This release brings you Toscanini and the NBC Symphony playing five works by Brahms: the Academic Festival Overture, Gesang der Parzen (a world première recording), Haydn Variations, four Hungarian Dances and the Tragic Overture, a piece which had featured on the conductor's first ever concert programme 57 years earlier.

These five recordings, made between 1948 and 1953, come through in superb, vibrant and rich sound that strips away the decades in a way never heard before in these much-loved recordings. It's an irresistible treat for the ears!

BARBIROLLI PROMOTION: From 3pm Paris time (2pm GMT, 9am EST), Friday 2 Devcember, and for exactly 7 days until the same time Friday 9 December, get 10% off all our recordings by Sir John Barbirolli as we celebrate the cellist and conductor's 123rd birthday!

"The sonic improvement is remarkable; we now have a new breadth and vividness of a kind never encountered before." - MusicWeb International (on Vol. 1)

This week we complete the iconic Sibelius Symphony cycle recorded by Anthony Collins and the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca in the 1950s. This third and final volume features Symphonies 5, 6 and 7 - and once again they sound magnificent!

BLACK FRIDAY PROMOTION: From 3pm Paris time (2pm GMT, 9am EST), Friday 25 November, and for exactly 48 hours until the same time Sunday 27 November, get 25% off all our download recordings and our Digital Music Collection - that's a massive €300 reduction on the latter!

This week’s release presents a legendary opera recording, one so highly esteemed by Fanfare critic James Altena that he included it among the seven complete opera sets of the 78 rpm era which remain “unsuperseded” and “indispensable to every historic opera collection” – the 1928 La Scala recording of Verdi’s Aïda with Dusolina Giannini and Aureliano Pertile, conducted by Carlo Sabajno, in a fabulous new transfer for Pristine by Mark Obert-Thorn.

We still can’t stop playing repeatedly, just for sheer pleasure, the beginning of Act 2, Scene 2, with the chorus, Triumphal March and dances, and marvel at the presence and detail that has emerged from the original recording.  We hope you will be swept away as well by the sound and performances in this grandest of grand operas!

ORMANDY 123RD BIRTHDAY PROMOTION: From 3pm Paris time, Friday 18 November, and for exactly one week, we mark the birthday of EUGENE ORMANDY with a special 10% discount on all our recordings of his music, in download or CD format - the discount is automatic and will be applied at the checkout.