Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This magnificent collection features the some of the greatest opera stars of all time:

Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Renée Fleming, Andrea Bocelli Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras.

With a carefully chosen selection of perennially popular arias, duets and choruses, this enchanting collection creates the perfect introduction to opera.

With 40 tracks and over 2½ hours of music this collection is outstanding value for money.

Includes Pavarotti’s classic recording of the most popular opera aria of all, Puccini’s ‘Nessun dorma’.

Sony Classical ORIGINALS offer listeners outstanding enjoyment, authentically recapturing the fascination of legendary recordings from the age of long-playing records and preserving worthwhile releases from two labels with particularly long and distinguished traditions: RCA Red Seal and Columbia Masterworks. These superb recordings by great artists have enjoyed international acclaim ever since they were first released. Showered with critical plaudits, they are part of the 20th century’s cultural legacy. All have been remastered and carefully restored using the latest studio technology in order to reproduce the original interpretations as faithfully as possible. The CD covers are taken over from the original LPs. The original introductions and LP labels are also reproduced in full, making Sony Classical ORIGINALS unique documents in the history of recorded sound.

Featuring original LP cover artwork in full size and reproduction of original labels in mini LP design.

Contains original liner notes in 3 languages (English, French and German) Jewel case packaging with fully coloured booklets.

The Sony Classical Originals bring together for the first time at the Mid Price the greatest recordings from across all of the labels which are part of the Sony Classical umbrella, and are a perfect starting point for any classical collector.

This distinctive recording of Mozart’s last great work can claim to be unique in two defining ways: the use of soloists drawn from the chorus, as in Mozart’s day – including young male singers for the soprano and alto solos – combined with a period orchestra. These are not idle historical gestures. The contemporary virtues of this approach are consistency in the sound-world between chorus and solo ensemble, and homogeneity of style between period ensemble (here the superlative Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and period chorus.

The musical text employed is Süssmayr’s completion of Mozart’s unfinished score – what Christoph Wolff has called ‘the only document that represents the genuine musical truth of the unfinished work’.

These first releases of Margaret Price with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester cover a time period from 1977 to 1991. Her work was largely concentrated on Mozart and Verdi, to which this CD pays ample credit, and also features arias by Bellini, Cilea, Rossini and Weber. Mozartian clarity, a consistently effortless vocal production, histrionic fire and a healthy grounding – these attributes made Margaret Price an internationally revered opera star, especially by Munich audiences. Her relationship with the Bavarian State Opera was so close that Margaret Price settled in Munich for 18 years, not returning to her native Wales until the end of her career.

Previously unreleased live recordings from the “Sunday Concerts”.

Singer portrait featuring Margaret Price’s core repertoire, including famous arias from Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, Aida, Otello and Norma.

Continuing the “Great Singers Live” series with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under the direction of Heinz Wallberg, Leopold Hager and Thomas Fulton.

When compared to the many German conductors whose discographical archives have in recent years been rediscovered enthusiastically, Eugen Jochum has been somewhat left behind. And this is despite his having left his mark on two of the world’s leading orchestras of both his day and ours, for he was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich and later of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. And he was furthermore one of the hand-picked group of conductors who re-founded the Bayreuth Festival in the years after the Second World War. Nor was Jochum successful just with Wagner or Bruckner, but also with contemporary works and with 'classics' in the truest sense of the word. In short, his repertoire was all-encompassing.

The trilogy of the last Mozart symphonies that he recorded with the Bamberg Symphony in 1982 offers eloquent testimony of his style of music-making, which had nothing trendy about it, but was timeless and captivating. Neither in his dynamics nor in his tempi did Jochum seek the extremes that some of his colleagues did but when it came to clarity and variety of the orchestral voices and colours, Jochum was supreme. The Jupiter Symphony KV551 is convincing in its cheerful exuberance, just as are the two previous symphonies from the year 1788. The dark colours of the G-minor Symphony KV550 and the slow introduction of the E-flat Symphony KV543 are played in a manner that audibly emphasises their proximity to the music of the Magic Flute, and they remain fixed in one’s memory.

This re-issue as a digipak for the price of a single CD is topped up with the rarely heard Masonic Funeral Music KV477, which is particularly moving here – another, highly expressive late work by Mozart that was written in honour of two brethren who died in 1785. It corresponds perfectly to Jochum’s approach to the Salzburg master – serious and without any airs and graces – and it forms a fine close to this welcome re-acquaintance with Jochum’s art.

A new Don Giovanni is always an event, and despite the badly proofed booklet, this is no exception and it includes such rising stars as Chen Reiss along with established singers. such as last year's Glyndebourne Donna Anna, Anna Samuil.

Argerich is now approaching her 70th birthday – on the 5th of June this year. One of the releases marking this occasion is a further instalment in the very successful Martha Argerich Collection (already available: Solo Recordings, Concerto Recordings, Chamber Ensemble Recordings) with a set devoted to her complete recordings for the Philips label.

Here we find her in partnership with Stephen Kovacevich and Nelson Freire, with discs of two-piano and piano duet works. Then there are the classic live recordings of the Tchaikovsky First and, above all, the Rachmaninov Third Concertos, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly; as well as an inimitable Carnival of the Animals (with Freire, Kremer, Maisky and others).

Schubert and Schumann works for cello and piano feature Mischa Maisky.

A 32-page full colour booklet contains photographs and new liner notes by Jed Distler.

Three double digipacks from the label Andante are here gathered together in a limited edition box set. The set offers more than 7 hours of music performed by legendary artists, among them conductors Herbert von Karajan and George Szell, the Vienna Philharmonic and Staatskapelle Dresden orchestras, as well as the Amadeus Quartet, pianist Nikita Magaloff and several great singers including Giulietta Simionato and Nicolai Gedda. Featured are Bizet’s opera Carmen, orchestral music by Beethoven and Bruckner, and chamber music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.

Lipatti’s recorded legacy is small. Regis presents a selection of his recordings for EMI which best display this iconic pianist’s artistic diversity. Included are sonatas by Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin and his compatriot Enescu and extracts from Brahms’ Waltzes Op.39 with Nadia Boulanger.

'To his wife he [Lipatti] said, "You see, it is not enough to be a great composer. To write music like that you must be a chosen instrument of God." By the same light we may say that it is not enough to be a great pianist: to play as Lipatti played you must be a chosen instrument of God. God lent the world His chosen instrument who we called Dinu Lipatti for too brief a space.’ Walter Legge