Historical Recordings - up to 25% off

Kathleen Ferrier’s highly individual, plangent voice, natural musicianship and high level of personal professionalism made her one of England’s most popular singers during her all-too-brief career.

This disc compiles a large number of her recordings of arias by Bach and Handel, to whose music she brought breadth, nobility and deep emotional commitment. She is accompanied by Sir Adrian Boult and Reginald Jacques, both major figures in England’s post-war musical life.

The Cantata recording appears on CD for the first time.

For the main work on this album of American recordings made at the time of the Great War, Bach’s Double Concerto in D minor (slightly abridged to fit on three 78rpm sides, Kreisler is joined by the Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist. The Appendix features three tracks with soprano Geraldine Farrar and the only surviving recording of Kreisler-as-pianist, playing Dvorak’s Humoresque.

Producer and Audio Restoration Producer: Ward Marston

This will be of great interest to Mario Lanza collectors and the concert contains a very varied repertoire; arias from La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, La Bohème and Der Freischutz, as well as The Blue Danube and Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and others.

Recorded on 27th August 1947

2 CDs for the price of 1.

Michael Zadora is one of the most obscure pianists to have recorded prolifically in the 78rpm era. Only a handful of 78s have ever been reissued, and no LP or CD has ever been devoted to him. It would appear that his concert career was also not particularly high profile, yet from these recordings it seems he was a very significant artist. Perhaps the answer lies in his background. He was born in the New York of aristocratic Polish parents but returned to Europe to study and was a pupil of Leshetizky and Barth (who also taught Rubinstein). After the First World War he became a disciple of Busoni and indeed played for the great artist on his deathbed. Zadora seems to have been a rather reserved character, much more an intellectual than someone who enjoyed public performance and it is likely that family wealth allowed him the luxury of not have to pursue his career too aggressively. On the other hand, studio recording suited him very well indeed and he seems equally at home in the standard repertoire, such as Chopin, and in more rarefied material, such as the Busoni Sonatinas, where we are undoubtedly hearing an interpretation very close to that of the composer himself. Of particular interest are Zadora's own unusual transcriptions and also the works of 'Pietro Amadis' who was actually a pseudonym of the pianist.

These very rare recordings should be of particular interest to all lovers of historic piano playing.

Michelangeli’s first recordings were made for HMV in Milan in 1939, following his win at the Geneva International Piano Competition.

In Granados’s Andaluza Michelangeli uses a soulful singing tone to great advantage, while his phenomenal virtuoso technique can be heard in Marescotti’s Fantasque, one of the test pieces for the Geneva Competition. These and the 1948 recordings of Bach, Galuppi and Brahms demonstrate that as a young man Michelangeli was already a consummate artist.

As a critic wrote about the recording of the Brahms Paganini Variations: “What a pianist! Technically, the playing is astonishing: interpretatively, here is a very great musician…altogether this is the most exciting piano performance and recording I have heard for many a long day.”

“Apollonian stance and awe-inspiring control….. The dynamic range reinforces the Lisztian patina of Michelangeli's conception….[a] ravishing, multi-layered sound world.” Classics Today