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For much of his life, Otto Klemperer carried a note written by his hero Gustav Mahler, in which the composer praised the young Klemperer as ‘an outstanding musician […] predestined for the career of a conductor.’ Klemperer’s interpretations of Mahler’s work, famous for their ‘big outlines’ and ‘rock-like rhythms’ (Musical Times) became world-famous. This collection showcases Klemperer’s Mahler, including works such as the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde.

Otto Klemperer was born on 14th May 1885 in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) and died on 6th July 1973 in Zurich hence 2013 marks 40 years since his passing. He had had a remarkable career as a young man but it was at the age of 70 that he started a series of recordings that would not only establish him as an internationally renowned conductor but provide EMI with a catalogue of recordings that became and remain touchstones.

Gustav Mahler’s influence on his successors was enormous and numerous composers – Zemlinsky, Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovitch, Britten and Copland are just a few to acknowledge their debt. His influence also spread to the world of popular music. Paul McCartney wrote “I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of The Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we’d take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was great.”

His income came principally from conducting of which he was a fine exponent; Otto Klemperer regarded him as his the best he ever saw and although eternally grateful that he recorded the works contained in this collection it is sad that he never committed so many more to disc. Whilst all of them demand attention it is those of the “Resurrection” Symphony (No. 2), Symphony No. 9 and Das Lied von der Erde in particular that have always been regarded as of the highest rank and in their latest remasterings literally defy their age.

Cries of ‘Vive Kl’empereur’ rang out in the Kroll Opera House after Klemperer’s first appointment as its director, conducting a concert of Bach and Mozart. This collection provides a wealth of the celebrated conductor’s Baroque and Classical repertoire, showcasing – at the forefront of the selection – Klemperer’s characteristically ‘unadorned’ Bach as well as his fiery interpretations of Haydn’s late symphonies. The set also includes Rameau’s Gavotte with Six Variations, Handel’s A minor Concerto Grosso and Gluck’s Overture to Iphigénie en Auilde.

Otto Klemperer was born on 14th May 1885 in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) and died on 6th July 1973 in Zurich, hence 2013 marks 40 years since his passing. He had had a remarkable career as a young man but it was at the age of 70 that he started a series of recordings that would not only establish him as an internationally renowned conductor but provide EMI with a catalogue of recordings that became and remain touchstones.

This collection contains the solo orchestral recordings that Klemperer undertook of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He recorded the Bach Orchestral Suites twice, the first in 1954, these appear on CD for the first time, and in 1969 whilst the recording of the Brandenburg Concertos date from 1960. Of Handel, he recorded No, 4 of the set of six Concerti Grossi Op. 6 in 1956.

The Classical period is represented in this collection by Franz Josef Haydn. In all Klemperer recorded 8 of his symphonies – 6 from the set written for Salomon’s London concerts, the once-called “Oxford”, supposedly written for the time he received an honorary degree from its university and the delightful No. 88. These recordings were made over the period from 1960 to 1971.

The works by the other two composers contained in this box are arrangements. Gluck composed his opera Iphigenia in Aulis in 1774 inspired by Euripedes’s last play written between 408 and 406BC, the year of his death. Richard Wagner made his arrangement at the end of 1846/beginning of 1847 in Dresden and it was this that Klemperer heard when Gustav Mahler conducted it in 1907 just a few weeks short of his 22nd birthday and this would serve as an inspiration for his entire career.

The work by Rameau was transcribed by Klemperer himself in 1967 and is a Gavotte in A minor with six doubles – or variations – taken from his Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin (c.1728). It was first performed with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in June 1968.

His enthusiasm for the art of his own time, and his desire to make a personal contribution to it, are not the least of Otto Klemperer’s qualities which have been overshadowed by the enduring image of a stern standard-bearer for tradition. Here are sprightly, quirkily personal performances of neo-classical masterpieces by Hindemith and Stravinsky, as well as a glimpse into the mind of Klemperer the creative musician, decisively influenced by his early encounters with Mahler.

Otto Klemperer was born on 14th May 1885 in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) and died on 6th July 1973 in Zurich, hence 2013 marks 40 years since his passing. He had had a remarkable career as a young man but it was at the age of 70 that he started a series of recordings that would not only establish him as an inter-nationally renowned conductor but provide EMI with a catalogue of recordings that became and remain touchstones.

At the age of 42 Klemperer became director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin and was responsible for numerous premieres of the music by modern composers, especially Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill. It was a source of pride that he brought so many works by Stravinsky, born three years and dying two years before him, to the public and this continued even when Stravinsky and Klemperer were in America where the Symphony in Three Movements was written. Hindemith, too, was supported both in Berlin and America.

Klemperer was so captivated by the Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill Die Dreigroschenoper when it opened in Berlin in 1928 that he commissioned the 28-year-old composer to make a suite for wind instruments based on the original score. The result was the Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, which was played for the first time at the annual Berlin opera ball under Klemperer’s direction.

Not only a conductor, Klemperer loved to compose and three works were recorded, The first, in October 1961, was Merry Waltz taken from his opera Das Ziel (The Goal) and re-orchestrated for a larger orchestra which had originally premiered in August 1936 in Los Angeles. The second is his Symphony No. 2 which had had a private recording earlier in 1969 but which EMI then decided deserved proper session time and was released to celebrate his 85th birthday. His String Quartet No. 7 was recorded in February 1970, with the Philharmonia String Quartet for the same reason.

The box set includes a musical bonus in the Overture and Dream Pantomime from Hänsel und Gretel composed by Engelbert Humperdinck. He had often conducted the opera and in 1932 his wife, the soprano Johanna Geissler, had alternated the roles of Gretel and the Witch.

The set concludes with Jon Tolansky’s Sound Biography which illustrates how Otto Klemperer inspired musicians and music lovers not only with his conducting but also with his extraordinary courage, surviving extreme physical and mental adversity with remarkable stoicism. This special disc also includes two never before released items that were discovered as this feature was being prepared: a speech by Dr Klemperer at a reception for his 75th birthday, and a rehearsal during his recording sessions for Mozart’s Don Giovanni. An entire hour of rehearsal can be heard on a bonus CD that appears with EMI Classics’ reissue of the complete opera.

Arthur Rubinstein Chopin recordings of the Nocturnes, from 1936–7, and the long series of Mazurkas, set down in 1938–9, show a balance, almost unique, between spontaneous feeling and the mature consideration which these readings embody. Rubinstein’s communicative fire is always apparent, reflected in the rich, always personal tone he produces in the Mazurkas, capable of a vast diversity of nuance.

A reference tenor album filled to the brim with Verdi’s heroes and kings. The most famous arias sung by the most celebrated tenors in the history of recording since stereo was invented: Roberto Alagna, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Carlo Berngonzi, Rolando Villazon, all of them gathered on this album rich in high Cs!

To commemorate the Verdi year, what could be more obvious than this anthology sung by Angela Gheorghiu who chose to focus her career and repertoire on the operas of this great composer and who made the part of Violetta her very own? Whether in operas (La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Aida or Rigoletto), Sacred Music (the Requiem) or in Verdi’s rare melodies, Angela Gheorghiu’s voice and fiery temperament truly set this memorable album ablaze.

This release is one of three new recordings issued in 2013 by EMI & Virgin Classics in honour of Britten's 100th birthday. Ian Bostridge, the internationally acclaimed tenor whose "attention to the text always matches Britten's own scrupulous word-setting", has recorded this album of songs by Benjamin Britten accompanied by Antonio Pappano. Featured are works he has never before recorded: 'Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo', 'Hölderlin Fragments', 'Songs From the Chinese', 'Winter Words' and Four English Songs from the last cycle 'Who are These Children?'.

Following the success of two recent Rossini recordings, the sacred Stabat Mater and the opera William Tell, Antonio Pappano and his Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia have taken on the composer’s late masterpiece, the Petite Messe solennelle. The soloists are Marina Rebeka, Sara Mingardo, Francesco Meli and Alex Esposito. Like the earlier-mentioned Rossini titles, the Petite Messe solennelle was recorded in the Orchestra’s acoustically fine home, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

Gramophone hailed the recording of the Stabat Mater as “one of the great choral recordings” and “a revelatory account” in which “Tender and expressive word-painting … is a feature of the entire performance, underpinned by Pappano’s superbly crisp yet endlessly considerate pointing of Rossini’s trademark rhythmic invention.” The Sunday Times wrote, “Pappano lives the text like the great opera conductor he is, bringing consolation as well as fire and brimstone to Rossini’s heady spiritual brew.” Of their William Tell release, The Independent wrote, “Rossini's final opera is infrequently staged, and it's unlikely anyone will try again soon: why risk comparison with Pappano's magisterial presentation, the latest in a string of triumphs for the maestro?”

Gioachino Rossini composed the Petite Messe solennelle in 1863 at his villa in Passy on the outskirts of Paris. He had moved there from Italy in 1855 with his Parisian-born second wife Olympe Pelissier and found that, after years of ill health during which he had stopped composing altogether, he felt much better in Paris. When he began to compose again, rather than operas, he turned his hand to smaller-scale works, instrumentally accompanied songs, piano and chamber music, which he referred to as his ‘Péchées de vieillesse’ (‘Sins of old age’). Many were performed at the Saturday evening soirees that he and his wife hosted at their home starting in the winter of 1858.

The Count and Countess Pillet-Will were bankers and friends of Rossini and it was to Countess Louise that the Petite Messe solennelle is dedicated. It is scored for twelve voices (four soloists and eight additional choristers), two pianos and harmonium. Rossini wrote at the top of the score, “Twelve singers of the three sexes, men, women and castrati will suffice for its performance: that is, eight for the chorus, four for the solos, twelve cherubim all told.” At the end of the score, he wrote, “Dear Lord, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Have I just written sacred music, or rather sacrilegious music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much technique, a little bit of heart, that is all. Blessings to you and grant me Paradise.” The work was performed to consecrate the newly built private chapel at the Count and Countess’s grand new home and, shortly thereafter, for invited guests, although the composer did not attend either performance.

After that, he undertook to orchestrate the work – to ensure that no one else would do it after his death. During the orchestration process in 1867, he decided to add a previously composed piece for soprano, O salutaris hostia, between the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei of the Mass. On completion of the orchestration, Rossini put both versions away, permitting no further performances of either during his lifetime.

Shortly after Rossini’s death in November 1868, however, his widow sold performance rights to the orchestrated version to the impresario Maurice Strakosch, who arranged the first performance at the Théâtre Italien in Paris on 28th February 1869, as close as possible to the composer’s leap-year birthday on 29 February.

The soloists on this recording are the young Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, whose recent debuts at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, Salzburg Festival and Metropolitan Opera have been superlatively received; the award-winning Italian contralto Sara Mingardo, whose voice has been praised for its “extraordinarily rich contralto depths and interpretive capabilities”; the Italian tenor Francesco Meli, who made his Covent Garden and MET debuts in Rigoletto, performed at La Scala and in Vienna with Riccardo Muti and recorded La sonnambula with Natalie Dessay and Sara Mingardo for Virgin Classics; and the young Italian bass Alex Esposito, especially noted for his interpretations of works by Mozart and Rossini.

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose Grammy® award-winning accounts of Stravinsky’s Symphony in C and Symphony of Psalms are among Gramophone magazine’s Top 10 Stravinsky Recordings (2011), return to the composer with a recording of the ground-breaking ballet Le Sacre du printemps, whose premiere a century ago marked a turning point in 20th century music history. The programme on this release also includes new recordings of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Apollon Musagète, another of the Russian master’s breathtaking ballets.

Although the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps in Paris on 29th May 1913 famously set off a near-riot, the work quickly became recognised as one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century. The 100th anniversary of the premiere will be commemorated with performances all over the world in 2013 and, no doubt, with some new recordings. On record and in performance, Simon Rattle has championed the orchestral works of Stravinsky with insight and dedication over many years and this latest recording is an important addition to his Stravinsky discography.