Legacy
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Leopold Stokowski: Great recordings from the BBC Legends archive
Leopold Stokowski’s eminence as one of the truly great conductors of the 20th century, in a career which spanned six decades, is exemplified in this 6CD set. It features BBC performances in stereo of many of the symphonies and works he performed in concert during his final years and, in many cases, premiered on record in his early years.Buy | Stream | Download -
Herbert von Karajan & Clara Haskil: Mozart
The combination of Herbert von Karajan and the revered Romanian pianist Clara Haskil (1895-1960) was an ideal partnership. Karajan had an extraordinary rapport with her, describing her career as 'a long and often sorrowful march to glory' due to Haskil's well documented ill-health.Buy | Stream | Download -
Robert Casadesus (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer who knew and worked with Ravel. He was especially known for his celebrated performances of the Mozart Concertos accompanied on record by George Szell – Gramophone called it ‘exquisite Mozart playing’, as well as his recordings of Ravel, Fauré and Debussy. He recorded Beethoven’s First, Fourth and Fifth Concertos, the latter two multiple times, though these were all made in the studio. He also extensively recorded the Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Zino Francescatti, who also appears in ICA Classics’ Pierre Monteux set.Buy | Stream | Download -
Yehudi Menuhin: Mozart Violin Concertos (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:This is the first time that these ‘live’ performances have been released and they are therefore of enormous interest to collectors and completists of this great violinist.Buy | Stream | Download -
Otto Klemperer (Richard Itter Collection Vol.2)
MP3 Album:This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive of ‘live’ recordings. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market. Following the archive’s launch in October 2017 with releases featuring Beecham, Böhm, Cantelli, Karajan, du Pré, Klemperer and Rostropovich, it has received universal praise from both the classical media and record collectors for the excellent sound and performances.Buy | Stream | Download -
Bruno Walter (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:Bruno Walter’s (1876-1962) appearance in 1955 with the BBCSO formed part of the BBC’s May Festival, an annual event which looked back to the pre-war London Music Festival. The present recordings have never been previously issued and serve to illustrate his genius - he showed no diminution of his powers on the podium despite celebrating his 80th birthday the following year.Buy | Stream | Download -
Pierre Monteux (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:The great French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) was naturally considered a specialist of his native country’s music, though he would never allow this to restrict him. This new set of previously unpublished recordings seeks to set the record straight, with a strong representation of German repertoire, notably Brahms’ Symphony No.3 with the Boston Symphony, which he never recorded commercially, in a rare ‘live’ performance from the 1956 Edinburgh Festival. More Brahms featuring two celebrated virtuosos – the Violin Concerto with the French violinist Zino Francescatti, and the Double Concerto where he is joined by his compatriot Pierre Fournier, both ‘live’ recordings from the Royal Festival Hall in 1955. Both are previously unpublished.Buy | Stream | Download -
Jacqueline du Pré & Mstislav Rostropovich: Schumann & Dvořák Cello Concertos (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:This previously unreleased live recording of Jacqueline du Pré playing the Schumann Cello Concerto is her first public performance of the work, given in the Royal Festival Hall on 12 December 1962 with Jean Martinon conducting the BBCSO. She had worked intensively on the concerto with Paul Tortelier in Paris prior to this concert. When Du Pré studied the Schumann with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1966, he exclaimed, ‘This is the most perfect Schumann I have ever heard’. The 1962 live performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto by Rostropovich has also not been released before. He is partnered by Carlo Maria Giulini, who went on to to make a studio recording of the same concerto with him in 1977. The Times critic described this Edinburgh Festival performance as an ‘exciting’ and ‘emotionally supercharged interpretation’ with Giulini’s reading ‘full of finely wrought points of detail’. The attractive bonus features Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya in the Ária from Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras.Buy | Stream | Download -
Herbert von Karajan (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market. Herbert von Karajan’s association with the Philharmonia Orchestra started in 1948 and continued to 1960. Despite this long relationship, there are practically no live recordings from London’s Royal Festival Hall of Karajan and the Philharmonia caught on the wing.Buy | Stream | Download -
BBC Legends Vol. 2
MP3 Album:ICA Classics are proud to release a second volume of the best selling BBC Legends box, featuring 20 CDs of some of the greatest artists of the 20th Century. Volume 1 was released in 2013 and comprised 20 CDs taken from the award winning BBC Legends catalogue (unavailable since 2010). Here is the follow-up with a further 20 CDs. The artists include Arturo Toscanini, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Kirsten Flagstad, Victoria de los Angeles, Sir Thomas Beecham, Carlo Maria Giulini, Igor Stravinsky, Pierre Monteux, Yehudi Menuhin, Andres Segovia, Dame Myra Hess, Nathan Milstein, Walter Gieseking, Arthur Rubinstein, Geza Anda, Claudio Arrau, Eduard van Beinum, Sir William Walton, Pierre Fournier, Benjamin Britten and the Borodin Quartet. Contains interviews/memories of Kirsten Flagstad and Carlo Maria Giulini.Buy | Stream | Download -
Great Italian Operas
MP3 Album:This set features two classic performances from the golden age of the Covent Garden Opera Company and a sparkling Falstaff from the Edinburgh Festival, combining masterworks of Italian opera by Puccini, Verdi and Rossini into one outstanding collection. Carefully remastered and restored, the recordings feature a stellar cast of Italian singers and conductors, including renowned soprano Renata Tebaldi, said by Toscanini to possess ‘the voice of an angel’.Buy | Stream | Download -
Great Choral Classics
MP3 Album:WILLIAM STEINBERG BEETHOVEN Missa solemnis – 1973 ICAC 5054 IGOR MARKEVITCH VERDI Messa da Requiem – 1960 ROSSINI Overtures – 1957 ICAC 5068 (2CD) DIMITRI MITROPOULOS BERLIOZ Requiem (Grande Messe des morts) – 1956 ICAC 5075 GENNADI ROZHDESTVENSKY MAHLER Das klagende Lied – 1981 JANÁCEK The Fiddler’s Child – 1979 ICAC 5080Buy | Stream | Download
CD releases from the Legacy Series