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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. -
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. -
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. -
The Dream of Gerontius
Filmed in colour from Canterbury Cathedral in 1968, this DVD represents the only existing film of Sir Adrian Boult conducting The Dream of Gerontius. Sir Adrian Boult championed Elgar’s music throughout his life, following the composer’s prophetic words in a letter to the conductor: ‘I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands’. Featuring a stellar cast of soloists including Dame Janet Baker, this performance is redolent of Sir Adrian Boult’s ‘commendable energy and typical humanity’ (The Gramophone Guide review of Boult’s 1975 studio recording of The Dream of Gerontius). This DVD also features a 60-minute documentary on Sir Adrian Boult produced by the BBC in 1989 to celebrate the centenary of his birth. -
Herbert von Karajan
MP3 Album:Mozart Symphony No.41 ‘Jupiter’ - Bruckner Symphony No.7 Wiener Philharmoniker -
John Cranko
THE LADY AND THE FOOL
Svetlana Beriosova, Ray Powell, Ronald Hynde
Royal Opera House Orchestra / Charles Mackerras
STUDIO RECORDING, TRANSMITTED 3 MAY 1959
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PINEAPPLE POLL
Merle Park, David Blair, Stanley Holden, Brenda
Taylor, Gerd Larsen
London Symphony Orchestra / Charles Mackerras
STUDIO RECORDING, TRANSMITTED 1 NOVEMBER 1959