César Auguste Franck

Celibidache focused very much on concert performances rather than recordings.

He aimed to make his concerts “transcendental experiences”.

Everyone attaches particular importance to the music for their wedding ceremony. It is, after all, the key ingredient essential for intensifying the emotional level of a very special day which is to be shared not only by the happy couple but also with all their guests. Choosing the music for one’s wedding is an intimate thing, a second declaration of love between bride and groom. But it is also a bid to express and convey to the young couple’s nearest and dearest, who will be present with them at the wedding, all those feelings of joy and love which cannot be expressed by a mere exchange of "I do’s" and of rings.

And so, whatever your musical tastes and temperament and no matter how you choose to say "I love you" or "I do", you’ll find music to suit you on this double album: from favourite classics to rare gems of the repertoire, from music for festive occasions to more intimate, soulful and reflective melodies, this compilation brings together the most beautiful masterpieces to help you make your wedding an occasion of pure emotion and shared happiness and ensure that you never forget the most beautiful day of your life.

In the 1930s the United States was the mecca for musicians but only the outstanding ones could hope to launch a career. Rene Charles (Zino) Francescatti made his US debut, aged 37, in 1939 playing Paganini’s first concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Barbirolli. He was eventually recognised as one of the world’s leading violinists. This collection brings together his best commercially issued recordings, mainly of French music, in new digital transfers.

Jacqueline du Pre’s career, though tragically brief, coincided with a golden age of recording.

This 17-disc treasury unites her entire EMI Classics legacy and includes – for the first time on CD – two Bach sonata movements from her 1962 debut recital for the label.

Interpretations long recognised as classic are joined by further rarities, among them the Lalo Cello Concerto, recorded with Daniel Barenboim and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1973, and, from 1968, Strauss’s Don Quixote under Sir Adrian Boult.

This collection includes the very latest Abbey Road remasters of Du Pré’s recordings in one definitive boxed set and offers the listener the ultimate listening experience with a fantastic clarity of sound and dynamic range.

The collection includes a full-colour 32-page booklet detailing the life and art of Du Pré in both words and pictures as well as a timeline overview of her career.

Both Pascal Rogé and Lorin Maazel were one of the mainstays of the Decca roster for several years, the former famed for the clarity of his vision in much French music, the latter recording vast tracts of repertoire with both, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra, in often white-hot performances. The Franck Symphony blazes away, with both conviction and sonic distinction. Its original LP coupling, the Variations symphoniques, receives its first international release on CD. And Bartók’s ‘Opus 1’, his Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, which, although a juvenile work, was performed by Bartók all the way through his piano-playing career. It was recorded by Rogé as a companion to his thrilling recordings of the Bartók concertos with Weller and the LPO.

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.

This fine collection has a diverse range of well know piano repertoire from Bach to Gershwin and illustrates Weissenberg’s brilliance and his exciting lyrical playing. Including both orchestral and solo piano works this collection offers a magnificent range of repertoire for the piano enthusiast.

Weissenberg is critically acclaimed for his interpretations of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.1 and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concert No.2 both of which are included in this set.

A pianist of virtuoso technique, with wide repertory but a particular interest in the Romantic period (especially the music of Chopin and Schumann), he can give in performance and recordings the impression of a forceful flamboyance of style.

Also of key interest to any fan of Weissenberg’s recordings is a fine disc of his concert encores. This delightful collection includes magnificent interpretations of such well-known piano repertoire as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Liszt’s Liebestraum and Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C# minor.