BRILLIANT CLASSICS

(5CD) L' ARTE DEL VIOLINO
Following on from their highly acclaimed recording of Pietro Locatelli's Violin Sonatas (described by Robert Maxham in Fanfare magazine as a '...most enjoyable, most entertaining and, at times, most moving...' collection), Ensemble Violini Capricciosi and Igor Ruhadze here turn their attention to the Italian composer's violin concertos, works that are renowned for comprising some of the greatest technical challenges ever written for the instrument. 14 concertos span the five-disc set, 12 of which were published as part of the infamous L'ar...
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(3-CD SET) GENNADY ROZHDESTVENSKY CONDUCTS SHOSTAKOVICH
Born in Moscow on 4 May 1931, Gennady Rozhdestvensky stands as one of the Russia's greatest conductors. Having studied at the city's conservatoire, he later became associated with orchestras including the Bolshoi and Western ensembles such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. He was a regular frequenter of the Proms, a man with an extensive, complex discography who was as much at home in the opera and ballet as in the symphony and concerto. Here the maestro conducts an all-Shostakovich programme, beginning with the towering 'Leningrad' sy...
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(5CD) SACRED MUSIC
"Seculi sui Musicus excellentissimus" was the epitaph inscribed on his tombstone in the old Frauenkirche of Dresden - to his contemporaries, the Saxon-born Heinrich Schutz was one of the most outstanding composers of the century, and even writers of music history today refer to him as 'Musicus poeticus ecclesiasticus', whose works were and are still the epitome of Protestant church music. This collection is a tribute to the great Baroque composer, who received most of his training in Venice from the organist of St Mark's, Giovanni Gabrieli...
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(2CD) VESPRO DELLA BEATA VERGINE
Dedicated to Pope Paul V, Monterverdi's Vespers of 1610 is one of the great masterpieces of the early Baroque. The score features an amazing variety of styles - grand choral and instrumental, solo motets, two settings of the Magnificat, duets and trios in the latest monodic style, and above all, a sense of theatre, which might be explained by Monteverdi's composition of two operas at around the same time, L'Orfeo and L'Arianna. At this point of his life, Monteverdi was still working for the Gonzaga family and the Duke of Mantua, a far fro...
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(CD) OPERA OVERTURES
Recorded in 2002, this release contains a unique program of the complete overtures of all Vivaldi's operas. As an opera composer, Vivaldi has long been neglected, but these works showcase his great dramatic genius. Performances on period instruments by Modo Antiquo, conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli, one of the foremost specialists in this field, who has also recorded for full price labels such as Na?ve and Deutsche Grammophon....
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(2CD) L'ESTRO ARMONICO
Antonio Vivaldi was one of the most successful composers of the Baroque era, best known for his iconic set concertos for violin, The Four Seasons. L'Estro Armonico Op.3 is among the most important printed editions of Vivaldi's concertos; the works immediately met with great acclaim after their publication in 1711, giving way to over 30 reprints in the subsequent 32 years. Indeed, this was the first collection of concerti to be published with a title, showing that the composer himself was aware of the nature of this extraordinary event. The...
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(4-CD SET) COMPLETE HARPSICHORD AND ORGAN MUSIC
Spanning 4 CDs and presenting over three hours of absorbing listening, this charming release explores the musical output of Georg Boehm - one of the most important German organists and composers around the turn of the 18th century, and who is considered to have had a major influence on the training of Johann Sebastian Bach. The compilation focuses on the main nucleus of Boehm's output, his works for keyboard, and divides equally into those for harpsichord and/or organ. Of chief interest among the pieces for the former instrument are the 11...
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(7-CD SET) COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS
The genius of Beethoven is probably not most commonly associated with chamber music. Indeed, for considerable stretches of his career he avoided the string quartet, a musical form with such an exalted status at the time; he mostly took on the challenge towards the ends of what are often regarded as his two 'creative periods'. When he did, however, he was at the pinnacle of his chamber music abilities. The pieces in this collection can be grouped according to three distinct periods of Beethoven's life. The first set are to some extent inde...
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(CD) MUSIC FOR CLARINET AND PIANO
This fascinating disc brings together some real musical rarities: the unpublished clarinet works of Archduke Rudolph of Austria, a pianist and amateur composer who is best known for being a pupil and patron of Beethoven. In the early 19th century, Rudolph began taking piano and composition lessons with Beethoven; they became close friends and the Archduke went on to become the composer's patron. Beethoven dedicated no fewer than 14 works to Rudolph - including some of his greatest masterpieces such as the 'Emperor' Concerto, the 'Hammerkla...
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(CD) VIOLIN CONCERTOS
The great Johann Sebastian Bach grew up around violin music: his father Johann Ambrosius was an accomplished violinist. This influence is reflected in Sebastian's compositional output, which contains a large number of solo and ensemble works for the instrument - including the concertos on this recording. The works, written in approximately 1720, are based on Vivaldi's concerto model from the beginning of the 18th century, and - in the case of the D minor and G minor concertos - are reconstructions of the harpsichord concertos. Indeed, many...
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(2CD) TRIO SONATAS OP.1
Here's another engaging release dedicated to Vivaldi's chamber music from the renowned Italian ensemble L'Arte dell'Arco, one which visits the earlier part of the Baroque composer's career through detailing his first published work (in 1705), the 12 Trio Sonatas Op.1. Federico Guglielmo, principal violinist and co-founder of the ensemble, explains in the liner notes that 'in those days the first work a composer had printed often represented not only proof of maturity and membership of the circle of composers, but also the most corrected an...
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(2CD) 12 SINFONIE DI CONCERTO GROSSO
As compositions, Alessandro Scarlatti's Sinfonie di concerto grosso are a curiously mixed bag; only the first is a proper 'sinfonia', while the second is described as a "Concertata con li ripieni"; eight of the twelve are actually recorder concertos and the other four are concertos featuring various combinations of instruments. Although Scarlatti may have thrown the term around rather loosely, however, the diverse collection brims with his characteristic inventiveness, performed with aplomb by Corina Marti and the Capella Tiberina. Despit...
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(2CD) CELLO DUETS
Jacques Offenbach is undoubtedly best known for his operettas. Yet, being a virtuoso cellist from a young age, it was inevitable that the composer would write for this instrument. His cello duets were born out of the desire to create works that combine beauty, technical brilliance and a great sense of fun. A vivid imagination comprises the suites that make up Cours m?thodique de duos. The works contain much musical parody, containing references to mountain choruses and funeral processions, among others, and imitating - with the cello - the...
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(CD) NEAPOLITAN KEYBOARD MUSIC
At the turn of the 17th century, Naples was a thriving hub of music, its reach expanding out of Italy to touch all corners of the continent. The influence of the Neapolitan School extended far and wide, attracting talented musicians from Spain and northern Europe. This release brings together some of the most innovative composers of the time, including Alessandro Scarlatti, Trabaci and De Macque, composers whose works inspired generations of writers of keyboard music for years to come, not least Alessandro's well-known son Domenico. The pi...
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(CD) SINFONIAS
The eldest of Johann Sebastian Bach's many sons, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was very possibly the most gifted of them all. Trained by his father, he cultivated a highly sensitive and refined musical language, as well as a bold and inventive style that was far ahead of his time. Yet his music is often misunderstood and underappreciated. As conductor Hartmut Haenchen explains in his liner notes, one of the reasons for this is that much of W.F. Bach's output has been destroyed or lost. This disc includes three world premiere recordings of sinfon...
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(CD) GAYANEH - SPARTACUS
Along with Shostakovich and Prokofiev, Khachaturian was one of the most famous and celebrated composers of the Soviet Union. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, his earliest musical influences were the folk music of Georgia and of his ancestral homeland, Armenia. His ballet Gayaneh, composed in 1942, tapped into this passion for his Armenian heritage; set on a collective farm, its story is concerned with the triumph of love and loyalty to the Motherland over treason -- themes that would keep Stalin happy. Khachaturian's later ballet Spartacus, writt...
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(CD) MAGNIFICAT
C.P.E. Bach is particularly renowned for his unrivalled piano sonatas in the sensitive style ('empfindsamer Stil'), and contributed to almost every important form of classical music, but he began to recognise the symphony as a medium of great expressive potential in the mid-18th century, and eventually wrote an impressive total of 19 works within this genre. Two splendid examples are presented here. The Symphony Wq173 owes its charm to small surprises such as a sudden shift to the minor key in the recapitulation of the first movement, but ...
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(5-CD) SONATAS
Baroque powerhouse Domenico Scarlatti -- son of the great Alessandro Scarlatti and born in 1600, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friderich Handel -- wrote an enormous 555 keyboard sonatas. These were mostly to be performed on the harpsichord, although several sources suggest that he may have also written some for the fortepiano at the Spanish court, where he was employed from 1733. The universal appeal of these sonatas -- containing Scarlatti's trademark influence of Iberian folk music and dances -- is such that they have...
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(CD) THREE CONCERTOS
Not the conductor Daniele Gatti (though he has been known to compose), or indeed the great Gatti-Casazza, moonlighting from his wheeling and dealing around La Scala: but Luigi Gatti, 1740-1817: a long-lived, prolific, almost completely unknown Classical figure whose name is largely remembered, if at all, for its tangential appearance in Mozart's life and letters. Leopold and Wolfgang first bumped into Gatti in Mantua, in 1770, by which time he was already a respected Abb?, ordained and in charge of music and musicians. But it was when Gatt...
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(3-CD SET) MARIA YUDINA PLAYS J.S. BACH, BEETHOVEN, BRAHMS, LISZT
One of the few artists openly opposed to the Soviet leadership, Maria Yudina today ranks among the greatest musicians of her age. A phenomenal pianist who is particularly remembered for the virtuosity, spirituality and intellectual rigour of her playing, she prized Bach above all, as did all the Great Russian pianists of her day, but ventured far forward into the music of her own time, and was friends with many dissident artists and composers. Stalin famously had a soft spot for her Mozart playing; it is thought that this is what prevented...
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