{"title":"Classics Direct — Eloquence","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"various-artists-piano-library-westminster-american-decca-edition-21cd-box-set","title":"Piano Library - Westminster \u0026 American Decca Edition (21CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn Original Jackets treasury of analogue-era pianism by legendary and lesser-known names from the catalogues of American Decca and Westminster. 21-CD Limited Edition.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Various Artists","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49688534057244,"sku":"4843829","price":181.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/Various-Artists-Piano-Library-21-CD.png?v=1724307537"},{"product_id":"irmgard-seefried-irmgard-seefried-edition-20-cd-boxset","title":"Irmgard Seefried Edition (20CD Boxset)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esaid Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague IRMGARD SEEFRIED.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollected here are Seefried’s complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her recordings of opera and sacred music for the label and includes material both unpublished and new to CD.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Irmgard Seefried","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50633735078172,"sku":"4843250","price":173.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/IrmgardSeefried_Editions.png?v=1731545257"},{"product_id":"joshua-bell-complete-decca-recordings-14cd","title":"Complete Decca Recordings (14CD)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA new-world virtuoso with old-world musicianship: the complete Decca recordings of JOSHUA BELL, capturing the first decade of the violinist’s career on record.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDecca signed the nineteen-year-old Joshua Bell in 1986 on the basis of privately made concerto tapes. Bell had first picked up a violin at the age of four, but he had been taking the instrument seriously for less than a decade. His musicianship and technical aptitude were nurtured and coached by Josef Gingold, a pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe. He made astonishingly rapid progress. 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Central to this anthology is the pioneering set of music by Schoenberg recorded in 1973–74 critically acclaimed for its \"big line and attention to detail\" (Stereo Review) and for the \"mellow but well-detailed recording\" (Gramophone).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe London Sinfonietta is renowned across the world as one of the most adventurous groups commissioning and performing new music. From its inception, however, the Sinfonietta played the classics alongside new and avant-garde pieces, and this new Eloquence set traces the engagement of the group with the Viennese tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the centre of the set is the 5-LP survey of Schoenberg’s chamber music – from the early and Wagnerian \"Verklärte Nacht\" to the late \"Phantasy\" for violin and piano – which the Sinfonietta recorded in 1973-4 to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. The recordings were bedded in by extensive performing experience, in a comprehensive concert series celebrating the music of Schoenberg and his Catalan student, Roberto Gerhard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Sinfonietta’s co-founder David Atherton had come to know Gerhard at Cambridge, and so these recordings bear the stamp of authority, as well as thorough preparation. In a new interview for the set with note-writer Peter Quantrill, Atherton explains the genesis of the Sinfonietta as formed around the unique instrumentation of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony. He and his colleagues shook up the London concert scene in the 1970s with their energy and commitment to modernist classics and living composers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, the Sinfonietta brought the same incisive musicianship to Mozart’s wind serenades and Schubert’s sacred music, as these Argo recordings testify. A further rarity is the album of clarinet concertos by Louis Spohr, with the ensemble’s long-standing clarinettist, Antony Pay, as soloist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecorded after a complete Stravinsky concert series, their version of Agon has long been recognised as a definitive account. 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While they gave concerts in Europe and the US, it was through these seven albums on Mercury and Philips that they became famous, and synonymous with the name of the conductor Antal Doráti.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTogether, Doráti and the Philharmonia Hungarica would go on to make a celebrated cycle of Haydn symphonies for Decca in the early 1970s. But these early recordings already demonstrate what a potent artistic combination they were, as forerunners both to that monument of gramophone history, and to the modern-day Budapest Festival Orchestra. As reviewers at the time remarked, the strings play with a particular unanimity and attack which sounds uniquely ‘Hungarian’.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA booklet essay by the music historian David Patmore tells the story of the Philharmonia Hungarica and their debut on record. 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By way of a bonus, the set concludes with a rarity issued on Philips and scarcely seen since, an album of neoclassical works by Julian Orbón (Cantigas del Rey, sung by Heather Harper) and Manuel de Falla (the Harpsichord Concerto, with Rafael Puyana). \u003cbr\u003eDorati’s ear for colour, his rhythmic discipline and knife-edged attack were complemented by the high-definition, pin-point detail of Mercury’s 35mm stereo engineering. Works by Doráti’s countryman Bartók came to life on record as never before. The versions of the Concerto for Orchestra, Divertimento for Strings and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta have scarcely been equalled since for atmosphere and accuracy. No less valuably, the box brings together the Mercury\/Doráti versions of Bartók’s principal works for the stage, Bluebeard’s Castle (now with the spoken introduction included on CD for the first time) and The Miraculous Mandarin, as well as a definitive recording of The Wooden Prince. \u003cbr\u003eVolume 2 of Dorati’s sessions in London draws on repertoire affinities established in the years covered by Volume 1. There is more sparking Haydn (Symphonies Nos. 59 \u0026amp; 81), the completion of symphony cycles by Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and another three concerto albums with the violinist Henryk Szeryng. Doráti’s coloristic and analytical gifts in music of the Second Viennese School are further explored with a 1962 album of expressionist-era orchestral pieces which won many new friends for this music at the time. 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Just 25 when he was appointed Music Director of the Orquesta Nacional de Espana in 1962, he trained it into a formidably adaptable and accomplished ensemble. Through the 1960s, he became known to international audiences not least thanks to the Decca recordings compiled complete for the first time in this set.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf German parentage, but growing up in Burgos, Frühbeck de Burgos had an innate sympathy with both musical traditions of his heritage, and Decca played to this strength. His Schumann (Rhenish Symphony) is impulsive and virile, his Mendelssohn (Midsummer Night’s Dream) is springy and sparkling with detail. His label debut came in February 1965, as accompanist with the London Symphony Orchestra to the Romanian violinist Ion Voicu in a beautifully moulded version of the classic Mendelssohn\/Bruch coupling on LP.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrühbeck de Burgos also knew how to draw out an authentically vivid Spanish colour-palette from foreign orchestras. 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In 1974, Weller also made a compelling account of the Symphony by Paul Dukas, in this underrated work’s first recording on a major label. Decca’s full-frequency sound complemented the burnished gleam of string timbre which Weller elicited wherever he went. He proved a sympathetic and alert accompanist to Pascal Rogé in a 1974-76 cycle of the Bartók piano concertos, and then drew on his own Czech heritage for a broad and loving traversal of Smetana’s Ma vlást with the Israel Philharmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNear the close of his relationship with Decca (1979-82), Weller then returned to the repertoire he had grown up with as the son of a Vienna Philharmonic violinist, recording the Hungarian Dances of Brahms and the violin concertos of Mozart with the Japanese soloist Mayumi Fujikawa. This set stood out from the competition by including the two concertos published under Mozart’s name after his death, later deemed spurious, but highly attractive in their own right. 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Performances here by Wolfgang Windgassen, Hermann Uhde, Ludwig Weber, Birgit Nilsson and others reach a special level of long-breathed intensity almost impossible to sustain under studio conditions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNone of the conductors involved had worked at Bayreuth before the war. Keilberth, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Karl Böhm all engaged with Wieland in finding a new, flowing but dramatically inflected style in Wagner. Something of this New Bayreuth style also infuses Knappertsbusch’s 1962\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eParsifal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewith a unique combination of mystery and rapture. The set includes a previously unpublished radio interview with Irene Dalis and George London, the Kundry and Amfortas in that performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike Knappertsbusch’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eParsifal\u003c\/em\u003e, the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTristan und Isolde\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eunder Böhm in 1966 was rapidly recognised as a classic of the gramophone and has hardly been out of print since then, but it is reissued here with the rehearsal sequence included on the final LP of the original set. This ‘Original Covers’ box also includes a booklet essay by Peter Quantrill which explores the history of post-war Bayreuth and the circumstances of each recording.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany recordings are now legendary, praised then as now:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“an almost perfect realization of Wagner’s last, strangest and deepest thoughts”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Record Guide\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003eon Knappertsbusch’s 1955\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eParsifal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Arguably the finest live recording ever made in the Festspielhaus”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003ePenguin Guide\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003eon Knappertsbusch’s 1962\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eParsifal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Extraordinarily well recorded”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eHigh Fidelity\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003eon Keilberth’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eLohengrin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The sound is really astonishing”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eHigh Fidelity\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003eon Keilberth’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eFliegende Holländer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Böhm’s flow and surge are completely captivating.”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eOpera on Record\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eon Böhm’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTristan und Isolde.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bayreuth Festival","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51727291777308,"sku":"4847580","price":209.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/BayreuthFestival-Artboard1.png?v=1745386059"},{"product_id":"malcom-sargent-malcolm-sargent-complete-decca-recordings-16cd-box-set","title":"Malcolm Sargent – Complete Decca Recordings (16CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom 78 to stereo, this is Sir Malcolm Sargent’s Decca legacy reissued complete, including several recordings new to CD.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSargent’s broad repertoire and warm rapport with audiences made him easy to underestimate. Yet Schnabel and Toscanini, among other celebrated foreign musicians, held him in the highest regard. This new Eloquence collection of the conductor’s Decca recordings should help modern listeners to understand and share Schnabel’s admiration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn his booklet essay, David Patmore tells the story of Sargent’s early career as an organist and rapid rise as a conductor in his 20s, leading the Ballets russes, Wagner’s Mastersingers and a popular series of children’s concerts. Having made records since the 1920s, he was an experienced conductor in the studio by the time he began recording for Decca, directly after the war. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese 78-era sessions included symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert as well as overtures by Rossini and Suppé, several of them never reissued until now. They reveal what a direct and unmannered interpreter Sargent could be in canon repertoire, coaching orchestras to achieve the highest technical standards. He was always a dynamic conductor of English music: his Decca recordings of Holst’s Planets, Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Coronation Marches have lost none of their rhythmic drive and intensity. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSargent’s concerto sessions with Sir Clifford Curzon (in Rawsthorne), Max Rostal (Bartók), Ida Haendel (Mendelssohn) and Ruggero Ricci (Tchaikovsky and Dvorak) bear out his reputation as a sympathetic accompanist. ‘Messiah and Mikado’ was how the conductor summed up his strengths in the eyes of the wider public: the box includes rare 1946 recordings of Handel arias and choruses featuring Kathleen Ferrier, as well as a live 1949 recording of Sargent accompanying her in his own orchestration of Brahms’ Four Serious Songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving comprehensively covered the light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for HMV, Sargent remade both Yeoman of the Guard and Princess Ida for Decca in 1964–65. These records movingly document the final chapter in the conductor’s career-long affinity with G\u0026amp;S, now leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and first-rate casts which include Elizabeth Harwood and Donald Adams in the principal roles of both works. Sargent was a conductor for all seasons, and this Eloquence box takes the measure of him.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Malcom Sargent","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51928260477212,"sku":"4845636","price":129.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/Malcolm_Sargent_Complete_Decca_Recordings_2.png?v=1748481938"},{"product_id":"john-ogdon-john-ogdon-the-argo-years-6cd-box-set","title":"John Ogdon – The Argo Years (6CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eScintillating pianism in music from Mozart to Messiaen: the complete Argo and Decca recordings of John Ogdon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Ogdon began to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1953, at the age of 16. Fellow students such as Alexander Goehr and Harrison Birtwistle were astonished by the speed of Ogdon’s mind, matched by his facility at the keyboard. He could perform and make sense of the most complex scores, old and new, as though they were child’s play. Further study elsewhere led to his triumph at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962, when he shared the gold medal with Vladimir Ashkenazy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe began to record for Decca six years later, in December 1968, with the piano cycle by Olivier Messiaen, Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jesus, which renewed the Lisztian tradition of pianism for a new postwar age. Over the next three years he made four further albums for Decca, three of them with his wife Brenda Lucas. The diversity of repertoire testifies to the range of Ogdon’s musical talent and intellectual curiosity. More elevated but virtuosic Messiaen (the Visions de l’Amen) sits alongside freewheeling youthful concertos by Mendelssohn and Shostakovich. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlmost unknown at the time that Ogdon and Lucas recorded it for Argo in 1972, the Concerto pathétique is a two-piano version, made by Liszt in 1856, of a piece which had begun life as a Grand Solo de concert in 1849. Latterly taken up by the likes of Martha Argerich, the Concerto presents a heroic contrast on record with the restraint of the Six Canons and the poetic Andante and Variations by Schumann. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOgdon’s career, both in public and on record, was brought to a sudden and tragic halt by a breakdown in 1973. Struggling with mental health for the rest of his life, he nonetheless returned to the studios briefly in June 1983, to contribute to a Decca set of Mozart’s complete music for solo horn, led by Barry Tuckwell. In 1784, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold that the Quintet for Piano and Winds was ‘the best thing I have yet written’; Ogdon, Tuckwell and their distinguished colleagues lean into its mellow warmth while relishing the interplay of texture in Decca’s demonstration-quality sound.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Ogdon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51928260772124,"sku":"4846430","price":69.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/JohnOgdon-Argon1.jpg?v=1748478778"},{"product_id":"otto-gerdes-complete-recordings-on-deutsche-grammophon-11-cd-box-set","title":"Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (11 CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003e‘Karajan’s producer’ on the podium – the complete recordings of Otto Gerdes for Deutsche Grammophon, including previously unpublished material and displaying some of the most thrilling versions of orchestral masterpieces to be recorded. Reviews for these recordings reached for superlatives: “a stunning disc from first moment to last” (Brahms 4); “Luminous sound” (Eugene Onegin); “rather sweeps the field” (Dvořák 9); “silence[s] all criticism” (Tannhäuser); “Trenchant interpretation” (Wagner Symphony in C)…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 1961–62 cycle of Beethoven symphonies conducted by Herbert von Karajan is still celebrated for its technical as well as musical excellence. The recording producer was Otto Gerdes, who had joined DG in 1956 after working as a producer for Eterna in the former East Germany. He had trained as a conductor under Hermann Abendroth in his home city of Cologne and continued to conduct opera and concerts in Germany and Italy through the 1950s and 60s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA notorious confrontation with Karajan led to Gerdes resuming his full-time career as a conductor, which led to a complete recording of Wagner’s Tannhäuser for DG, and the first stereo version of the composer’s early Symphony in C. Tannhäuser was cast with singers in their prime – Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – and German-language highlights of Eugene Onegin and Otello featured Fritz Wunderlich (as Lensky) and Fischer-Dieskau (as Otello).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the early 1960s, Gerdes made three ‘test recordings’ with the Berlin Philharmonic: the Fourth Symphony of Brahms, the ‘New World’ by Dvořák and a collection of Wagner preludes. When released on LP, the symphonies were enthusiastically received for their old-school ebb and flow and Romantic intensity of expression. The Wagner recordings show Gerdes in full command of ‘Karajan’s orchestra’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe complete album of Hugo Wolf’s orchestral music is released on CD in its entirety for this first time, recorded live at the Musikverein in Vienna in 1968. This features Thomas Stewart and Evelyn Lear in the composer’s own orchestrations of his Lieder, as well as the Italian Serenade, and the rarely heard but enthralling tone-poem Penthesilea which shows Wolf at his most passionately inspired.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdditionally, there is a whole disc of previously unpublished material – overtures, ballet music and intermezzi.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompiled together for the first time in an ‘Original Jackets’ box, the DG recordings of Otto Gerdes pay tribute to a forgotten but significant figure in the recording world of the 1960s. 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A momentous debut with the Concertgebouw and Eduard van Beinum produced an account of the Alto Rhapsody by Brahms – it hardly betrays her nerves on the occasion, despite her misgivings, and launched her international career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere followed a career path not dissimilar to her recent and eminent predecessor, Kathleen Ferrier, with Philips recording her in folk song and Lieder as well as sacred and spiritual repertoire. When Bernard Haitink made his first recording of the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony by Mahler, Heynis was the obvious choice to sing the pivotal ‘Urlicht’ movement, which she did with the grace, the nobility and gravity of expression she brought to all her performances. This Mahler Second has scarcely left the catalogue since its first issue. Much less familiar now are Heynis’s albums of Bach cantatas, and her contributions to Dutch-made recordings of the Dettingen Te Deum and Dixit Dominus of Handel. Rarer still are the short ‘EP’ albums of sacred arias, accompanied by the organists Pierre Palla and Simon C. Jansen, which were primarily issued for the local Dutch market. A Beethoven Ninth under Igor Markevitch, and a Lieder album with Irwin Gage, hint at what might have been, if Heynis had chosen to embrace the calling of a truly international career. Likewise, we have a single record of Heynis in opera, singing the role of Orpheus in excerpts from Gluck’s opera, recorded in 1973. Compiled and remastered from rare sources, and issued as an Original Covers collection with extensive photographic illustration as well as a new and moving tribute to the life and art of Heynis by Jean-Charles Hoffelé, this set will attract all collectors of great singers. Heynis could touch the heart of the listener like few others, and her voice, once heard, is never forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aafje Heynis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52749378289948,"sku":"4842104","price":129.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/AafjeHeynisEdition14CDBoxset1.png?v=1754966741"},{"product_id":"various-artists-mozart-jubilee-edition-14cd-box-set","title":"Mozart Jubilee Edition (14CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA gallery of Mozart performances from the mid-1950s, including many forgotten and newly remastered recordings. Deutsche Grammophon marked the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in 1956 with a 6LP \u003cem\u003eJubilee Edition\u003c\/em\u003e. Three ‘evenings’ of orchestral, chamber and vocal music drew on DG’s most experienced and dynamic Mozartians, from Ferenc Fricsay and Clara Haskil to Maria Stader and Igor Markevitch. This is now republished complete for the first time, and expanded to three times its original length, including many other fine Mozart recordings made at the time such as the pianists Mieczysław Horszowski and Helmut Roloff in concertos; Bernhard Paumgartner in one of Mozart’s most substantial Salzburg divertimenti; Fritz Lehmann conducting early symphonies and opera overtures; and much more. While DG was commemorating Mozart in grand style, its sister label Archiv released many new recordings of the composer which broke new ground either in terms of repertoire or performance style. The Piano Concerto K.414 and the Sonata K.331 were played on rare fortepianos from Mozart’s own time. The Vocal Canons – illustrating the composer’s ribald humour as well as his family’s use of music as a private means of communication – were recorded by the choir of North German radio.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMozart’s treasury of song was also documented for the first time, and in delicious performances featuring the soprano Margot Guilleaume and the fortepianist Fritz Neumeyer. In 1956 itself, Archiv released a live performance of the Requiem which had been given at the Stephansdom in December the previous year, on the date of his death, by Eugen Jochum. Issued as a liturgical reconstruction of what the composer’s own funeral might have sounded like, this conveys a powerful mood of commemoration thanks to the conducting of Eugen Jochum and a line-up of soloists led by Irmgard Seefried. Many of these Archiv albums have never been reissued in the digital era, until now. They bring valuable context to a gallery of Mozart as he was seen and heard, two centuries after his birth. Drawing on ideas and recollections from several of the artists represented in the box, such as Irmgard Seefried and Wolfgang Paumgartner, the booklet essay by Peter Quantrill is complemented by a range of photographs as well as Original Cover artwork which evokes the mid-1950s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Various Artists","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52749378355484,"sku":"4843134","price":129.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/MozartJubileeExplodedPackshot.png?v=1754966836"},{"product_id":"boston-symphony-chamber-players-boston-symphony-chamber-players-the-deutsche-grammophon-recordings-9cd-box-set","title":"Boston Symphony Chamber Players – The Deutsche Grammophon Recordings (9CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA portrait of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players through the 1970s, through their complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips. This diverse range of repertoire receives luxury treatment from the musicians, always centered in beauty of tone and with the kind of joyful freedom of phrasing which world-class orchestral musicians produce when liberated from the authority of a baton. The Boston Symphony Chamber Players were created in 1964, to play at the Tanglewood Festival before the ‘main event’ of the Boston Symphony’s concerts. Before long, the BSCP became the main event themselves, with a programme of concerts throughout the year, and a busy recording schedule. When the Boston Symphony Orchestra began to record with DG in 1970, so did the Chamber Players.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eViolinist Joseph Silverstein, cellist Jules Eskin and flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer all take starring roles on an album of late chamber music by Claude Debussy, and a new booklet essay by Peter Quantrill outlines the importance of these three superb musicians to the profile and the identity of the BSCP. As led by Silverstein, the repertoire of the BSCP also reflects the inclusive nature of the main orchestra’s programming. There is high modernism, in an album of modern American chamber music by Ives, Carter and Porter. There is classic modernism, in immaculately prepared accounts of landmark works by Stravinsky and Schoenberg. There are core Romantic classics such as a Dvořák string quintet and the Clarinet Quintet by Brahms. Then there are delicious rarities such as chamber-scale arrangements of Johann Strauss waltzes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis diverse range of repertoire receives luxury treatment from the musicians of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, always centred in beauty of tone and the kind of joyful freedom of phrasing which world-class orchestral musicians produce when liberated from the authority of a baton. Coming to a close with a glorious pairing of the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms from 1993, led on Philips by the veteran clarinettist Harold Wright, this collection of ‘Original Jacket’ albums rewards lovers of chamber music with playing of consistent vitality and refinement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Boston Symphony Chamber Players","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53237396701468,"sku":"4847793","price":109.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/BostonSymphonyChamberPlayers9CDBoxSet.png?v=1761608286"},{"product_id":"horst-stein-horst-stein-the-decca-recordings-15cd-box-set","title":"Horst Stein - The Decca Recordings (15CD Box Set)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe complete Decca recordings of German conductor Horst Stein cover an astonishingly wide range of repertoire, with Friedrich Gulda in the ‘very spontaneous, very lyrical Beethoven concerto cycle’ (Gramophone), through music by Cherubini and Weber, to critically-acclaimed recordings of Bruckner, Wagner and Wolf. Included are four discs of his colourful Sibelius: ‘free-wheeling readings of great thrust, drive and a big line … The sound is at once biting and smooth’ wrote High Fidelity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe complete Decca recordings of a Horst Stein, directed with the unfussy authority of his many appearances at Bayreuth and the Vienna State Opera. The recordings in this set, cover an astonishingly broad range of repertoire. Beethoven concertos (with Friedrich Gulda, once a staple of the Decca catalogue), Cherubini, Prokofiev, Bruckner, Sibelius: all writing in completely contrasting idioms, and yet all brought stylishly to life here under the baton of Horst Stein.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStein learnt his craft as an opera conductor in postwar Bayreuth, where he served as an assistant to Karajan, Keilberth and Knappertsbusch in celebrated performances of the Ring and Parsifal. He later became known for the expert pacing and dramatic pulse of his own Wagner conducting, which is represented in this set by an album of orchestral highlights with the Vienna Philharmonic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStein worked in Bayreuth and Vienna throughout his career, and later in life became a revered figure in Japan. He represented the best of the German Kapellmeister tradition, which produced straightforwardly eloquent and powerful performances of whatever music was at hand. When Stein conducted Bruckner – the Second and Sixth, again recorded in Vienna – he sounded like a natural Brucknerian. When he recorded Sibelius – four albums of tone poems and the Second Symphony from Geneva – he sounded like a complete Sibelian, and so on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs an addendum to his Decca output comes an album of Russian opera arias with the bass Kim Borg recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Just as Stein lends noble support to Borg in the Death Scene from Boris Godunov, he is a detailed accompanist to Josef Sivó in violin concertos by Glazunov and Prokofiev, and to Friedrich Gulda in the piano concertos of Beethoven. 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Accordingly, they came to play a central role in musical culture in postwar Budapest, with Ferencsik based at the Opera and Lehel at the Radio and TV company.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFerencsik and Lehel were leading orchestras who knew their style intimately, and who had the Hungarian rhythms of this music flowing in their blood: Ferencsik remarked that he performed Bartók’s music as naturally as if he were breathing. 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In search of a new Principal Conductor at the time, the BSO offered the post to Davis, but he preferred to focus his energies on the directorship of the Royal Opera in London. However, he began making regular return visits to Boston, and in 1974 became the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the most ‘European’-sounding of the great American orchestras, the BSO responded with natural affinity to Davis’s sense of line and cultivated warmth in canon repertoire. When he began to explore Sibelius with them, both the orchestra and audience responded with cautious curiosity which blossomed into committed enthusiasm. Philips capitalised on this affinity by recording them together in the complete symphonies and selected tone-poems between 1975 and 1980, successfully capturing the intensity of the associated concerts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the Sibelius cycle has maintained a firm place in the catalogue, other albums in the BSO\/Davis discography have fallen from prominence. They include a fizzing Mendelssohn album of the ‘Italian’ Symphony and excerpts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; a delectably sprung set of excerpts from Schubert’s Rosamunde, and one of the first-ever versions of the ‘Great’ C major Symphony to include all the repeats.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDavis had a long-established harmonious working relationship with Claudio Arrau, and the Chilean pianist came to Boston to record magisterial, lovingly detailed versions of the concertos by Schumann, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. While Tchaikovsky is hardly a name associated with Davis, the conductor also drew remarkable tension, energy and volume from his Boston forces in Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Overture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Colin Davis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54053865816348,"sku":"4847627","price":121.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/ColinDavis_TheBostonLegacy_13CDBoxSet_packshot.png?v=1776729520"},{"product_id":"julius-katchen-julius-katchen-the-brahms-recordings-17cd","title":"Julius Katchen – The Brahms Recordings (17CD)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA complete collection of \u003cem\u003eJulius Katchen’s Brahms recordings\u003c\/em\u003e, featuring him as heroic concerto soloist, dynamic chamber-music partner and rugged, scintillating protagonist in the solo-piano music. LIMITED EDITION.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter Julius Katchen’s untimely death from cancer in April 1969, aged just 42, the tribute paid by his record label Decca could claim without hyperbole that Katchen was ‘one of the finest Brahms interpreters of his generation’. Less than 20 years earlier, he had burst like a firework onto the international scene with a record of Brahms’s F minor Sonata, which became the first solo-piano LP to be issued by Decca. Critics and listeners were quick to admire the muscular, aquiline profile of playing that felt true to Brahms as the ‘keyboard lion’ of his own generation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact Katchen had made his debut on record a few months earlier, with the Handel Variations captured at Decca’s West Hampstead studios in April 1949. He would go on to re-record the Variations in both 1958 and 1962, and this new Eloquence box presents all three versions side by side for the first time, demonstrating how Katchen’s pianism matured during his brief career while losing none of its barnstorming virtuosity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKatchen also recorded and then revisited the Paganini Variations, in 1959 and 1966, as well as the Third Sonata, as part of a stereo cycle of the complete solo piano works, made between 1961 and 1965. By then he had recorded both concertos, with the LSO conducted by Pierre Monteux and János Ferencsik. Towards the end of the 60s, Decca then captured him in timely manner as a sensitive partner to Josef Suk in the violin sonatas (which he had already recorded twice with Ruggiero Ricci in the 50s, both versions also being reissued here), the clarinet sonatas with Thea King, the cello sonatas with János Starker and piano trios with Suk and Starker. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Mark Ainley outlines in his booklet essay, surveying Katchen’s meteoric career and special affinity with Brahms, the First Cello Sonata (a 1968 recording from Aldeburgh, made at the same time as the piano trios) was never issued; so too a 1967 set of the clarinet sonatas, in company with Michel Portal. With their first-ever release, this Decca Eloquence set presents the fullest possible portrait of Katchen as a sovereign interpreter of Brahms, capturing the music’s muscular energy, refined nuancing, and emotional breadth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Julius Katchen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54155431379228,"sku":"2894848167","price":124.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0874\/0513\/4108\/files\/CLDRPackShot.png?v=1779942786"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.umusic.com.au\/collections\/classics-direct-eloquence.oembed","provider":"uMusic Shop Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}