Up to 30% off Brilliant Classics

Bartók showed little interest in opera, until the libretto for Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Balázs arrived on his desk. Something about the character of Bluebeard, and his intense loneliness, appealed to him. When Bartók completed the work in 1911 it was banned by the Hungarian Commision of Fine Arts. It wasn’t until 1918 that the Italian conductor Egisto Tango disinterred the score and realised its worth. The work was then performed in Berlin in German, and in Hungarian in Florence. Kodály described the work as the ‘Hungarian Pelléas’, and the dual between Romantic and impressionistic influences certainly links the two works.

Berg’s Wozzeck was premiered in 1925 conducted by Erich Kleiber, then banned by the Nazis as decadent in the 1930s. Since then though it has become recognised as one of the masterpieces of 20th-century opera. Structured as a normal opera, but without arias and recitatives, the second act is in effect a fourmovement symphony. The opera also has significant symphonic interludes. Berg made a concert suite from material from the opera in 1924, and it met with instant success.

85 CD + CD Rom.

The only complete Beethoven Edition in the market.

Contains some important alterations as compared to the former Edition: Symphonies are played by the superb Staatskapelle Dresden/Herbert Blomstedt and Piano Sonatas by Alfred Brendel.

Big names: Arthur Grumiaux/Clara Haskil, Friedrich Gulda, Guarneri Quartet, Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink, Wiener Philharmoniker, Heinrich Schiff and many more.

Free CD-Rom contains bookletnotes, sung texts and biography in English, Italian and Spanish. Award winning set: Diapason d”Or in France.

Packed with intrigue, jealousy and revenge, Beatrice di Tenda is a tragic opera in two acts that retells the final months of one of Renaissance history's most fascinating and ill-fated characters. The work was written after ‘Norma’ and before ‘I puritani’, and therefore stands as Bellini's penultimate opera, a bel canto composition of transitional flavour that drew on 15th-century accounts and more recent studies of the Visconti era for its subject matter. Beatrice di Tenda, widow of Facino Cane and a high-minded but powerconscious woman of mature years, is married to the young Filippo Maria Visconti, whose station has been considerably improved by Beatrice's dowry of property and armies. Instead of feeling grateful towards his wife, however, Filippo is tired of the much older Beatrice, and decides to take Agnese del Maino - one of her ladies-inwaiting - as his mistress. But Agnese is in love with a nobleman called Orombello, who himself is enamoured of Beatrice. Gradually becoming more suspecting of his wife's innocent relationship with the signore of Ventimiglia, and increasingly incensed by the rebellion of Facino's one-time followers who resent their new ruler, Filippo finally decides to rid himself of Beatrice by accusing her of adultery and conspiracy.

Subjected to torture along with Orombello, Beatrice was tried and eventually beheaded in 1418. First performed on 16 March 1833, ‘Beatrice di Tenda’, evidently more reserved in terms of musical resources when compared to the vocal pyrotechnics of its predecessor, was only half-heartedly received by the public, its number of performances gradually diminishing thereafter. In recent years, however, the work has undergone a resurgence in popularity, thanks largely to the American Opera Society's revival of the opera in 1961 (which featured Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne among others). This acclaimed recording is based on a production of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which presented Beatrice di Tenda in a series of concert performances in 1992.

Béatrice et Bénédict was borne of Berlioz’s lifelong fascination with Shakespeare. A performance by the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet reportedly inspired him to commence work on his own Roméo et Juliette, a large-scale dramatic symphony. He had fallen headlong in love with her after seeing her as Ophelia in 1827 and later wrote, ‘I came out of Hamlet shaken to the core.’He also contemplated setting Antony and Cleopatra to music, but it was not until many years later (1860) that he settled on Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. Although had considered the idea of an opera on this play as early as 1833, it turned out to be his final opera. Berlioz produced his own libretto – a much revised version of the story, with several of the original characters absent. It nonetheless remains faithful to Shakespeare’s play. Berlioz claimed he wrote this opera to relax after the stress of completing the vast Les Troyens – and said it was ‘a caprice written with the point of a needle’. Indeed, it is scored lightly, and has a warm and gentle wit to it, ideally suited to the subject.

‘Minton’s beautiful voice and her warm understanding of Berlioz’s style are again evident … Daniel Barenboim conducts with enthusiasm.’ Gramophone

A superb reissue, formerly issued on the prestigious Denon label, of the “dramatic legend” La Damnation de Faust, written (both music and libretto) by Hector Berlioz, after the famous “Faust” of Goethe. Recorded in the late eighties of the last century, when the great Israeli conductor Eliahu Inbal spent a remarkably successful and fruitful period in Frankfurt with its orchestra, resulting in several impressive symphonic cycles, notably the legendary complete Mahler Symphonies.Apart from the great artistic value of these recordings, the special one-point recording technique used by the Denon engineers is still a marvel of natural recorded sound. Wonderful soloists: Maria Ewing, Denes Gulyás, Robert Lloyd and the young Christiane Oelze. Territory: Europe only. Although little appreciated in his native France for many years, Hector Berlioz now safely resides among the giants of the 19th century’s musical scene. The composer’s vocal output is extensive and includes several operatic works; written during 1845–46, La Damnation de Faust forms the subject of this engaging 2CD release.

The work grew out of Berlioz’s encounter with Goethe, one of the great influences – together with Shakespeare – on the composer’s creativity. A hybrid composition which employs just four principal singers and a chorus, as befits a ‘concert’ setting, La Damnation de Faust is too theatrical to work in this guise – and, alas, too impractical to be staged successfully. Nevertheless it remains an intensely dramatic piece: listen out for the violent orchestral outpourings of the Hungarian March as well as the ‘Ride to Hell’, which leads to a terrible vision of Pandemonium. Residing among the composer’s most intense and thrilling music, the work features many ballet episodes and includes Marguerite’s song – one of the greatest French operatic scenes. ‘Inbal has a fine ear for Berlioz's orchestration, matched by sensitive recording, so that time and again details spring into dramatic life…a distinctive and intelligent performance… No lover of the work should miss hearing it.’ Gramophone, July 1991

Parisian composer Georges Bizet was enrolled in the Consevatoire at the age of nine and won a premier prix in solfège within six months of his arrival. He later received prizes for his skill as a pianist, gaining particular renown for his sight‐reading, and won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1857. At this time, opera theatres in Paris were reluctant to stage new works rather than the established classics, meaning that Bizet’s operas did not achieve much success during his lifetime, despite the fact that today two of his operas are considered among the best ever written.

The premiere of Les Pêcheurs de Perles took place in 1863 and the opera was brought back to Paris in 1889 at the Exposition Universelle of that year. The story, set in Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka), centres on the love between the priestess Léïla and the fisherman Nadir, who is envied by his fellow fisherman and friend Zurga.

The idea of the ‘exotic’ is a prominent feature of the opera and can be heard in the unusual instruments of the percussion section, the dance rhythms, and the use of the harp. The qualities of the ‘exotic’ evoked here are more similar to those of the Mediterranean than of Ceylon, although it is known from Bizet’s letters that his original inspiration for the setting was Mexico. The opera contains the famous friendship duet, ‘Au fond du temple saint’, known as the Pearl Fishers’ Duet.

The recording features Desirée Rancatore and Celso Albelo in the roles of Léila and Nadir. Rancatore, a leading interpreter of the light, lyrical roles in Italian opera, debuted as Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival at just 19 years old. She has since won critical acclaim for her performances as Adina (L’elisir d’amour), Gilda (Rigoletto) and the Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute), all of which she has sung worldwide.

Tenor Celso Albelo has performed all over the world in operas such as Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammemoor and Falstaff, and was awarded the Opera National Prize (Spain) for Best Newcomer in 2008 for his performance in I Puritani.

Boris Blacher’s oratorio, Der Großinquisitor, was only half finished in 1943. Having found himself in truly dire straits – forced to withdraw from musical life thanks to his inclusion on the Nazi register of Jews in music, and hit by a particularly nasty relapse of tuberculosis – it took the friendship and hospitality of his pupil, Gottfried von Einem, to help him regain his health and confidence, and finish the oratorio.

The text is based on Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, illustrating Jesus’s return to earth in 16th‐century Seville. The depiction of the heretics burned to the glory of God could not be a clearer reflection of the fate of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Distinct from the other works in Blacher’s oeuvre thanks to its seriousness and tonal harmony, Der Großinquisitor also contains elements that are typical of the composer’s style, such as terse rhythms and seemingly aimless melodic lines.

The role of the Inquisitor is sung by German bass‐baritone, Siegmund Nimsgern, who has enjoyed an international career as an opera singer, performing with the Royal Opera (London), Metropolitan Opera (New York) and the Vienna State Opera, among others. Alongside him is the Rundfunkchor Leipzig and Dresdner Philharmonie, conducted by Herbert Kegel.

Recorded in May 1986 at the Lukaskirche in Dresden.

Contains liner notes on the work.

Sung texts includes in booklet.

The only serious Borodin Collection in the market.

Borodin, a member of the “Mighty Handful” (a group of Russian composers with the same creative goals), was a scientist by profession (chemistry), and composed in his spare time. No “amateurish” quality however can be traced in his (relatively small) oeuvre, which abounds in sophisticated, romantic harmonies and melodies, a firm feeling for structure, and a keen sense for “couleur locale”, without too overtly references to Russian folklore.

The set (near complete) presents the 3 symphonies, the complete chamber music, songs, the complete piano music and the famous opera Prince Igor.

Mostly Russian performers: the Moscow Trio, soprano Marianna Tarassova and the great Nikolai Ghiaurov in Prince Igor.

Alexander Porfireyevich Borodin was the illegitimate son of a prince and his mistress, educated at home in St Petersburg by his mother. Although music was an early passion, he discovered his avocation once he matriculated at the city's Medical Surgical Academy. A chemist he became, and a good one, though not without his extracurricular enthusiasms: the head of department once admonished him thus, mid lecture: 'Mr Borodin, busy yourself a little less with songs.

We have left to us a small, eccentrically proportioned body of work which acknowledges the learnt influence of Wagner and Chopin in their respective fields while nonetheless cultivating a personal and nationally inflected voice that was principally nurtured by his fellow member of 'The Mighty Handful', Mily Balakirev.

That voice was first cultivated in abstract orchestral works, which met with mixed acclaim, but the Second Symphony is one of the most popular Russian works of its kind; perhaps less well known these days than half a century ago, but full of Borodin's trademark, lyrical melodies, bending towards a wistfulness and melancholy that never threatens to break into outright hysteria unlike the work of his contemporary Tchaikovsky.

Songs and chamber music are barely known outside his home country, but they are worth discovering, as this unique edition will quickly reveal. And then there's his sprawling, unfinished masterpiece: Prince Igor, work of almost two decades, completed and partly orchestrated by RimskyKorsakov and Glazunov, the brainchild of the Mighty Handful's christener, Vladimir Stasov. This chronicle of a bloody but exuberant period in Russian history makes the most of Borodin's fascination with Russia's outposts, in music of 'oriental' flavour that survives in popular recognition through the bounding energy of the Polovtsian Dances.

The composition of Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor – based on the Song of Igor, a 12th‐century Russian epic – got off to a slow start, with the composer’s career as an organic chemist preventing him from making much progress.

Eventually his friends tricked him into composing certain parts of the work by inserting these numbers into a concert programme; later still, another friend, the celebrated Nikolai Rimsky‐Korsakov, suggested making the opera a joint venture, putting himself at Borodin’s disposal as a musical secretary as well as orchestrating and composing several extracts. Yet the opera remained incomplete at Borodin’s death in 1887, and it was left to Rimsky‐Korsakov and the young Alexander Glazunov to construct and finalise the work, premiering it in St Petersburg in 1890 to rave reviews. Central to the opera is the way in which the Russians are distinguished from the Polovtsians through melodic characterisation: while Borodin uses features of Russian folk music to represent his compatriots, chromaticism, melismas and appoggiaturas – among other techniques – represent their ‘heathen’ opponents. These methods were already established ways of portraying Orientalism in Russian music, with the opera intended, in part, to be an homage to Mikhail Glinka, ‘the father of Russian music’.

The Sofia National Opera Chorus has garnered acclaim the world over, and here it is accompanied by the Sofia Festival Orchestra, which has performed throughout Europe as well as further afield with distinguished soloists such as Nicolai Gedda and Mirella Freni, to name but a few. The recording also boasts a wealth of celebrated vocalists, including Boris Martinovich and Stefka Evstatieva.

Recorded in 1975/6.

‘It is, in fact, the polish of the ensemble work that is so striking in the present recording: the cast – in which there is not a weak member – sounds as if it had been used to working together for ages rather than assembled for the occasion, and the sheer lightness and clean balance of the ensemble singing, with no individual part ever protruding unduly, are most attractive features. Taken in conjunction with the neat, spring-heeled orchestral playing apparent right from the Overture, this represents a distinct feather in Barenboim’s cap.’ Gramophone, 1977

The Secret Marriage has become the only one of Domenico Cimaroso’s operas to hold the stage,and its survival is well deserved. Based on a play The Clandestine Marriage by David Garrick and George Coleman the Elder, it met with huge success staying in St Petersburg for a few years, and on his way back to Naples stopped in Vienna for a lengthy stay. Emperor Leopold II offered him lodgings and a salary, and very possibly asked him to write a new opera. The premiere took place on 7 February 1792, the very day that Leopold had signed a treaty with Prussia to oppose the French revolutionary government. Leopold was in the theatre, and after the thunderous reception had died down, the Emperor asked all the performers to join him for dinner, after which he commanded a repeat performance – a unique occurrence in the history of opera.