Brahms: Hungarian Dances

In the nineteenth century, Gypsy music and Hungarian music joyfully combined forces. For the Viennese, Hungary was represented above all by its dances with their lively rhythms. Brahms took those themes, which are still as popular today as they were then, and produced this striking work, full of colour and variety, but also subtlety.

Wilhelm Furtwängler, to give him his full name, was born in Berlin on 25 January 1886. His father was an archaeologist and his mother a painter. Both were cultured and enlightened people who brought up their eldest son in the beliefs of German humanism. When the young Wilhelm showed early signs of exceptional talent they decided to provide him with a private education based around the Arts. Although his artistic interests were wide it was music that eventually became his overriding passion and he started learning the piano at an early age, composing his first music at the age of seven. The idea of becoming a composer was his prime ambition, despite the failure of his early attempts at composition.

Several factors led to Furtwängler taking up the baton: the wish to conduct his own works; his increasing interest in the art of interpretation and the need to make a living, following the death of his father in 1907. His first concert as conductor was in Munich in 1906 with a programme of works by Bruckner and Beethoven as well as one of his own pieces. His rise to fame as a conductor was quite rapid and, after working in Breslau, Zurich and at the court opera in Munich, he gained his first big appointments at the Lübeck Opera (1911-1915) and in Mannheim (1915-1920). In 1920 he succeeded Richard Strauss as conductor of the Berlin Staatsoper concerts and in 1922, after the death of Nikisch, he took over the conductorship of the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. It was at this time that he also began a long and successful relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. But it was with the Berlin Philharmonic that Furtwängler was to remain for the rest of his career.

Throughout the 1920s and '30s Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic went on a series of European tours to Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary and England. In 1937 Furtwängler conducted at Covent Garden as part of the Coronation celebrations and, in 1938, he was back again to conduct two cycles of the Ring. At this time, too, Furtwängler found himself inextricably involved in the politics of Germany. His liberal outlook meant that it was difficult for him to see Nazism as a serious threat to his country and he dissociated himself from it and opposed it whenever he could. He refused to give the Nazi salute, even in the presence of Adolf Hitler, and used his influence to save the lives of as many Jewish musicians as he could. In spite of this and because of his rather naive political outlook many outside Germany saw his continued residence and musical activity as a kind of collaboration. The final ten years of Furtwängler's life were dogged by controversy, not helped by the American Military Government in post-war Germany delaying his denazification process until 1947, when he was once again allowed to take up conducting.

Success in Europe quickly followed and he appeared with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras as well as local orchestras in London, Stockholm, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Milan, Salzburg and Paris. It is from this time that the superb recordings in this 20-CD set were made. Here is a special selection of some of EMI's celebrated Furtwängler recordings, some recorded live at concerts and some made in the studios. The combination of Furtwängler and EMI brought about one of the greatest collaborations in recording history and the Company is proud to be able to contribute this set to the 125th birthday celebrations of a great conductor.

84 CDs + 1 DVD

Arturo Toscanini was the most celebrated conductor of his time, considered by many to be the greatest conductor of the twentieth century. He revolutionized musical interpretation by frequently insisting that his orchestras play the music exactly as written, a highly unusual practice in the nineteenth century, when Toscanini began his career. He conducted the world premieres of such operas as Puccini's "La Boheme" and "Turandot", and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci".

This set offers a reissue of RCA’s 1992 compendium that encompassed all the recordings that Toscanini made with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and NBC Symphony Orchestra. It also features 2 CDs of previously unreleased recordings with the BBC Symphony from the 1930s that were not included in the 1992 edition. From the Maestro’s acoustic recordings of 1920-21 with La Scala orchestra to his 1954 retirement, this collection spans all the years in which Toscanini’s career veered away from the opera house as it moved (after his 1937 Salzburg Festival appearances) exclusively to the concert hall.

As with his NBC broadcasts and recordings, these BBC and Philadelphia accounts disprove the specious notion that Toscanini’s interpretation was always the same from one performance of a given work to the next. The BBC recordings have special value for occurring in Queen’s Hall, acoustically London’s finest concert venue, which was sadly destroyed in World War II bombings. Particularly interesting are three NBC performances of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, two from broadcasts (October 28, 1939 and December 6, 1953, the third from a 1949 Carnegie Hall recording session). As heard in a 78-rpm RCA set, the 1939 performance was a sonic disaster in its dry, cramped, dynamically limited acoustic. As experienced here in a transfer made from NBC reference discs, it suggests a clean, vivid LP from the mid 1950’s. With each performance being somewhat different from the other, they serve as a reminder of how Toscanini was invariably rethinking his approach to a particular work.

The complete recordings made for RCA by Arturo Toscanini reissued in a beautiful new 84 CD + DVD box set, with extra previously unissued bonus materials added.

All recordings appear in latest re-mastered versions.

Includes 2 CDs of newly released recordings, originally made for HMV with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Hardcover book with liner notes by Toscanini biographers Mortimer F. Frank and Michael Stegemann and complete RCA discography.

Bonus DVD “The Maestro”.

84 CDs + 1 DVD in double walled cardboard sleeves in lift off cap box, hardcover book with 2 essays & RCA discography.