Antonin Dvořák's last two symphonies, the light, sunny Eighth and the American-themed Ninth, are complemented by two rarely performed tone poems containing some of the composer's most remark...więcej »
Bach’s glittering reputation as a virtuoso organist was based primarily on his extraordinary abilities as an improviser, echoes of which we can hear in the Passacaglia in C minor: its 20 virt...więcej »
To dedicate a musical offering to the baroque artist Anthony van Dyck is to celebrate and honor all that was represented by the Flemish Renaissance, which came just before. This 16th Century respon...więcej »
These recordings were made when the great Norwegian soprano was in her vocal prime, between 1935 and 1940. Although her voice remained astonishingly well preserved till late in her career, later re...więcej »
The soprano Toti Dal Monte was born Antonietta Meneghel in Mogliano Veneto in 1892. After study at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, she made her début at La Scala in 1916, in Z...więcej »
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882–1973) studied in Venice, where the greatest discovery of his student years came when he found manuscripts by Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and others in the Bibliotec...więcej »
Lorenzo Regazzo (Bas-bariton)Dimitri Romano (Piano)In the fashionable circles of late 19th-century musical Venice, it was a matter of pride that among the small number of scores t...więcej »
Until 1839, Schumann had published only works for the piano; yet the year before, he had admitted to his fiancée Clara Wieck that the instrument was ‘becoming too confining for me.&rsq...więcej »
There is great justification in the common view that Tchaikovsky was the finest 19th Century composer of ballet, as well as the pioneer of the modern form of the art. Prior to his three masterful b...więcej »
In this comprehensive survey of Italian Baroque sonatas and concertos, the virtuoso period-instrument ensemble Accademia Vivaldiana takes its lead from Frescobaldi’s address to the reader in ...więcej »
Ástor Piazzolla is best remembered today for his development of the tango, a dance whose rhythm Piazzolla combined with his classical training and jazz influences to achieve a highly persona...więcej »
Though Baldassare Galuppi may not be a household name, he was in fact one of the most successful composers of his day. Arguably more popular than his fellow Venetian, Antonio Vivaldi, he wrote musi...więcej »
Even within Vivaldi’s vast treasure-store of concertos (555 and counting) there is very little music that features solo plucked instruments. Three of the works on this disc (two sonatas, and ...więcej »
The Cuban-born pianist Jorge Bolet made this superb recording of a selection of Préludes by Debussy less than two years before his death in 1990. ”Bolet's performances, with their inim...więcej »
Chopin’s Second Sonata and four ballades are among his greatest works. Heroic and original, they sorely tested the composer’s contemporaries. Musical pioneers have always received short...więcej »
Juilliard EnsembleCathy Berberian (Soprano)Heinz Holliger (Oboe)These recordings were made in 1969 when Luciano Berio (1925–2003) was in the fourth year of a six-year ...więcej »
Schumann was the quintessential Romantic: perhaps uniquely in his own time, certainly when the present works were written. Like most of his piano music, these pieces date from his early manhood, an...więcej »
This collection comprises several of Vivaldi's chamber concertos, probably composed during the year-long stay of the crown-prince of Saxony-Poland in Venice in 1716. The prince brought with him sev...więcej »
A child prodigy virtuoso pianist who had composed nearly 200 works before he was out of his teens, Ferruccio Busoni wrote his first violin sonata when he was 23. Brahmsian in flavour, its three-mov...więcej »