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GREGORIO ALLEGRI / CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
Anamorfosi Le Poème Harmonique / Vincent Dumestre [ Alpha Classics / CD - released 27/Sep/2019 ] "This is an album so nuanced you can almost taste it." Recording of the Month Awards Issue 2019 |
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LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 - 9 Leipzig Radio Choir / Dresden Opera Chorus / Staatskapelle Dresden. Herbert Blomstedt [ Brilliant Classics / 5 CD Box Set - released 20/Apr/2012 ] "Highlights of this cycle are many: a grand and glorious Eroica, a lithe and lyrical Second and Fourth, a pellucid Sixth with luminous wind playing, an exciting Ninth (with) a marvelously well sung finale." (ClassicsToday 10/10) |
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LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: The Cello Sonatas (LP) Leonard Elschenbroich (cello) & Alexei Grynyuk (piano) [ Onyx / 3 LP - released 3/May/2019 ] The five cello sonatas span Beethoven's three creative periods, with the audacious op.5 sonatas dating from the early years on his time in Vienna as a piano virtuoso and aspiring composer (1792-9), the great op.69 sonata is from the period that saw... |
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FRANCESCO SACRATI
Sacrati: La finta pazza Leonardo García Alarcón; Cappella Mediterranea [ Château de Versailles Spectacles / 3 CD Box Set - released 27/May/2022 ] 1645: for the pleasure of the Queen Mother Anne of Austria, and attended by a young King Louis XIV, Cardinal Mazarin put on the first Italian opera in Paris. The Italian company, invited at great expense, performed Sacrati's La Finta Pazza. |
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Leroy Anderson
Classical Juke Box [ Naxos Nostalgia / CD - released 2/Dec/2002 ] |
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MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER
Charpentier: A Christmas oratorio (Un Oratorio de Noel) Les Arts Florissants, William Christie [ Harmonia Mundi / CD - released 5/Nov/2021 ] Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed some of the most important works of seventeenth-century French music on the subject of the Nativity and its tutelary figure, the Virgin Mary, from dramatic oratorios in Latin to secular cantatas in the vernacular.... |
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MONTEVERDI / BONONCINI / CHARPENTIER / HANDEL / LULLY / PURCELL / RAMEAU
William Christie: The Complete Erato Recordings Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, with Sophie Daneman, Natalie Dessay, Renee Fleming, Ian Bostridge, Philippe Jaroussky, Mark Padmore, etc [ Erato / 61 CD Box Set - released 7/Mar/2025 ] William Christie is renowned for his pioneering work in the revival of Baroque music. Born in 1944, he founded the ensemble Les Arts Florissants in 1979, which has become a leading force in historically informed performance. |
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J. S. BACH
Bach: Cantatas Vol 27: Whit Tuesday BWV184 & 175 / Trinity Sunday BWV194, 176, 165 & 129 Lisa Larsson, Nathalie Stutzmann, Christoph Genz, Paul Agnew / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner [ Soli Deo Gloria / 2 CD - released 22/Mar/2008 ] 'What this survey reveals is a deep personal affection for the repertoire and a refreshing, expressive spontaneity often missing from studio recordings but which here captures the moment of live performance.' BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009: Choral... |
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GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony no. 2 in c minor 'Resurrection' Lisa Milne / Birgit Remmert / Budapest Festival Orchestra / Ivan Fischer [ Channel Classics SACD / 2 Hybrid SACD - released 20/Oct/2006 ] "This Budapest band have reserves aplenty, and the cumulative effect is overwhelming. As all good performances of this work must be. I listened to it three times in three days." (Gramophone Magazine Recording of the Month Awards Issue 2006) |
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GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL
Handel: Theodora (complete oratorio) Lisette Oropesa, Joyce DiDonato, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Michael Spyres, John Chest / Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev [ Erato / 3 CD Box Set - released 18/Nov/2022 ] BBC Music Magazine Award Nomination 2023 - Choral |
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ROSS HARRIS
Harris: Symphony No. 4, "To the memory of Mahinārangi Tocker" / Cello Concerto Li-wei Qin (cello) / Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Brett Dean, Garry Walker [ Naxos / CD - released 10/May/2014 ] "There is no question that the Auckland Philharmonic are superbly in control as is Brett Dean, himself a violist and composer and just forging an extra career as a conductor. The recording is vivid and allows the music space although the quiet passag |
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FRANZ SCHUBERT
Schubert: Symphonies 4, 5, 6 & 8 London Classical Players, Roger Norrington [ Virgin Veritas / Warner Classics / 2 CD - released 7/Sep/2003 ] Classic recordings of Norrington's Schubert now at budget price |
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BEETHOVEN / MOZART / BRAHMS / HANDEL / HAYDN / MENDELSSOHN / ROSSINI / etc
Roger Norrington - The Complete Erato Recordings London Classical Players, The Schutz Choir of London, Sir Roger Norrington, with Melvyn Tan (piano) & Daniel Hope (violin) [ Erato Veritas / 45 CD Box Set - released 11/Nov/2022 ] Innovator, erudite, entertaining and acclaimed conductor Sir Roger Norrington founded the Schütz Choir, became founding music director of Kent Opera and established the London Classical Players, the period-instrument orchestra. |
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GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL
Handel: Chandos Te Deum HWV 281, Chandos Anthem No.8 HWV 253 London Handel Orchestra & Soloists, Adrian Butterfield [ Onyx / CD - released 23/Nov/2018 ] Before coming into contact with James Brydges, Earl of Carnarvon, Handel was is dire straits in London. His pension of £200 a year for teaching the Royal princesses had stopped, so had the public taste for opera. London had plunged into a hedonistic,... |
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VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Sacred Treasures of Christmas The London Oratory Schola Cantorum / Charles Cole [ Hyperion / CD - released 30/Oct/2020 ] A celebration of Christmas from the Nativity through to Candlemas, in music from across sixteenth-century Europe: Renaissance polyphony at its finest. |
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GUSTAV HOLST
Holst: The Planets (LP) London Philharmonic Orchestra, Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, Sir Adrain Boult [ Warner Classics / LP - released 19/Jun/2020 ] 'This magnificent performance of The Planets, recorded with an opulent realism, brings to a culmination Boult's supreme understanding of this work.' Gramophone |
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RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Vaughan Williams: The New Collector's Edition Joan Rodgers, William Shimmell, Vernon Handley, Adrian Boult, Richard Hickox, Helen Watts, Janet Baker, Robert Tear, etc [ Warner Classics / 30 CD Box Set - released 30/Sep/2022 ] This edition presents all the major orchestral, chamber, vocal and stage works, as well as many lesser pieces and rarities, in the finest interpretations. All your favourite Vaughan Williams is here, in over 34 hours of music on 30 CDs. |
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Shostakovich: Complete Symphonies National Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Academy Symphony, Mstislav Rostropovich [ Warner Classics / 12 CD Box Set - released 19/Mar/2007 ] Composed over a period of nearly 50 years, Dmitri Shostakovich's 15 symphonies are astonishingly diverse in conception and expression, reflecting the composer's personal experiences, the history of the 20th century and the tensions and struggles of... |
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IGOR STRAVINSKY
Stravinsky: The Firebird - Complete Ballet (LP) London Symphony Orchestra, Antal Doráti [ Mercury / LP - released 25/Feb/2022 ] Revolutionary in its time, 'The Firebird' is a story in musical textures and dynamics perfectly suited to the Mercury technique. Dorati and The LSO present each nuance in perfect scale and balance. |
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FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Mendelssohn: Symphonies & Overtures London Symphony Orchestra, The Monteverdi Choir, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Lucy Crowe (soprano) [ LSO / 4 CD Box Set - released 21/Sep/2019 ] LSO Live presents Sir John Eliot Gardiner's award-winning Mendelssohn series together in its entirety for the first time. Captured over three seasons during critically acclaimed concerts in the Barbican Hall, this set offers listeners the definitive... |