Most Recent Releases

BJÖRLING in Puccini's Manon Lescaut (Met, 1956)

by Andrew Rose April 26, 2019

"To judge from the freshness and warmth, the solidity and ring of the sound he is currently producing, this should be but a waypoint on a singing career paralleled by few tenors of our time. With all respect...

Stokowski's Brahms Cycle Completed: Symphonies 2 & 4

by Andrew Rose April 19, 2019

Thursday 18th April, was Leopold Stokowski's 137th birthday. Two years ago, to mark the conductor's 135th birthday, and the 40th anniversary of his death, we began this short series of three CD releases cont...

Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven Cycle Completed

by Andrew Rose April 12, 2019

"The Ninth symphony, given with the assisting quartet of Jarmila Novotna, Kerstin Thorborg, Jan Peerce and Nicola Moscona, was of course the capstone of the occasion, and for everyone involved a towering exp...

KOUSSEVITZKY conducts Barber, Honegger, Sibelius

by Andrew Rose April 05, 2019

Serge Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts were not broadcast during the 1948-9 season and all these recordings were ‘bootlegs’ made by the owner of a Boston recording studio who set up a microp...

Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven Cycle, Part 5

by Andrew Rose March 29, 2019

"The fifth broadcast concert of Toscanini’s Beethoven cycle with the NBC Symphony Orchestra took place last night at Radio City. Of the master’s physical life, the program traversed the first three decades o...

Fabien Sevitzky in Indianapolis

by Andrew Rose March 22, 2019

"Fabien Sevitzky appears to have been an excellent conductor, eminently deserving of renewed attention. In these performances he imposes tight orchestral discipline and firm tempos, but he also generates rhy...

Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven Cycle, Pt. 4

by Andrew Rose March 15, 2019

"Mr. Toscanini would probably agree with the Arabian philosopher who discovered in a small ring the reflection of the completeness of the universe. Here, in simple melodic lines and small dimensioned forms, ...

Giulini in Boston, 1962

by Andrew Rose March 08, 2019

This week we have something very special and unusual for you. The Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini only paid three visits to Boston as guest conductor of the BSO - once in 1962, and later again in 1969 ...

Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven Cycle, Pt. 3

by Andrew Rose March 01, 2019

"When Beethoven’s “Pastoral” is played with the beauty, clearness and meticulous finish of phrase that Mr. Toscanini bestows upon it there is a new realization of the beauty of the music and its craftsmanshi...

Alexander Brailowsky plays Liszt et al

by Andrew Rose February 22, 2019

Regarded by many at the time of his greatest success as something of a gallant heart-throb specialising in the complete works of Chopin, Alexander Brailowsky's talents ranged much wider, as this second volum...

Heifetz - Rare & Unheard Concerto Recordings

by Andrew Rose February 15, 2019

Jascha Heifetz gave the US première of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2 in 1937 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky and three days later made his first successful large scale RCA rec...

Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven Cycle, Pt. 2

by Andrew Rose February 08, 2019

"There is no end to the marvel of music as familiar as Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Symphonies and the third “Leonore” overture, which Mr. Toscanini performed for the second program of the Beethoven series ...

BEECHAM conducts the Berlioz Requiem

by Andrew Rose February 01, 2019

"Berlioz’s astonishing Requiem is a work very dear to the heart of Sir Thomas Beecham. He has in any case a special sympathy for the mixture of passion and fastidiousness, elegance and sonorous curiosity in ...