Antonin Dvorak

Dvořák’s Stabat Mater was a work brought about by personal tragedy of almost incomprehensible proportions, after the composer lost all three of his then living children. A setting of the mediaeval Latin prayer to the bereaved mother of the crucified Christ, it was to become both a work of mourning and a work of healing. The shifts of mood from grief and near despair to hope and faith run throughout the work, before the glory and solace of the final Amen. Neeme Järvi conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir in this live concert recording.

The head of a musical dynasty, Neeme Järvi is one of today’s most respected maestros. He conducts many of the world’s most prominent orchestras and works alongside soloists of the highest calibre. A prolific recording artist, he has amassed a discography of over 450 recordings. This new CD sits alongside Järvi’s acclaimed recording of the Dvořák Requiem released on the LPO label in 2009.

The strong soloist line up includes the superlative soprano Janice Watson and bass Peter Rose. Tenor Peter Auty along with Rose feature on the Dvořák Requiem recording (LPO0042).

Founded in 1983, regularly giving more than sixty concerts a year, and having performed in over forty different countries, the Schubert Ensemble is firmly established as one of the world’s leading exponents of chamber music for piano and strings.

The Ensemble here performs Piano Quintet No. 2, which is arguably one of Dvořák’s greatest and most popular chamber pieces, thanks to its memorable melodies and sheer panache. The composer took great pride in his country, in his people, their character and cultural heritage, all of which is evident in this work. In the words of the late British Dvořák scholar John Clapham: ‘[it] probably epitomizes more completely the genuine Dvořák style in most of its facets than any other work of his. Laughter and tears, sorrow and gaiety, are found side by side, as well as many moods that lie between these two extremes. All are presented with consummate mastery, they are decked in a wide range of instrumental colouring, and through the whole sweeps the life-blood of vital rhythm.’

Dvořák wrote his Piano Quartet No. 2 at the persistent request of his publisher Simrock in Berlin, who had long recognised the sales potential of the composer’s music. He was not wrong; the work went on to become one of Dvořák’s most frequently played chamber works. Here, Dvořák revels in taking on both tranquil and stormy moods; the feeling of great joy present in the third movement pre-echoes the sunny disposition of his Symphony No. 8, which was to follow immediately after the Quartet.

The seven songs which make up the cycle Gypsy Songs were written in 1880 to texts by the Czech poet Adolf Heyduk. The fourth, ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’, is the best known internationally of all Dvořák’s songs. The version heard here, for piano quartet, was arranged by the four core members of the Schubert Ensemble, and is a highly popular encore piece performed at many of its concerts.

The great conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch had a deep artistic connection with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his recordings with them include two major Dvorak symphonies. No. 9, "From the New World", is the composer's famous symphonic portrait of American landscapes.

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.

An innovative debut recording from EMI’s new signing, Tine Thing Helseth, in which Tine takes on the mantle of story teller through her interpretation and repertoire curation.

This collection of songs transcribed for trumpet includes music by Strauss, Sibelius, Ravel, Canteloube and Weill, and is anchored by Grieg’s Haugtussa song-cycle. The recording is with orchestra and piano accompaniment.

Tine is 23 with a refreshingly focused and straightforward approach to making music. She is a unique artist with several facets - classical soloist, ensemble leader and jazz musician – and equally at home with each.

Tine Thing Helseth, born in 1987, started to play trumpet at the age of 7, and is already one of the leading trumpet soloists of her generation. Already in her solo career, Helseth has appeared with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Philharmonie Baden-Baden, all the major Norwegian orchestras and further afield with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, amongst others.

Emanuel Feuermann (1902-1942) was born in Poland and in his short life was recognised as one of the greatest cellists of his time. His pall bearers included Toscanini, Ormandy, Serkin and Szell. This collection features no fewer than eighteen CD premieres and rare live performances of the Dvořák Cello Concerto, Bloch’s Schlemo and many other works.

In 2004 Bernarda Fink released a recording of Dvorák songs that was awarded critical plaudits internationally. Now, eight years later, she returns to the composer, in the company of young soprano Genia Kühmeier, to sing 13 of the Moravian Duets which brought the young musician fame far beyond his homeland. The other two cycles, for solo voice, round out the portrait of a Dvorák still attached to musical traditions, whether sacred (Biblical Songs) or secular (Gypsy Melodies).