an era of focus on specific repertoires: a real operatic generalist whose interests and expertise range from the very earliest – L'Orfeo – to the newest – premieres of Adès' The Tempest and Maazel's 1984. Tales of Opera is limited to just a fraction of that span, from the late eighteenth to the very early twentieth centuries. The album's focus on the standard repertoire seems geared to bringing Keenlyside, whose discography, which, with a few exceptions, is weighted toward less familiar works, to the attention of the traditional opera lover.

He was born in Cologne, but it was in Paris that Jacques Offenbach achieved fame. A special feature of this 30-CD collection are star-studded recordings in both French and German of his most celebrated operettas – works that overflow with joie de vivre and satirical wit – and of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, an opera that daringly fuses fantasy, comedy and tragedy. It also includes irresistibly stylish performances of such tempting rarities as Les Brigands, Pomme d’Api, Monsieur Choufleuri and Mesdames de la Halle.

Much of the richly diverse oeuvre of Albert Roussel (1869-1937) grew from his far-flung travels as a young navy officer. One of the major French composers of his time, he produced music that embraces the exotic colours of so-called Impressionism, the rigour of his training at Vincent d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum, and the questing spirit of Modernism. Containing a number of CD premieres, this wide-ranging edition features such performers as Jean Martinon, Charles Munch and Claire Croiza – all colleagues of the composer, who makes appearances as both conductor and pianist – André Cluytens, Michel Plasson and José van Dam.