Samuel Barber

39 CD-box with recordings of Bruno Walter’s later years in a high quality LP-sized box.

32 page LP-sized booklet with elaborate liner notes in German and English.

This box set contains the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms, the later symphonies of Mozart, symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner, CDs with rehearsals and many more.

The German born conductor Bruno Walter (1876-1962) was known primarily for his interpretations of the Viennese school. Though out of step with 20th century trends he was such a fine musician that he became a major figure - filling the wide gulf between the extremes of his day - Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

He was an associate of Gustav Mahler and a long and faithful proponent and interpreter of Mahler's music.

He conducted the world premieres of “Das Lied von der Erde” (1911) and the “Symphony No. 9” (1912).

In 1925, he helped institute the Salzburg Festival and was named musical director of the Berlin Staatsoper. In 1929, Walter had a falling out with the Berlin opera management and departed to succeed Wilhelm Furtwängler at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

In 1933 he left Germany when the Nazis came to power and went to Austria and from there in 1938 to France. Walter finally left Europe in 1939 and settled in the United States where he already had a strong following. He built up a reputation as a respected conductor under whom musicians enjoyed working. Amongst other orchestras, he frequently conducted the New York Philharmonic.

In 1957 a West Coast recording ensemble named Columbia Symphony Orchestra was specially put together for Walter to produce new recordings of famous works by Bruckner and Mahler in stereo.

28CD & 1DVD (NTSC Region 0)

Released on the RCA Red Seal label, this stunning budget-priced boxset brings together for the first time all the live & studio recordings of legendary pianist Harvey Lavan ‘Van’ Cliburn - from his 1958 debut recordings of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninov’s No. 3 to his personal selections of favourite Chopin, Brahms & Debussy pieces, the popular album of Favourite Encores to his last recording for RCA with Brahms pieces, released in 1977. Also contains a CD with selections from his performances in Moscow in 1972, as well as the DVD “Van Cliburn, Concert Pianist”, a film by Peter Rosen.

Cellist Christian Poltéra turns to the music of Samuel Barber. He is joined by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton and pianist Kathryn Stott.

Poltéra opens his programme with the Cello Concerto – one of only three concertos by Barber – which balances the natural lyric expressiveness of his earlier music with a more urgent, rhythmic and intense style.

Poltéra and regular chamber-music partner Stott then perform the Sonata for Cello and Piano, composed while Barber was still a student.

The disc closes with the enormously popular Adagio for strings.

On previous discs, Christian Poltéra has combined concertos with chamber works by composers such as Frank Martin (BISCD1637) and Arthur Honegger (BISCD1617).

Dutch cellist Quirine Viersen has recorded many discs for Etcetera, and she is joined here by her regular partner, pianist Silke Avenhaus in this disc of works by Weill, Pfitzner and Barber.

Some say love's a little boy,

And some say it's a bird,

Some say it makes the world go around,

Some say that's absurd…

W.H. AUDEN

Charting the course of a love affair – in song – through the eyes of a young woman who begins by asking the universal question, Tell me the truth about love presents a programme of 19th and 20th century song.

The album takes its title from Benjamin Britten’s 1938 seductive setting of W.H. Auden’s amusing poem and tries to pin down and define the most elusive of human emotions.

The story takes us from love at first sight with Schumann’s Seit ich ihn gesehen, breathless with wonder and fervent reverance and Chausson’s Le charme which describes the quiver of excitement and the tender veneration the girl feels when the boy’s smile catches her unawares to Loewe’s Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht gluben to describe the lovers first encounter.

As the love story unfolds and the couple become closer, it is illustrated with music such as Strauss’s Nachtgang, Rachmaninov’s Midsummer nights and Bridge’s Adoration. However the magic is soon broken and Sunday brings deception and betrayal. The girl finds out that the young man does not love her and she bitterly awakes from her dream. The feeling of love lost is brought to life through Brahm’s Am Sonntag Morgen, Schubert’s Du liebst mich nicht and Kurt Weill’s Je ne t’aime pas.

As a postlude, Britten’s arrangement of Early one morning perfectly sums up the story of the young girl and the final message of ‘how could you use a poor maiden so?’ lingers in the ear.

Amanda Roocroft has secured an international reputation as one of Britain’s most exciting singers, in opera, concert and recital and Joseph Middleton enjoys a busy and varied career as a chamber musician and song accompanist.

Samuel Barber’s lyrical melodies and unabashed romanticism have earned him a cherished place in the pantheon of 20th-century composers. Recorded here are some of Barber’s finest works for choir (including the beloved 'Agnus Dei') alongside 2 world premières: a new version for chamber chorus and orchestra of Barber’s anguished work 'The Lovers' on poetry by Pablo Neruda, and a new version of 'Easter Chorale', which were both made by Robert Kyr for Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare.

From its 1991 origins as a summer classical music festival in Austin, Texas, Conspirare has evolved into an internationally recognised, professional choral organisation known for outstanding vocal artistry and innovative programming. Led by founder and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson, Conspirare comprises a professional chamber choir, a highly skilled volunteer Symphonic Choir, and an outstanding youth choir.

Conspirare’s critically acclaimed releases on the harmonia mundi label have earned copious praise. 'Threshold of Night' (2008) in particular, featured music by Tarik O’Regan and was nominated for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album at the Grammys.

Bringing together the finest collections from the American Classics range this beautifully-packaged boxed set appeals to any collector and offers a comprehensive overview of classical music composition in the US. This boxset takes the most successful titles from the American Classics range and brings them together in a comprehensive overview of classical music, broadway and jazz in the United States.

84 CDs + 1 DVD

Arturo Toscanini was the most celebrated conductor of his time, considered by many to be the greatest conductor of the twentieth century. He revolutionized musical interpretation by frequently insisting that his orchestras play the music exactly as written, a highly unusual practice in the nineteenth century, when Toscanini began his career. He conducted the world premieres of such operas as Puccini's "La Boheme" and "Turandot", and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci".

This set offers a reissue of RCA’s 1992 compendium that encompassed all the recordings that Toscanini made with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and NBC Symphony Orchestra. It also features 2 CDs of previously unreleased recordings with the BBC Symphony from the 1930s that were not included in the 1992 edition. From the Maestro’s acoustic recordings of 1920-21 with La Scala orchestra to his 1954 retirement, this collection spans all the years in which Toscanini’s career veered away from the opera house as it moved (after his 1937 Salzburg Festival appearances) exclusively to the concert hall.

As with his NBC broadcasts and recordings, these BBC and Philadelphia accounts disprove the specious notion that Toscanini’s interpretation was always the same from one performance of a given work to the next. The BBC recordings have special value for occurring in Queen’s Hall, acoustically London’s finest concert venue, which was sadly destroyed in World War II bombings. Particularly interesting are three NBC performances of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, two from broadcasts (October 28, 1939 and December 6, 1953, the third from a 1949 Carnegie Hall recording session). As heard in a 78-rpm RCA set, the 1939 performance was a sonic disaster in its dry, cramped, dynamically limited acoustic. As experienced here in a transfer made from NBC reference discs, it suggests a clean, vivid LP from the mid 1950’s. With each performance being somewhat different from the other, they serve as a reminder of how Toscanini was invariably rethinking his approach to a particular work.

The complete recordings made for RCA by Arturo Toscanini reissued in a beautiful new 84 CD + DVD box set, with extra previously unissued bonus materials added.

All recordings appear in latest re-mastered versions.

Includes 2 CDs of newly released recordings, originally made for HMV with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Hardcover book with liner notes by Toscanini biographers Mortimer F. Frank and Michael Stegemann and complete RCA discography.

Bonus DVD “The Maestro”.

84 CDs + 1 DVD in double walled cardboard sleeves in lift off cap box, hardcover book with 2 essays & RCA discography.