Saint-Saëns: Wedding Cake - Valse-Caprice for piano & strings, Op. 76

Saint-Saens complete piano concertos on a 2CD Eloquence set presents some truly rare recordings - Campanella's of the Fourth and Tagliaferro's of the Fifth. And while the second is oft-played, this set gives the listener an opportunity to discover the lesser known First and Third. Also included is the first release on CD of Wedding Cake, with Daniel Chorzempa, familiar to all as an organist, playing the piano.

The details are unclear, but one thing is certain: our couple loves classical music. This recording tells a love story with a happy ending, through a number of short but elegant compositions. Even small-scale works can be great in their own way and, compiled in such a creative manner and performed by such excellent musicians, they offer the listener an hour of sheer amazement and amusement.

From Jacques Ibert's Divertissement for chamber orchestra (when the couple first meet), via Anton Heberle's Concerto in G major (the wedding music) through to Peter Heidrich's Variations on Happy Birthday (the happy ending and final celebration), the orchestra accompanies the couple not only when they indulge their liking of tea during their honeymoon, but adding music from all eras as a backdrop to their relationship.

Since its establishment in 1935, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana has enjoyed a status as one of Switzerland's best-known orchestras, working regularly with renowned conductors and prestigious soloists.

On this recording, the ensemble is conducted by the English conductor Howard Griffiths, who has guest conducted many leading orchestras worldwide and is currently GMD of the Brandenburg State Orchestra. The soloists are Maurice Steger (recorder), who was hailed in The Independent newspaper as "the world's leading recorder virtuoso", and the pianist Davide Cabassi, finalist at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

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.