Sir Colin Davis

A completely stellar cast: Pilar Lorengar and Richard Lewis are a well matched pair, both bringing control and heft to roles now often cast a few shades lighter, Sir Geraint Evans is his usual charming self. The surprise is Margareta Hallin as the Queen of the Night, singing her notorious arias with pin-point accuracy but without sounding like a soubrette. What happened to her? Excellent sound.

The conductor of the 1960 Glyndebourne Zauberflöte may have been Peter Gellhorn, at the time chorus master and coach at Glyndebourne, and not Colin Davis. The intended conductor was Sir Thomas Beecham who already suffering from ill-health.

Berlioz’s ‘dramatic symphony’ of 1839 (at least seven years in the making) is a further refinement, nine years after the prodigious Symphonie fantastique, of his love, bordering on obsession, for the plays of Shakespeare and the symphonies of Beethoven; both of whom he did much to promote as a reluctant but hard-working critic against the prevailing wind of a sceptical Parisian culture that was enamoured of the products of its own nation.

Somehow it’s inevitable, then, that the most startling, original and moving passages in the symphony are the central triptych of instrumental movements, ‘Roméo seul’, the Love Scene and the Queen Mab Scherzo, where Berlioz moves beyond words to evoke the pain of his tragic protagonists and the evanescent dream-fairy of the Scherzo. Here Berlioz demands the most acutely sensitive response from his performers – it’s appropriate that the whole score is dedicated to Nicolò Paganini – and here too, therefore, this recording gains particular lustre through the incomparably rich playing of the Vienna Philharmonic. Sir Colin Davis is known worldwide as the conductor who has done more than any other (and probably more than any musician in history) not only to bring Berlioz to public consciousness but to inspire respect and then love for a composer whom fellow musicians long derided. His later performances and recordings have revelled in ever more minutely nuanced detail than his pioneering efforts, and of course benefitted from the advances in recording technology that have enabled Berlioz’s remarkable orchestration to glint and startle as never before on record.

Gabriel Faure composed his requiem in 1887/8 after a period of intense personal grief. His father had died in 1885, and his mother died two years later. The early version was scored for violas, cellos, organ, harp and timpani.

A later version performed in 1888 had horns and trumpets added. A further development, he added a Libera me, and he made further additions to the orchestration in 1894. It was yet another revision in 1895 that saw the Reqiuem take the form that we know it best today – with full orchestra.

Compared to the requiems by Mozart, Cherubini, Berlioz and Verdi, Faure’s masterpiece is predominantly a serene work. That isn’t to say it is without drama, but overall the work has a humanist acknowledgement of suffering rather than an overtly Christian view. The Wagnerian harmonies are restrained by sombre colourings and ancient church modes.

The Requiem is an intensely personal utterance. Charles Koechlin said ‘thanks to the overflowing of his heart, Faure has created an aeterna requiem of serene gentleness and consoling hope’

Recording made by Philips in 1985.

Booklet notes.

As Alfred Brendel celebrates his 80th birthday on 5 January 2011, Decca is marking this momentous occasion with FOUR major catalogue releases.

He’s a legend of the piano world, revered and applauded the world over. For long an exclusive Philips Classics artist, Alfred Brendel is the recipient of the 2010 Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award. Famed for his peerless interpretations of Viennese classics, 2011 sees Brendel celebrate his 80th birthday and for it we present four iconic sets – available at budget price for the first time.

This next special release is dedicated specifically to the Birthday of Gramophone ‘Life Time Achievement’ Award- winning artist, Brendel.

Showcasing our personal favourites, Decca presents 2 classic LIVE Brendel recordings with the Brahms Piano Concerto no.1 and the Mozart Piano Concerto no. 25.

Booklet: German, English, French

Single release of the 60th anniversary-box.

Sir Colin Davis, the “quiet star” on the list of the top international conductors, assumed his position as Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in the autumn of 1983. He enriched the repertoire of the orchestra, inter alia, with works from the late British romantic era, as documented by the two recorded compositions by Sir Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” number today among the most important symphonic works ever to emerge from England. Friends and other persons in the composer’s inner circle are concealed behind the mysterious abbreviations in the titles of the individual variations, all of whom Elgar portrays in musical terms.

With its acerbic musical utterance and its experimental treatment of both harmony and sound, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 6 (completed in 1947) attests to the horrors of the recently ended war, marking, however, concurrently a phase of new beginnings and turning away from established conventions.

Sir Colin Davis left an indelible imprint for nine years long on the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”, one of the most popular works from the late romantic era in Great Britain.

The evenings of October 22 and 23, 1992 in the Dresden Semperoper brought not only performances for the Dresden audience but were at the same time the start of an extensive tour from October 25 to November 12, during which the Staatskapelle under Sir Colin Davis performed twelve concerts in Japan.

The Staatskapelle seems once more to have tapped the pulse of the Japanese audience with their interpretations and so affirmed their reputation.

These two popular concertos have for many years been coupled on LP and CD, and ever since their initial release in 1972, the performances on this CD have been consistently rated as outstanding.

This recording is one of a few to have achieved true classic status, of the stature (among concerto recordings) of Jacqueline du Pre’s Elgar Cello Concerto, and Michelangeli’s Ravel G major and Rachmaninov Fourth Piano Concertos.

The young Stephen Bishop (now known as Stephen Kovacevich) was at the height of his considerable powers, and these performances of two of the best-loved piano concertos have hardly been equalled ever since they were made almost 40 years ago.

‘Bishop’s impeccably clear playing fills the big moments with tone without allowing them to be over-rhetorical – and in fact rhetoric is less characteristic of him than fluent speech that can when necessary become assertive to the point of brilliance and does, indeed, make his third movement of the Grieg very exciting. His acute sensibility and the mellifluous playing of all orchestral solo passages show us Grieg the nature-poet. And this feeling for mood, for the undertones of reverie, gives the essence of Schumann as Romantic, and in both concertos conductor and soloist are in perfect rapport – and the recording engineers have missed nothing.’ Gramophone, March 1972

New booklet notes

Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces of 1913–15 rank along side Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Rite of Spring as one of the most remarkable and explosive large-scale orchestral works of the early 20th century. The sound world, although Mahler-esque in places, is Berg’s unique voice: highly chromatic, dark, brooding, wistfully melancholic, often romantic. Schoenberg, his teacher, advised the young Berg not to try to emulate his fellow pupil Anton Webern in working in ultra-condensed forms. Schoenberg recognised Berg’s natural gift for melody and colour, and that these required a broad canvas and full orchestra to be effective.

The Violin Concerto from 20 years later was composed when Berg was financially crippled as the Nazi party had condemned his opera Wozzeck as ‘degenerate’, and the royalty income had dried up. He was working on his second opera Lulu when news reached him that Manon, the teenage daughter of Mahler’s widow Alma and Walter Gropius, close friends of Berg, had died after a long and painful illness. The concerto is one of the most personal and emotional utterances by any composer. It has also come to light that Berg makes reference to Mizzi, a 17-year-old housemaid with whom he had a passionate affair and a daughter. The work was premiered in 1935, and in December of that year Berg died of septicaemia, leaving Lulu unfinished.

Recording made in 1983/4

‘Kremer gives a beautifully tender account of the first movement of the Concerto, aided by a markedly slower opening tempo than usual and by a really hushed pianissimo at the outset. The result is that the change of mood and tempo when the music moves from andante to allegretto are immediately perceptible: the allegretto has not been pre-empted by earlier accelerations, as can easily happen.’ Gramophone, July 1985

New booklet notes

Full track-list and synopsis in English, German and French