Philharmonia Orchestra - download (MP3 & FLAC)

I decided to make this CD an instrumental one. Nowadays the originals are a button-press away on YouTube. A new interpretation would be exciting, especially played by a world class orchestra like the Philharmonia and London's hottest rhythm section, inspired by the brilliant arrangements and production of Chris Egan. Let's also add to the mix a classical violin virtuoso, Pavel Sporcl from Prague who moonlights with his own Gypsy band and England's most stunning jazz trumpeter, now a successful composer and conductor, Guy Barker. With the composers, overshadowing all was John Barry who was involved from the start as arranger and conductor. He moved to centre stage as sole composer with Goldfinger in 1964 and continued to compose and collaborate on Bond scores until 1987 with The Living Daylights. Barry in his orchestration defined the Bond sound: rich, full and brassy. Until Dave Arnold picked up the mantle in 1997 with Tomorrow Never Dies, the exceptions to Barry were one offs, but wonderful ones.

Burt Bacharach, in the much derided Casino Royale mark1, produced a torch song standard with "The Look of Love" . Paul and Linda McCartney worked with their newly formed group Wings on Live and Let Die. Marvin Hamlisch wrote "Nobody Does It Better" for The Spy Who Loved Me. Others included Michel Legrand with Never Say Never Again, Bill Conti with For Your Eyes Only, Bono with GoldenEye and Dave Arnold's score for Tomorrow Never Dies established him as the John Barry of today.

The total oeuvre comprises a history of music and trends from 1962 until today – a span of exactly 50 years – but Monty Norman's Dr No theme resembles no pop music before or since. John Barry's songs are full of the oddest twists and turns. The McCartneys' “Live and Let Die” is unique in their output. The Bond composers tended to do their most individual work inspired by Ian Fleming's creation. Long may he be reincarnated to thrill and amuse us with his glamour and wit, his strength and ingenuity.

Carl Davis 2012

The extraordinarily gifted Guido Cantelli (1920–1956) was born in Novara, Italy.

After studies at the Milan Conservatory, he returned to Novara in 1941 to become conductor and artistic director of the Teatro Coccia which had been founded by Toscanini. After the war, in which he served in the Italian Army, he started to conduct the La Scala Orchestra in Milan and appeared with other European orchestras. In 1948 Toscanini, who held him in the highest regard, invited him to be a guest conductor with the NBC orchestra in New York. From 1949 each year, Cantelli conducted the NBC, the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony orchestras. In 1950, he was at the Edinburgh Festival and in 1951 Lucerne, Salzburg and Venice Festivals. He started recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra for EMI but was tragically killed in an air crash in Paris in 1956. Walter Legge wrote, ‘no other conductor in the history of the art has established, so early in life, so wide a fame’. While studio recordings validate that encomium, none quite captured the incandescence of his live performances.

These important and very rare live recordings featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra derive from the Music Preserved archive and have never been released before. They have been carefully restored by Paul Baily.

The Glasgow Herald stated that Cantelli’s Schumann nearly raised the roof with its excitement but it also noted ‘the plasticity of line and transparent textures’. Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien was a Cantelli speciality and was noted by the Glasgow Herald for ‘its breathtaking moments’ which held the audience in rapt silence. Similarly, Debussy’s La Mer got praise for the conductor’s feeling for orchestral colouring and ‘rhythmic exactitude that mark the conductor at his best … There is no mistaking the greater impetuosity and attack in the Edinburgh account compared to the Kingsway Hall recording made four days later.’ (Mark Kluge)

These performances offer an intimate glimpse of a wonderful partnership between Cantelli and the Philharmonia Orchestra which was so tragically cut short.

The best of Ravel, Ravel's greatest hits - they're all here on 2 CDs packed to the brim, containing all of Ravel's most memorable tunes.

Inevitably, the focus is on the immortal Bolero, beloved of the film industry. Ravel famously considered it to be his masterpiece, but claimed it had no music in it - an opinion with which many would take leave to disagree.

La Valse extends the theme of dance, the Rhapsodie espagnole the theme of Spanishry and exoticism, while the compilation ends with a flavour of jazz as exemplified in the Blues movement from the Violin Sonata and the Concerto for piano, left hand (which in the 1930s the famous pianist Alfred Cortot dared to play using both hands, incurring the composer's wrath).

The orchestra used by Peter Maxwell Davies for his Fourth Symphony is of Classical period proportions, but this relatively compact framework belies a richness of ideas and sonorities. With its starting point in the tone poem Chat Moss, the single-movement Fifth Symphony utilizes a more varied orchestral palette than its predecessor, with a large percussion section often in evidence. Both works are performed here by the orchestras for which they were written. The First Symphony can be heard on 8572348, the Second Symphony on 8572349, and the Third Symphony on 8572350.

'No figure in British contemporary music is more respected than Oliver Knussen' The Guardian

This release on the NMC mid-price re-issue label Ancora was previously issued on Unicorn-Kanchana Records.

Composer/conductor Oliver Knussen celebrates his 60th birthday this year.

Knussen's Ophelia Dances will be performed by BCMG at his 60th birthday concert held at the CBSO Centre (Birmingham, UK)

A new release on NMC of works by Knussen is released this autumn, featuring BCMG, Ryan Wigglesworth and soprano Claire Booth.

Knussen started composing at the age of 6 and aged 15 he stepped in to conduct his symphony's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London in 1968 after István Kertész fell ill. After that debut, Daniel Barenboim asked him to conduct the work's first two movements in New York a week later.

This is a substantial sampler of Oliver Knussen's output in the 1970s. The two major works are the luminous Second Symphony, which takes the form of a 17-minute song cycle to texts of Georg Trakl and Sylvia Plath and Symphony No. 3, a symphonic poem about Shakespeare's Ophelia.

The great Russian conductor Evgeny Svetlanov (1928-2002) was born in Moscow. He became Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Ballet (1963-1965) and the USSR Symphony Orchestra (1965-2000) and in later years held positions with the Swedish Radio Symphony

Orchestra and Het Residentie in the Netherlands. He was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO in 1979. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1975.

These live recordings are issued for the first time on CD.

The performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.1 in April 2002 with the BBCSO was the last concert he gave in London before his death two months later. Svetlanov’s studio-made Tchaikovsky recordings with the USSR Symphony Orchestra for Melodiya in the 1960s were the cornerstones of the catalogue at the time and he brings an unqualified authority to the Barbican concert recorded here.

Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet (1945) was a comparative rarity for Svetlanov but given his earlier position with the Bolshoi, he had a unique understanding of ballet conducting. It is a superbly detailed and imaginative account with the Philharmonia on tremendous form.

The digital sound recorded in the Barbican for both performances is totally natural and warm.

Opera Rara continues to explore the fascinating figure of Saverio Mercadante with this world premiere recording of substantial highlights from I Normanni a Parigi, written for Turin in 1832. With Rossini in retirement, Mercadante was then in competition with Bellini and Donizetti for the crown of Italian opera. As this work demonstrates, he was easily in the running. Mercadante expert Michael Rose describes it as ‘one of the highlights of this period’, scoring ‘a triumph’ at its premiere before circulating widely. The libretto (by Felice Romani, the finest practitioner of the art in his day) is set in Paris, following the death of the mighty King Charlemagne, with the city threatened and eventually besieged by Norman invaders. The complex plot centres on Charlemagne’s widow, Berta (sung by Judith Howarth), who was previously secretly married to Ordamante (Riccardo Novaro) in a relationship that produced her equally secret son, Osvino (Katarina Karnéus), now guarded by the loyal Odone (Barry Banks). When Ordamante leads the Normans against the Carolingian forces, father and son are pitted against each other, though the latter initially knows nothing of their relationship. The scene is set for personal and political drama of the highest order in this gripping drama from the heart of the bel canto repertoire.

This is the seventh opera in the Essential Opera Rara series and, once again, a vivid impression of the work is captured on a single disc, accompanied by a complete libretto and article by the eminent 19th century musical scholar, Jeremy Commons.

Renee Fleming’s remarkable vocal technique is ideally suited to the role of Rosmonda, who battles with Eleanor of Aquitaine, (Nelly Miricioiu) for the love of Henry II (Bruce Ford). Donizetti reserves some deliciously florid vocal writing for Rosmonda, allowing Fleming to display the luscious tone for which she is so admired. This disc contains all of Rosmondas music, with her big Act 2 aria as the final item. Don’t miss Donizetti’s powerfully tragic duet for two sopranos, playing one diva off against the other.

As part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, Opera Rara proudly presents this re-release of highlights from the first complete opera recording ever made by world-famous soprano and Opera Rara Patron, Renée Fleming.

One of Opera Rara’s historical strengths has been its enthusiasm to discover, nurture and promote bright young singers. One of the beautiful lyric soprano voices the late Patric Schmid took under his wing belonged to American singer, Renée Fleming, who went on to become one of the most celebrated sopranos of our time. And also one of the best-selling!

Rosmonda d’Inghilterra was a work of Donizetti’s artistic maturity, produced in between Lucrezia Borgia (Milan, 1833) and Maria Stuarda (intended for Naples in 1834, but in fact premiered in Milan in 1835), with a libretto by Felice Romani, the leading practitioner of the genre in Italy at that time.

Despite the opera’s rarity, its qualities as a work remain exceptional. The plot is derived from English history (suitably fictionalised) and centres on the bitter hatred of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II, for his mistress Rosamond Clifford, whom she eventually murders. Donizetti was able to depict the heightened emotions of the characters with particular vividness.

In order to present these highlights to the best possible musical effect, Patric Schmid re-ordered them slightly from their appearance in the context of the opera.

Featuring the superb cast of the original recording (including Bruce Ford, Nelly Miricioiu, Alastair Miles and Diana Montague), the disc has undergone a stunning makeover and is sure to attract the attention of opera and Fleming fans alike.

This was the first complete recording of Prokofiev’s Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, now released on Chandos Classics.

‘It is good to have so sharply original and refreshingly dramatic a piece complete on disc at last, and occasional disc that rises far above its first inspiration. As a valuable fill-up comes a suite of excerpts from the folk-tale ballet of 1948, The Stone Flower.’ 3 stars, Penguin Guide