Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This CD features a newly discovered work by Mozart “Das Donnerwetter“ (KV 534a, The Thunderstorm). It receives its premiere recording on this release by pianist Siegbert Rampe and is coupled with the universally renowned “Alla Turca.” Siegbert Rampe performs on an original harpsichord from 1771 by Burkat Shudi, a Swissborn master builder of keyboard instruments.

This important CD gathers together, for the first time, four of the finest performances of the music of Haydn and Mozart conducted by the great Fritz Busch (1890-1951), conducting in the years following the end of World War II the Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra, which he had raised to a position of supreme pre-eminence before his untimely death in 1951. These recordings were very highly praised when they were briefly available on 78rpm discs with limited circulation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and have been much sought-after by collectors throughout the world. Now they have been brought together for the first time, enabling later generations to appreciate the genius of Fritz Busch, famous for his pre-war Glyndebourne recordings of Mozart operas, in orchestral music by the master and by his great contemporary Haydn. The sound has been considerably improved, and collectors today can appreciate these vital performances as never before.

Live Recordings 1955 - 1994. The wide-ranging repertory in which Christa Ludwig appeared at the Vienna State Opera, often surprising her audiences over a period of many years, is central to the present set of three CDs issued to mark her 80th birthday. It begins with her Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro and her Composer from Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, both of which she sang at the Salzburg Festival soon after her Vienna State Opera début in 1955. Another of her early roles in Vienna was Dorabella, while Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola was a lyric mezzo-soprano part that she sang only infrequently but to which she brought a stupendous coloratura technique. Her increasingly dramatic roles are represented by excerpts from Fidelio, Wozzeck,Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Verdi's Macbeth, which also demonstrate the astute use of her resources in those roles that extend well into the soprano register, without ever sacrificing any quality or intensity. Under Leonard Bernstein, the subdued melancholy of her Marschallin is even more overwhelming than it was in the studio. No less impressive is the way in which Christa Ludwig was able to forge a successful working relationship with each of the very different conductors with whom she appeared, be it Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado or the conductor of the most recent New Year's Day Concert from Vienna, Georges Prêtre.Throughout her career, she retained a company spirit, happy to appear in smaller roles and, towards the end of her career, in character parts, including Klytämnestra in Elektra, the role in which she bade farewell to the stage in 1994.This final appearance - almost 40 years after her Viennese début - also brings to an end our musical tribute to Christa Ludwig, recalling an altogether exceptional career by this honorary member of the Vienna State Opera.

One of the great 20th century violinists, at his best Heifetz played the concerto and sonata repertoire with a strong command of structure, minute attention to detail and an unequalled sensuous beauty of tone. Although Heifetz regarded the music of Mozart and Bach as integral to his repertoire, his style was grounded in a Romantic sensibility that sometimes courted controversy. Of the Mozart Concertos, Heifetz favoured the D major, K218 (recorded on Naxos 8.110941) and the A major, K219, which is heard on this re-issue in the second of three he made. Heifetz recorded the two Bach solo concertos only once. On these and his first recording of the Double Concerto, Heifetz’s playing (of both parts) is typically elegant and emotionally charged.