Johannes Brahms

A 5 CD collection of world renowned violinist Hilary Hahn’s greatest recordings.

One of the most celebrated violinists of her generation, Hilary Hahn released her debut album at the tender age of 17 to great critical acclaim. Still only 28 years old, it is hard to believe the accolades she has already received, which include a Grammy Award and several nominations, and the large number of albums she has recorded.

This collection brings together her first five albums, which were made for Sony Classical, each in its original format with full liner notes and information.

This exciting release marks the first solo recital disc in some years by the world’s most celebrated violist Yuri Bashmet, and features high quality arrangements mostly not recorded before.

Reminiscences is a highly personal disc of Bashmet favourites and encores played over 30 years with his long-time piano partner Mikhail Muntian (who premiered Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata).

Marais’ haunting music for viol suits the viola well and forms the backbone of the recital, just as it did for his Carnegie Hall debut. Bashmet played Benda’s Grave at the Beslan Memorial concert with Gergiev in 2005, and the other beautiful arrangements (some by Bashmet’s teacher, the legendary Vadim Borisovsky) throw a new light on many old favourites.

Bashmet’s collaboration with ONYX has been highly successful - their first two discs of Russian string works (ONYX4007/ONYX4017) gained a Grammy Nomination and Award respectively. Their most recent disc of Tan Dun and Takemitsu featuring Bashmet as violinist, violist and conductor is getting equally great reviews (ONYX4027)

Macomber and Han perform these venerable masterpieces with an objective approach that differs from many 'sentimental' readings. The performances are uncommonly committed and beautifully played. Curtis Macomber is probably best-known, at least on recordings, for his advocacy of contemporary works. However, he is among the most versatile soloists / chamber musicians, equally at home in repertoire from Baroque and Classical periods as well as modern day.

From modest beginnings in eighteenth-century Italy, the symphony soon developed into the highest form of western instrumental music at the hands of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The symphony became a big, public form that used the community of the orchestra to address the community of the audience. After two and a half centuries of the most varied masterpieces, the symphony still remains an ideal means for the individual voice to convey a world of ideas and feelings to a wide audience. Discover the Symphony, comprising two CDs and a 100-page booklet, traces the colourful and exciting story of a musical form that has expressed the most intimate emotions of the greatest composers and at the same time reflected the fascinating and often turbulent state of the world in which they lived.

The concert of 26 September 1971 was never intended to be Klemperer’s farewell to ‘live’ musicmaking. In his 87th year this conductor was keen to remain an active music maker. He had just overridden EMI’s choice of Fiordiligi in his new Così fan tutte recording (he wanted, and got, Margaret Price), approved Lorin Maazel as guest conductor of the New Philharmonia, and was keen to be present at player auditions. For 1971/72 he planned his first-ever performances of Mahler’s Eighth and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and told EMI that he wished to record the Verdi Requiem, Weber’s Euryanthe, Sibelius’s Fourth and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. After a deal of negotiation (and some intrigue with Deutsche Grammophon) sessions for Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Mozart’s Serenata Notturna, Brahms’s St Antony Variations and a complete Mozart Entführung aus dem Serail were agreed. And yet, according to Otto Freudenthal, the Swedish-born pianist and composer who assisted closely in (and played for some of) Klemperer’s musical activities, “he was not interested in recordings; he had no feeling for that at all. Recording sessions were just rehearsals for concerts”. 1971 proved a busy year. Così was recorded and performed. Klemperer began learning Hebrew, advised Rafael Kubelík not to become music director of the Metropolitan Opera (he did, but only for 6 months), conducted Mahler in London (the Resurrection Symphony for the 60th anniversary of the composer’s death) and Bach and Mozart in Jerusalem, and (according to Freudenthal) was “always working on the score of his opera Das Ziel”. (Plans to record it were eventually shelved at Klemperer’s own request). In September he came to London and recorded Haydn’s Oxford Symphony – he had never performed the work ‘live’ and was nervous, but sessions went smoothly – and Mozart’s K.375 Serenade. An ensemble of young players from the New Philharmonia performed his String Quartet No.7.

From the booklet Mike Ashman, 2008