Verdi: Niun mi tema (from Otello) (Death of Otello)

A special collection of the great Verdi tenor arias taken from Luciano Pavarotti's classic recordings, made at the height of his prime.

Packed with famous melodies known and loved the world over, including "Celeste Aïda", "Questa o' quella", "Ah si, ben mio", "Di quella pira" and "La donna è mobile".

This album also includes the arias from the Riccardo Muti complete recording of "Don Carlo".

Sung with Pavarotti's inimitable style and verve, this highly commercial collection will have wide appeal.

2 CDs for the price of 1.

Ian Storey is currently one of the most in-demand dramatic tenors in the Wagnerian repertoire.

21 years ago Ian Storey sang his first solo role, in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia under the baton of Howard Burrell. Ian’s first solo CD completes the circle, released on the newly formed Artist Recording Label (ARC) and once more under the baton of Howard Burrell.

It was Daniel Barenboim who chose Ian to make his debut as Tristan at the opening of the season La Scala in December 2007, a role he has now sung not only at La Scala but also at both the Berlin Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Zurich, Dusseldorf, Barcelona, Bilbao, Oslo and Genova.

Barenboim has high praise for Storey:

‘It’s a wonderful thing for him, a wonderful thing for La Scala, a wonderful thing for the music world, because Tristans don’t grow on trees.’

The “heroic” tenor René Kollo was born in Berlin in 1937. He arrived at Bayreuth, the Wagner sanctum, in 1969 and, for almost a decade and a half, he would be numbered among its greatest stars. An extensive catalogue of recordings, including many award-winning recordings, shows that Kollo was the most active German tenor of his generation. This wide range of repertoire as well as his frequent television appearances have greatly contributed to his popularity over the years.

This historical recording was made in Leipzig in 1949. In the bonus tracks, Bernd Aldenhoff sings works by Wagner, Kienzl, d’Albert and Verdi.

Giuseppe Borgatti was Italy's first truly great Wagnerian tenor. His voice was big and powerful and had a beautiful timbre withan astonishing dynamic range. It is argued that recordings do not do his voice justice, but this release will be of interest to collectors.

Additional tracks are sung by Isadoro Fagoaga.

This 2-CD set marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970) and features recordings ranging from boy cellist in 1911 to international conductor 1969 – in both ‘live’ and studio recordings. John Barbirolli was born in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, on 2 December 1899, a Cockney as he proudly boasted. Or, to be accurate, Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born, son of an Italian émigré violinist and his French wife. English-born with Italo-French parentage – a wonderful pedigree for a musician. And so it proved, for he conducted Elgar, Verdi and Debussy, Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Ravel, with equal sensitivity and perception and intuition. This album of recordings forms a kind of musical biography; and Michael Kennedy’s notes (with many rare photos) trace that life alongside the recordings. A special bonus is the 1947 Austrian Radio recording of two works, Weber’s Euryanthe overture and Delius’s Walk to the Paradise Garden, from the Salzburg Festival concert on 20 August at which he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Was this, Michael Kenneday asks, the first time this orchestra had played the Delius? Two rare mementos of the New York period are included in this album. Anthony Collins had long been a friend of Barbirolli (they played in the LSO together) and worked in the USA from 1936 to 1945 and his Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, based on the two comic characters in Twelfth Night, is an example of his overlooked talent. Another composer almost forgotten today is the Czech-born Jaromir Weinberger whose opera Schwanda the Bagpiper enjoyed inter-war popularity. His Christmas for organ and orchestra was composed in 1929. In 1939 he dedicated his Variations and Fugue on an old English tune, ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’ to Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic.