Richard Wagner

Wagner’s epic operatic masterpiece recorded live at The New York Metropolitan Opera, March 24th, 1956. A true Wagnerian line up of singers including Set Svanholm, Otto Edelmann, Paul Schoffler, Nicola Moscona, Gerhard Pechner and Margaret Harshaw. Fritz Stiedry conducts the proceedings.

BONUS: Margaret Harshaw sings Wagner in a recital given in Cleveland in November 1956. Includes arias from Tristan and Isolde and Tannhauser.

This CD brings together two superstars of the last 50 years, Sir Georg Solti and the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson. The release was originally timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary (2007) of Solti's death and his 10 years spent at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – but was delayed a year due to contractual negotiations - both the Wagner tracks are with the Covent Garden Orchestra, as it was known then, at the Proms in 1963.

Solti's Beethoven is well known for its robust energy but this version of the 'Eroica' with the LSO is quite relaxed yet powerful and extremely beautiful. It comes from the same concert as the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 with Cherkassky (BBCL 4160-2).

Solti and Nilsson were linked both on stage and particularly in the recording studio by Richard Strauss and Wagner. Solti's famous Wagner's 'Ring' cycle for Decca has been one of the monuments of the classical recording industry for many years and Nilsson's Brunnhilde is one of the phenomenon's of that celebrated set. She is here recorded live with a passionate accompaniment driven by Solti in the great Prelude & Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde where Nilsson's voice is so powerful that it dominates the ROH Orchestra even in the greatest climaxes!

Wagner's Siegfried's Rhine Journey gives us a flavour of Solti in Wagner's 'Ring' providing tremendous attack and excitement.

The CD has been recorded in excellent stereo sound and transferred with exceptional care by Paul Baily.

An album of music for a special day. Use this lovely collection of organ music for church weddings to make your own personal choices for your own celebration - and listen to it afterwards as an atmospheric reminder of a unique moment in your life. From Bach to Wagner, there's something to suit everybody. Inside the booklet there's plenty of advice on how to choose music to suit your mood and style and to make sure that another important element of your special day can be just that bit more personal.

Editions and arrangements by Martin Souter.

The fascinating programme of waltzes and other short pieces chosen for this new recording by the chamber ensemble Diabolicus and its renowned musical director Dietrich Henschel has been given the title “A Nos Amours”, and endeavours to musically represent the full range of emotions that cover life from birth till death. There is the love of Richard Wagner for his wife Cosima and for their newborn son in the Siegfried Idyll, the love of a son for his dead mother in the Busoni’s touching lullaby, the Berceuse élégaique, as well as the joy of life and love so perfectly portrayed in the waltzes of Johann Strauss the younger. The Schubert lied Ständchen and the famous Neopolitan song Funiculì-Funiculà by Luigi Denza have been included to present the more light-hearted aspect of these “amours”. Apart from the Wagner piece, the music is here performed in transcriptions for chamber groups by Arnold Schoenberg and his circle of friends and pupils.

The chamber ensemble Diabolicus was formed in 2001 with a core of soloists from the Orchestre de Paris. The ensemble can be expanded as required, bringing together musical personalities encountered in a variety of extra-orchestral collaborations. In 2004 and 2005, Diabolicus swelled its number to thirty-five musicians for two performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Dietrich Henschel and Menahem Pressler respectively. With Dietrich Henschel, their working relationship did not involve the notion of an ensemble directed by a conductor, but was immediately established on the basis of a friendly collaboration in music.

Dietrich Henschel is acknowledged as one of today’s foremost interpreters of the lied. He is invited all over the world with the pianists Fritz Schwinghammer, Helmut Deutsch and Michael Schäfer. His substantial discography features lieder and song cycles by Mahler, Wolf, Schubert, Korngold, and Beethoven, as well as a complete recording of Busoni’s Doktor Faust (winner of a Grammy Award). His conducting career has taken flight since his triumph at the Châtelet in 2004 in a series of concerts with the ensemble Diabolicus, with which he has subsequently worked on a regular basis.

Josef Hermann's last performance as Hans Sachs, live from the re-opening of the State Opera, Berlin on 4th September 1955.

Live recording 12/2/1956