Claude Achille Debussy

The saxophone has a strange ‘semi-detached’ relationship with the symphony orchestra, and is widely considered to be more at home in a jazz setting. However, many composers have been seduced by the sound and wide range of colours and sonorities the instrument produces. From Glazunov’s concerto to presentday composers, the repertoire has grown to include some fascinating works.

This CD ‘Légende’ gathers together French works with a very Mediterranean feel.

The sultry sound of the saxophone is used to tremendous effect in Schmitt’s exotic Légende. Tomasi’s imposing concerto and the vibrant Tableaux de Provence by Paule Maurice will be discoveries for most listeners, and welcome ones as well.

Theodore Kerkezos is one of the leading saxophonists of his generation, and a champion of modern music. He is also active in preserving and bringing to a wider audience the repertoire for his instrument – much of which is little known.

This CD is a fascinating programme of unusual repertoire, and the highly evocative music conjures vivid images of the south of France.

"The great thing about Beecham’s conducting of such pieces as the dances from Samson and Delilah is that he enjoyed himself so enormously and, of course, he had an unbounded ability to make his players enjoy themselves too. Beecham’s genius for dealing with music of this sort is greatly in evidence in this collection and the record provides the most delightful relaxation." Gramophone Magazine

EMI MASTERS celebrates the full glory of the greatest performances from the world's greatest catalogue of recorded music. Digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios direct from the original master tapes, these classic recordings emerge with unparalleled immediacy. You will be left in no doubt that you are in the presence of legendary musicians and ageless interpretations.

The long-awaited new disc from the 12 Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker takes us on a journey of discovery through the musical landscape of France. In music spanning the best part of a century and covering several genres, the all-cello ensemble sings its way into our hearts, leaving us with “an inimitably French scent of nostalgia.”

“We have long wanted to make a CD purely of French music,” the 12 Cellists write in an introductory note: “France produced many of the greatest cellists, including Pierre Fournier, Maurice Gendron and Paul Tortelier. In fact, the ensemble came into being some 35 years ago, when Jean Français wrote his Aubade especially for the 12 Cellists. When we were looking for music for our new CD, we found lots of pieces that - even if they hadn’t been originally written for our instrumental combination - were wonderfully suited to the sound of 12 cellos.”

The central work on this recording is Poulenc’s most original choral score La figure humaine, composed in 1943 for two unaccompanied choirs of six voices each. Although rarely heard in the original setting, La figure humaine, based on eight poems by Paul Éluard, is perfectly suited to performance by The 12 Cellists. Over a span of nearly 20 minutes, it brings to mind, in turn, plainchant, organ textures, a Baroque dance, bits of popular melodies and resemblances to the work of Debussy and Ravel. The final poem is Liberté, which was dropped over German-occupied France during the War by the RAF and which has been described as a hymn to freedom from German-occupied France.

Other album tracks include arrangements of Fauré’s Pavane, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, Debussy’s Clair de lune and Satie’s Gymnopédies Nos. 1 & 2. From the sphere of popular song come Edit Piaf’s signature tune La vie en rose, two Michel Legrand numbers, The summer knows and Une femme est une femme and Fleur de Paris by Henri Bourtayre, made famous by Maurice Chevalier. Sous les ponts de Paris by the prolific Marseille composer Vincent Scotto evokes a stroll along the Seine while Hubert Giraud’s Sous le ciel de Paris is a familiar melody to many of us, even if we don’t know where we know it from.

The 12 Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker, an orchestra within an orchestra, was formed in 1974 during the tenure of Herbert von Karajan. The ensemble counts as its godfathers Pablo Casals and Julius Klengel, a performance of whose Hymn for Twelve Cellos was their original raison d'être. In the intervening years, they have augmented their repertoire through commissions and arrangements in a wide variety of styles performed with guest artists on trumpet, clarinet, percussion, harp, double bass and more, drawn from different musical disciplines. Popular performers in concert halls around the world, the 12 Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker undertake regular tours both in tandem with the Orchestra and on their own. In the coming months, they will perform in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands and on a tour of Asia.

This is the 12 Cellists’ fifth recording for EMI Classics. Their previous releases were Angel Voices, music with sacred roots composed between the 16th and 21st centuries, As Time Goes By, mostly arrangements of film music, Round Midnight, a programme of classic Broadway songs, film themes, spirituals and jazz, and South American Getaway, featuring Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasilieras Nos. 1 & 5 and tangos by Astor Piazzolla, among others.

Antje Weithaas, Daniel Sepec, Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras founded the Arcanto Quartet in 2002. The four musicians, who in addition to their musical affinities share a close personal friendship, quickly conquered the world of chamber music and have played all the major European venues. The 2009/10 season started with a tour of Japan in September, followed by a residency at the Wigmore Hall, where the quartet invited Jörg Widmann, Silke Avenhaus and Olivier Marron for several concerts. This autumn, the Arcantos will visit North America. For their third CD for harmonia mundi they perform three French String Quartets, all by composers who wrote little chamber music. Debussy and Ravel composed their only string quartet at the start of their careers, whereas Dutilleux wrote Ainsi la nuit shortly before his 60th birthday. Debussy’s quartet, dedicated to the Ysaÿe Quartet, is his only work to possess an opus number. Written in 1892-3, it comprises the standard four movements and adopts sonata form in the two outer movements. The String Quartet of Ravel was composed in 1902-03 and premiered by the Heyman Quartet on 5 March 1904. It possesses undeniable signs of kinship with the Debussy work: it conforms to the cyclic principle, and begins and ends with a sonata form movement; its scherzo is similarly characterised by crackling pizzicatos which stylise the sound of the guitar and give the movement a Spanish colour; as with Debussy, the strings play with mutes in the first and last sections of the slow movement. The works of Dutilleux are rare and matured at length. Commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation, Ainsi la nuit occupied the composer from 1971 to 1976. Dedicated ‘to the memory of Ernest Sussman [an American art-lover and friend of the composer] and in homage to Olga Koussevitzky’, it was premièred by the Parrenin Quartet at the Théâtre de l’Est Parisien on 6 January 1977.

Pierre Fournier was born in Paris on 24 June in 1906 the son of a French army general. He was known for his lyrical playing and his impeccable artistic sensitivity and this, during his lifetime, earned him the title 'the aristocrat of cellists'.

Fournier was first taught piano by his mother but at the age of nine he suffered a mild case of polio and lost some of the agility in his legs and feet. He was no longer able to master the use of the piano pedals and so turned to the cello.

At the age of 17 he graduated from the Conservatoire in Paris and was hailed as 'the cellist of the future', winning praise for his virtuosity and bowing technique. During the 1920s he played in the Krettly String Quartet and joined the Concerts Colonne Orchestra. His growing fame brought him into contact with all the great musicians of the time and he started recording with many of them.

Fournier's catalogue of EMI recordings is not extensive but, as illustrated by this 7-CD set, it covers a wide range of music from Bach to Poulenc, all recorded over a period of 34 years – from 1937 to 1971.

Fournier remained an active performer almost to the end of his life. One of his last concerts was in London when he was 78. He died in 1986.

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics.

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics

Since his death in 2005, there has been growing recognition of Carlo Maria Giulini’s status in the world of conductors. Now we are bringing together his American recordings – made with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra – in two separate capboxes, starting with a 6-CD Los Angeles set.

Giulini (1914–2005) was famous for his combination of rigorous classical discipline with thrilling excitement and colour in performance. Musicians loved him: although an extremely demanding perfectionist, he was, unusually for a conductor, one of the gentlest and most patient of men. As Victor Aitay, the Chicago Symphony's concertmaster recalled: 'In five minutes he had an orchestra that loved him. His approach to music was so honest and sincere, he was so clear and so knowledgeable of the music that the whole orchestra fell for him.' He was acclaimed for the incandescent spirituality and electrifying dynamism of his music-making, and for the remarkable level of ensemble perfection and balance – producing exceptional results both in concert and in the studio.

Fairly late in his career, Giulini became Musical Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, from 1978 to 1984, and made an inspiring series of recordings with them – a “revelatory association” was Gramophone’s phrase. "The orchestra is full of young people who are hungry to make music,” he said, “They do not say, here is Beethoven once more; they really want to play and the esprit de corps is unbelievable." It was especially in this later phase that Giulini's music-making developed a warm, burnished glow that made such a deep impression on Los Angeles Philharmonic audiences.

Here, then, are the complete orchestral recordings from Los Angeles, which include many classics of the repertoire, released for the first time in a single box set.

This world famous singer was Belgian, yet only appeared at La Monnaie on the 20th anniversary of his career. After returning from exile, he took many roles and has worked with some of the greatest conductors. This CD includes works by Wagner, Strauss, Mussorgsky, Verdi, Mozart, Rossini, Debussy, Berlioz and Offenbach. These CDs contain a fragment of history.