Most Recent Releases

CASALS plays Elgar and Brahms

by Andrew Rose December 03, 2021

This week's new release brings together two major HMV cello recordings made by Pau Casals: the 1945 Elgar Cello Concerto with Boult and the 1936 Brahms Cello Sonata No. 2 with pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski i...

KEILBERTH conducts Reger & Wolf

by Andrew Rose November 26, 2021

In 1940 a young Joseph Keilberth was recommended by Wilhelm Furtwängler to become the principal conductor of the Deutsches Philharmonisches Orchester of Prague. During his time there, during the most difficu...

DI STEFANO & SCOTTO in Lucia di Lammermoor

by Andrew Rose November 19, 2021

This week’s release celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Giuseppe Di Stefano (1921 –2008), certainly on any opera lover’s short list of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century. It fi...

ROBERT CRAFT conducts Berg

by Andrew Rose November 12, 2021

"[Robert Craft] has turned in a fine and impressive achievement that shows his awareness that Berg has a subtler and more sophisticated discipline than he is sometimes credited with and a clear sort of music...

SERKIN plays Bach and Reger

by Andrew Rose November 05, 2021

This week's release is a first for Pristine: we're bringing you two very special and previously unheard recordings by Rudolf Serkin, recorded decades apart and presented in superb and truly modern sound. The...

KARAJAN conducts Tristan und Isolde, Bayreuth 1952

by Andrew Rose October 29, 2021

This week's release is a real treat for Wagner lovers - a stunning sonic overhaul of the classic 1952 Bayreuth Festival recording of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, with Ramón ...

Hamilton Harty's Acoustic Concerto Recordings

by Andrew Rose October 22, 2021

This release gathers together for the first time all of Hamilton Harty’s recordings of concertos and concerted works with soloists from the acoustic era. Included are a couple acknowledged classic performanc...

SZELL conducts Brahms and Dvořák

by Andrew Rose October 15, 2021

These Decca recordings of Brahms' Symphony No. 3 and Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, made by the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam under the baton of George Szell, were made at what might be seen as the dawn of ...

BASTIANINI'S Superlative 1960 Rigoletto

by Andrew Rose October 08, 2021

"My top [Rigoletto] recommendation – although it comes with a caveat – comes from Florence. In June 1960 Mercury’s Living Presence mobile recording truck arrived at the Teatro della Pergola. Under the direct...

CICCOLINI plays Satie and Franck

by Andrew Rose October 01, 2021

"If Erik Satie were alive today — and what a pity he isn't—he would be just short of 105 years old and, very likely, astonished by the attention his music is getting nowadays. It is the kind and quality of t...

MONTEUX The First NBC Concerts, Vol. 2

by Andrew Rose September 24, 2021

"The performances reveal the qualities that made Monteux such a beloved figure in Europe and the United States for many decades. He was one of those rare conductors who could make a performance sound special...

ZEMLINSKY The Complete Recordings

by Andrew Rose September 17, 2021

"I have admired the work of many conductors during my long career . . . But I think that of all those I have heard I would nominate Alexander von Zemlinsky as the all-round conductor who achieved the most c...

TEBALDI's beautiful Butterfly

by Andrew Rose September 10, 2021

"La Bohème, which Decca have so successfully recorded, is an opera which depends on a first-rate ensemble, but Madama Butterfly first and foremost depends on the artist who sings the name part. Let it be sai...