Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The greatest opera stars in the world - together in one 2-CD set.

A unique collection of all the great genuine opera stars appearing on the world's stages today.

A galaxy of great names performing opera's best-loved arias and classic melodies.

CD 1 ("The Divos") features celebrated performances from Roberto Alagna, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann, Plácido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, José Carreras, Josef Calleja and Erwin Schrott

CD 2 ("The Divas") features outstanding recordings by Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Angela Gheorghiu, Montserrat Caballé, Nicole Cabell, Olga Borodina, and Kiri te Kanawa

A fabulous showcase of today's top vocal talent

2 CDs for the price of one

Live from Wigmore Hall - 29 December 2008

Described as “quite exceptional” (Gramophone) and a group that is “poetic, charismatic and virtuosic” (Sunday Telegraph), the Elias String Quartet is considered one of the most fresh and exciting quartets of their generation.

As their career continues to grow with extraordinary momentum, Wigmore Hall Live is proud to release this live recital recording that captures the young quartet’s fervent passion and infectious enthusiasm for the music of Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schubert.

WHLive0028 opens with Schubert’s great unfinished work, the Quartettsatz in C minor, considered to be the forerunner of the late great string quartets for which Schubert is best remembered. This is followed by possibly the most famous of Mozart’s string quartets, the ‘'Dissonance’ quartet, dedicated to Joseph Haydn.

The programme ends with string quartets by Felix Mendelssohn - the composer they hold most dear. With 2009 being Mendelssohn’s bicentenary year, the Elias String Quartet chose these works in order to showcase a side of the composer’s genius which they believe is highly underrated.

After winning all the Royal Northern College of Music quartet awards, they spent a year studying with the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne. They have since received many honours at major international competitions, including multiple awards at the 2003 London International String Quartet Competition.

Donald Grant plays the violin that used to belong to their ‘founding father’, Christopher Rowland, who died in 2007.

Press acclaim for the Elias String Quartet at Wigmore Hall

“A heaven-storming performance … Big things lie ahead of them” The Strad

“four powerful personalities at work … The Elias are a quite exceptional quartet” Gramophone

“The emotional chemistry here was manifestly unusual … pure magic” The Sunday Telegraph

“the players more than deserved the standing ovation from an audience among whose numbers even the hardened professionals and most impassive critics were moved and impressed” The Independent

Clara Haskil's recordings from the 1950s enjoy a cult status. Her subtle interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann enjoyed particular fame.These studio recordings and live recordings of concert performances of great piano concertos as well as of two solo works by Schumann, released for the first time remastered from the original tapes, reveal Haskil's sensitive and natural playing which Ferenc Fricsay compared to the ability to sing on the piano. In addition, this Audite release offers the opportunity to compare and contrast Mozart's famous concerto in D minor, in the form of a hitherto unpublished live recording from a concert performance, and in the form of a studio recording made only one day later, in January 1954. Fricsay and the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin prove to be congenial partners of a greatly distinguished pianist.

This new Phoenix title features some of the most exotic and evocative music ever written about the Orient, including the mysterious ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Salome and two versions of Scheherazade.

This appealing compilation is available at the special price of 3-for-2

Recording dates from 1997

The wind soloists all hold major positions in leading Dutch orchestras such as the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. They also hold key posts at the conservatories of The Hague and Rotterdam.

Pianist Klára Würtz was taught by Zoltán Kocsis, and has taken masterclasses with András Schiff.

Apart from extensive tours of the US, and many appearances on French, Irish, American and Dutch TV, she has a busy concert schedule in the Netherlands where she lives. She has recorded extensively for Brilliant Classics.

K452 is an undisputed masterpiece. Each instrument is in effect a virtuoso soloist, and Mozart’s writing for them all is masterful. It dates from the most intensive creative period in Mozart’s life, 1784–7, between which time he produced twelve piano concertos, a horn concerto, a symphony, five quintets for various combinations of instruments, five string quartets, two piano quartets, three trios, five sonatas, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, plus Der Schauspieldirektor, Eine kleine Nachtmusik and several shorter works – an extraordinary achievement, even by his standards.

Without doubt, the young Beethoven would have been familiar with this work. In 1792 he had arrived in Vienna as a highly praised piano virtuoso and composer for his instrument. Beethoven’s early chamber works (with the exception of the Op.1 trios and the Op.5 cello sonatas) are for winds, and Mozart’s work provided the model for the Piano Quintet Op.16 in the same way as the Second Piano Concerto Op.1 is the most ‘Mozartian’ of his concertos. However, far from being ‘Mozartian’ in sound, Beethoven’s forceful and unique piano-writing and his robust Haydnesque humour (he had recently finished his studies with Haydn) mark this work as one of his early masterpieces. It dates from 1796.

“The most beautiful of all clarinet quintets in an exemplary recording” (CD-Führer Klassik)

The career of the great British pianist Solomon (1902-1988) was cruelly cut short by a debilitating stroke in 1956, at the height of his powers. At the time, Solomon was universally regarded as one of the greatest living pianists, especially admired in Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. His enforced retirement meant that his recordings are relatively few in number, so the emergence of radio broadcasts of him from the 1950s are particularly valuable. This unique CD couples a superb performance of Brahms’s D minor Concerto, with the young Lorin Maazel conducting the RAI Orchestra of Turin, with a BBC broadcast of Mozart’s Sonata in B flat K 333. Here is a very rare opportunity to hear this magnificent artist at his very best - performances which place him amongst the greatest pianists of the twentieth-century.

No, not another Mozart piano concerto disc! No indeed, for this pioneering recording gives us intimate, almost domestic versions of three of the composer’s masterpieces, versions that have scarcely been played, let alone set to disc, in the modern concert era. Moreover they give us the opportunity to hear Susan Tomes show her mettle in strong light as concerto soloist—and bring to a wider repertoire the distinct communicative magic that has made her one of the foremost chamber pianists of today.

Mozart retains from the homogeneity of the strings a sense of intricacy and allure, as well conjuring the glanceexchanging thrill of chamber-music-making, all of which heightens the piquancy of the dialogue and confrontation between piano and band, while setting the rich sonorities of the piano into greater relief.

You thought you knew these wonderful, innovative and energetic pieces, but hear afresh and think again!