This week we return to the recordings of Italian baritone Riccardo Stracciari, following last years Barber of Seville from 1929, with the release of his only other full opera recording. Made in 1930 with the same three star names, orchestra and conductor, this Rigoletto is another of the all time classics of the age of sound recording.

Once again Mark Obert-Thorn provides the magical touch in his superb new transfers of the Verdi, and supporting leads Mercedes Capsir (Gilda) and Dino Borgioli (Duke of Mantua) once again provide excellent service alongside the superlative Stracciari. There's a great cast and performance from the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, all again under the baton of Lorenzo Molajoli.

You can hear the full opening scene from Act 1 (minus the prelude) in our high quality online sample - click here and take a listen now, and see if you can't want to hear a whole lot more!

This week sees the release of two broadcast recordings of Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the music of Robert Schumann. We present the 1946 recording of the Symphony No. 2, coupled with the 1949 recording of the Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish", both in superb new Ambient Stereo XR remasters.

Toscanini conducted relatively little Schumann - of the four symphonies he ignored the First, conducted the Fourth (and the Cello Concerto) once, prepared the Second several times, and appeared to concentrate his efforts on the Third, "Rhenish", which together with the Manfred Overture was the work he turned to most frequently.

But for these works he dedicated his full efforts, and the results were remarkable. In his discussion of Toscanini's Schumann, biographer Mortimer H, Frank was to conclude: "In short, these are among the glories of Toscanini’s years at NBC". Listen now to these glories, reproduced more gloriously than ever before.

We begin 2020 with this fabulous collection of Stokowski's French music broadcasts with the NBC SO, in which we've managed to squeeze (almost) everything they broadcast onto a single CD. We have the conductor's arrangement of La cathédrale engloutie along with three other Debussy performances: two excerpts from Le Martyre de saint Sébastien, the Prélude à l'apès-midi d'un faune and another magical Stokowski arrangement of music written for the piano, La soirée dans Grenade from Estampes. We also have the New York première of Darius Milhaud's First Symphony, written in 1939, and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2.

All were recorded from broadcasts made in 1943 and 1944 and comprise Stokowski's entire French music broadcasts with the NBC orchestra, barring one repeat performance of the Faune. One of the many interesting aspects of Stokowski's three-season tenure with the NBC Symphony was the extraordinary amount of new music he programmed. Perhaps even more remarkable was that he played many such works just once for a single radio broadcast but never returned to them. The selected 'Symphonic Fragments' from Debussy's "Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien" are a case in point, as is Darius Milhaud's 1st Symphony.