-
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.
-
Sir Thomas Beecham (Richard Itter Collection Vol.1)
MP3 Album:
Sir Thomas Beecham caught ‘live’ often showed the mercurial side of his character, and no performance was the same either in the studio or in the concert hall. ‘What Beecham sought at all times was freshness, and his unpredictability was a way to achieve this’ (David Patmore). All the performances included here from the Edinburgh Festival, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and the BBC Studios are from Beecham’s final years, from 1954 when he had fully established the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and himself as central figures in England’s musical life, to 1959 when he conducted an extraordinarily memorable account of Brahms’s Symphony No.2. Every broadcast is captured here in exemplary sound for the time, and apart from the Liszt and Haydn Symphony No.101, none of the performances in this set have appeared on CD before, which makes it extremely important for all collectors of the conductor.
-
Karl Böhm: Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (Richard Itter Collection)
MP3 Album:
Walter Berry reflected in an interview in 1985, 'we played in the Theater an der Wien (during the rebuilding of the Vienna State Opera) and we developed a certain style, a Mozart style which was connected very much to the singers of that time ... this was an incredible ensemble'. Harold Rosenthal, Editor of Opera magazine, described the staged performance at London's Royal Festival Hall on 13 September 1954 as 'a sheer delight', highlighting the performances of Erich Kunz (Figaro) and Sena Jurinac (Cherubino), while Irmgard Seefried (Susanna) was 'one of the joys of this recording' (George Hall). These Richard Itter tapes of the live broadcast have never been released before, and the superb recording fully captures the atmosphere in this light-footed performance in a packed Royal Festival Hall to perfection.