Franz Peter Schubert

This is a recording comeback on the Transart label for Filomena Moretti, a unique artist who has won many international awards. She gives very few concerts so this live recording allows the listener to witness the exceptional level of her immense talent. This collection includes works by Bach, Schubert, Granados, Albeniz, Monti and Sor.

Andrea Lucchesini’s second recording for Avie features his first of the music of Schubert, the complete Impromptus.

The brilliant career of Italian pianist Andrea Lucchesini was launched in 1983, when he became the first Italian ever to win the Dino Ciani International Competition at La Scala in Milan. He has since made numerous award-winning recordings and performed all over the world with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Houston Symphony, London Philharmonic, under the baton of such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov and Riccardo Chailly. A probing musician, Lucchesini is well-known for his advocacy of contemporary music – his first recording for Avie featured the complete solo piano works by Berio (AV2104) – yet he is equally at home with the Romantic masters as this, his first recording of Schubert, demonstrates.

Gérard Souzay (1918–2004) was born into a musical family – his father was a cellist, and his two brothers and his sister all singers. Souzay chose to study philosophy at university, and it was only after a meeting with Pierre Bernac in Paris in 1942 that he was persuaded to enter the Paris Conservatoire to study singing. He entered the concert circuit shortly after the end of the Second World War, and soon displayed the qualities that would make him one of the great voices of the 20th century – a love of words and a superb technique that combined a fine tone with a natural gift for expression.

His obituaries in 2004 all commented on the qualities of his voice, and were full of epithets such as ‘warm’, ‘lyrical’, ‘supple’, ‘sensual’ and ‘vibrant’. He was keen not to be pigeonholed as a singer of French repertoire, and this 2 CD set vividly illustrates his mastery of Schubert’s lieder. The coupling of the composer’s freshest and most immediately appealing song-cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, with a generous selection of other, universally known lieder, is sure to have wide appeal beyond historical enthusiasts: the recordings are in excellent stereo.

New booklet notes by Lieder authority Richard Stokes.

‘Souzay’s interpretation makes a less virile figure of the miller’s apprentice than either of the others and perhaps, because of this, makes more credible the girl’s jilting of him for the black-bearded hunter (I’m sure his beard was black!), but there is plenty of passion in his singing and a smooth treatment of the two-note quaver groups. The climactic ends of the verses “Dein ist mein Herz”, etc. ring out as well in “Ungeduld” as in “Mein!”, and at all times one is aware of a carefully thought-out presentation, an expressive treatment of the words and a sensitive response to the changing moods. The many strophic songs have plenty of nuance, and Souzay holds the interest through the five verses of “Des Baches Wiegenlied”.’ Gramophone, June 1965

Ilian Garnetz is Moldavian and, before his extraordinary performance at the Queen Elisabeth competition in 2009, was still unknown outside his own country. Alina Bercu is Romanian, just 20 years old, but has already been a finalist in the Clara Haskil competition. Together they constitute a talented duo, inventive and spontaneous. Therefore it is no surprise to see that the BNP Paribas Fortis bank has selected Garnetz for a series of concerts and this recording of Schubert-Ysaÿe-Brahms: three facets of a wonderful violinist, perfectly accompanied in Schubert and in Brahms.

Lucia Popp was an absolute audience favourite for several decades. Besides her great operatic roles – first as a coloratura soprano, then in the lyric fach – she always maintained a large concert and lieder repertoire that demonstrated in equal degree her great musicality and charm.

At the Munich Opera Festival in 1984, Lucia Popp presented a combination of lesser-known songs of well-known composers in a programme that formed a musically colourful and harmonious whole. This live recording, made in the intimate rococo hall of the Cuvilliés Theatre, allows us to experience that concert once again.

Lucia Popp was partnered there by Irwin Gage, whose musical qualities matched her own, yet who refrained from placing himself in the foreground. With their opening selection of Schubert they were able to transfix the audience in such a manner that the ensuing group of Schoenberg’s early songs Op. 2 seemed to follow on quite naturally. In Strauss’s Ophelia Songs, Popp displayed her extraordinary ability to portray a stage character swiftly, yet in a manner wellrounded and accurate, by purely vocal means.

The last quarter of this song recital, also devoted to Strauss, was the most popular and was received with frenetic applause. These songs reached a magnificent climax in the encore 'Allerseelen'. This was followed by a return to Schubert with 'An Silvia'. It rounded off a dramatically conceived evening of German Romanticism, a superb example of how Popp could present her admirers with a performance deeply felt in its artistry, but never calculating or sentimental. It makes one regret all the more her all-too-early death.

80th Anniversary Limited Edition.

12CDs at a super value price: 3CDs of orchestral works, 4 complete operas, many rare photos in booklet.

One of the most charismatic of conductors, Carlos Kleiber would have been 80 on 3 July 2010. Here, in celebration of a great artist, are his Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon: each is a classic, and presented here in the best sound-quality. A companion box set of his complete UNITEL/DG DVDs, in a special limited edition, is also being released to mark the occasion.

The present box comprises the three CDs of orchestral works by Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert as well as his four complete opera recordings (Der Freischütz, Die Fledermaus, La Traviata and Tristan und Isolde). Here is a unique chance to offer Kleiber’s Complete Recordings in a single box set at a bargain price.

Each of these recordings is a classic, each has been in the catalogue since the time of recording, all still selling amazingly well after more than 30 years. The Beethoven symphonies and the Verdi La Traviata are classics of the gramophone - two perennial bestsellers.

Orchestral recordings: Beethoven symphonies 5 and 7, Brahms symphony No.4 and Schubert symphonies 3 & 8 – all currently in The Originals, DG’s premium reissues series, with top remastering quality.

Operas: Weber: Der Freischütz; Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus; Verdi: La Traviata; Wagner: Tristan und Isolde – all currently in The Originals, DG’s premium reissues series, with top remastering quality.

Packaging: classic capbox, with strikingly modern cover and booklet including full tracklists, new booklet article by Andrew Clements, and many rare photos of Kleiber and other artists at recording sessions.