Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Decca recorded a number of albums with some of its key conductors of Overtures. Many of these were singled out by the press for their terrific sound quality (the fabled ‘Decca Sound’) and for their often adventurous programming. Some of them also included entr’actes and intermezzi. Prized as collectors’ items, many of the original LPs exchange hands at high prices. And most of these reissues, in Decca Eloquence’s ‘Romantic Overtures’ series appear in CD, in part or whole, for the first time.

Romantic Overtures – Volume 3 features a conductor who recorded for Decca over a span of 36 years, from the 78 / early LP era (1949) to 1985: Karl Münchinger. Best known for his recordings from the Baroque and Classical eras, made mostly with ‘his’ Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, he also recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic and made just one recording – of Schumann’s Manfred and Gluck’s Alceste Overtures – with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (in 1954). Appearing on CD for the first time, they round off a 2CD set that includes, also for the first time on CD, Münchinger’s recording of Beethoven Overtures, as well as a remarkable recording ‘Romantic Overtures’ of music by Weber, Schumann, Schubert, Cherubini and Mendelssohn. Also included is Schubert’s Zauberharfe overture which appeared on Münchinger’s famous disc of the incidental music for Rosamunde.

Celebrating the performances generated from the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under Dmitri Mitropoulos, this budget reissue set is available at a special price.

Soli Deo Gloria is proud to release the last instalment of its successful Brahms Symphony series which sees John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms.

This album is a celebration of the Fourth Symphony and the various pieces that contributed to its making.

From baroque to romantic, and from great orchestral pieces to intimate choral works, the listener gains a wonderful insight into Brahms’s mind and music making, through pieces that he loved and inspired him.

The Fourth Symphony was described by Richard Strauss as “a giant work, great in concept an invention, masterful in its form, and yet from A to Z genuine Brahms, in a word, an enrichment to our art”. Drawing from many sources of the musical past, it is nevertheless absolutely unique.

It is impregnated with baroque influence – the Finale was directly inspired by Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Brahms enjoyed conducting less known old repertoire such as Gabrieli’s Sanctus Benedictus and Schütz’s Saul, Saul. They influenced his choral writing as we can hear in the Geistliches Lied. Brahms was also famously inspired by Beethoven, and the Finale to the Fourth clearly owes to his Coriolan overture.

The booklet includes a conversation between John Eliot Gardiner and composer Hugh Wood, explaining how the pieces relate to each other and giving a moving account of Brahms as a composer and as a man.

This recording was made during the 2008 Brahms: Roots and Memories tour.

In the latest instalment of the Decca Ansermet Legacy, Decca Eloquence introduces the Swiss conductor's recordings of Beethoven - his symphony cycle, overtures and the rare Weingartner arrangement of the Grosse Fuge. They are issued as three 2-CD sets.

Francois Hudry, the supreme commentator on the art of Ernest Ansermet writes, "the new vision he brought to the Beethoven symphonies was astonishing. Perhaps he was too early in what he did, in his respect for the text and in his weeding out of all the Romantic touches and subjectivity which held sway at the time. Without recourse to so-called 'authentic' instruments, Ansermet was trying to return to the composer's intentions, as given in the score, avoiding the imposition of any responses of his own on the audience."

In Beethoven, Ansermet heard not just a titan but a romantic, sensual man, not just a thunderer but composer of sensitivity and subtlety. Even the mighty 'Eroica' was allowed to a reveal a softer, perhaps even a more feminine aspect. Whether he was conducting Beethoven or Ravel, Ansermet had a fine ear for instrumental colour, and a talent for keeping rhythms well-sprung and flexible. At times, Ansermet's Beethoven even seems to anticipate the 'authentic' Beethoven performances that became popular in the 1990s, although Ansermet got his results without having to rely on the sometimes unpredictable behaviour of period instruments.