Most Recent Releases

Verdi's Otello - Mario Del Monaco stars

by Andrew Rose October 26, 2018

"Mario Del Monaco has grown astonishingly in the role of the Moor. From the moment of his appallingly difficult "cold" entrance on the "Esultate!," with its high A, he is the alternatingly regal, brooding, t...

ALEXANDER BRAILOWSKY Polydor Vol. 1

by Andrew Rose October 19, 2018

It was in Paris in 1924 that Alexander Brailowsky first presented a series of six concerts he devised containing all 169 solo piano works by Chopin, using the composer’s own piano for part of the recital. He...

HORENSTEIN conducts Mahler 1

by Andrew Rose October 12, 2018

"This record originates from the early 1950s and held its own in the catalogue for many years. It still strikes me as a performance of great warmth and has more spontaneity, I think, than Horenstein's recent...

Stokowski's Unheard 1941 Beethoven Ninth Symphony

by Andrew Rose October 05, 2018

"A rousing performance ... Mr. Stokowski led a dramatic performance that had special drive and crispness in the scherzo and that built up into a series of big climaxes in the last movement." - New York Times...

LEINSDORF 1961 Met Ring: 2. Die Walküre

by Andrew Rose September 28, 2018

"This first performance of the season of "Die Walküre" strengthened the conviction that the Metropolitan's current Ring series was to be a memorable artistic achievement and a public triumph...Once again, on...

STOKOWSKI conducts Brahms and Dvořák

by Andrew Rose September 21, 2018

"Joy! Brahms’s Third at long last. Our prayers have prevailed ... This is a grand orchestra and a constructive conductor; and in this music of fine nerve and developed muscle we find fullness of joy" - The G...

Spivakovsky plays Beethoven Concertos

by Andrew Rose September 14, 2018

"Spivakovsky plays with taste and maturity, taking the first movement cadenza in his stride and revealing a reserved gravity in the central movement. There’s a fair quotient of insouciant wit in the finale."...

LEINSDORF 1961 Met Ring: 1. Das Rheingold

by Andrew Rose September 07, 2018

"The Metropolitan launched its first Ring cycle since the season of '56-'57 with an admirable performance of Das Rheingold (uncut and without an intermission, as Wagner wanted it) on Saturday afternoon, Dec....

HORENSTEIN conducts Prokofiev

by Andrew Rose August 31, 2018

Jascha Horenstein had a way with Prokofiev that deserves to be heard, and here we present the four recordings he made in Paris in 1954 in superb new XR remasters. Horenstein's take on the "Classical" Symphon...

Artur Bodanzky in the recording studio

by Andrew Rose August 24, 2018

Artur Bodanzky is well-remembered for his years spent conducting at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His 1937 broadcast of Wagner's Siegfried (PACO 139) is rightly regarded as one of the greatest ever - a...

STOKOWSKI Wartime NBC Premières

by Andrew Rose August 17, 2018

Leopold Stokowski's wartime appearances with the NBC Symphony Orchestra proved a golden opportunity to showcase new music - in one month in 1944 alone three of the conductor's four concerts included world pr...

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande

by Andrew Rose August 10, 2018

Performances of Claude Debussy’s only opera Pelléas et Mélisande at the Metropolitan Opera have been almost as elusive as the frail, mysterious Mélisande herself. Since its first Met performance on 21 March ...

Rudolf Serkin: Early & Unpublished

by Andrew Rose August 03, 2018

You'd perhaps imagine that just about everything Rudolf Serkin's recorded has been unearthed and released by now, but that's not the case. Mark Obert-Thorn has restored two previously unpublished recordings ...