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Sergiù Celibidache – Celibidache Volume 1: Symphonies
Sergiù Celibidache
US Release Date: November 29, 2011
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099908556622
2012 marks the centenary of maestro Sergiu Celibidache’s birth. Celibidache was without question one of the most important and original conductors in recent memory. He was a resolute perfectionist who worked tirelessly to refine the sound of his performances, always toward the end goal of creating a transcendent live experience for his audiences – experiences captured vividly on these stunning recordings.Brought together here in four special volumes the Celibidache series celebrates the extraordinary legacy of his collaboration with the Müncher Philharmoniker portraying the excitement and atmosphere of their live performances. The Celibidache Series has been mastered to retain and recreate the vibrancy and impact of Celibidache and the Müncher Philharmoniker’s live performances.
Various Artists – The Treasury of English Church Music
Various Artists
US Release Date: October 11, 2011
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099908464026
This monumental set of recordings was originally issued in 1966 as five long-playing records on the HMV label of performances given by the Ambrosian Singers as well as by the choirs of Westminster Abbey and of Guildford, St Paul’s and Chichester cathedrals. The recordings were intended to complement, and were released along with, an innovative and ambitious five-volume printed anthology – The Treasury of English Church Music – which had been published the previous year. Those volumes consisted of some 1100 pages of music, much of it newly edited, and constituted a comprehensive survey of English church music over a period of more than eight centuries, from the earliest English liturgical polyphony to the latest compositions of Kenneth Leighton and Peter Maxwell Davies.
For the present reissue, some contemporary recordings by these and other choirs have been added as bonus tracks, in part so that the overall selection of music should more accurately reflect the broad repertory of cathedral, collegiate and parish church choirs of modern times. CD 1 opens with the personal and perceptive speech given at the series’ launch by Herbert Howells, a composer as eloquent and articulate with the written and spoken word as he was with the printed note. The disc continues by surveying the rich tapestry of English church music from c1100 to c1540, with its broad and complex range of liturgical forms and musical styles. CD 2 spans the fertile period of almost a century between the introduction of the 1549 prayer book and the suspension of church services in the 1640s. The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 after 15 years of Puritan rule marked the dawn of a new age in church music. The principal features of the Restoration style were angular melodies and chromatic inflections, often in conjunction with an adventurous approach to the treatment of dissonance. CD 3 explores the music of this period and of the first half of the 18th century. CD 4 encompasses the music of the late 18th and 19th centuries, including that of Battishill, Crotch, and S. S. Wesley, as well as two Irish-born composers, Charles Wood and Charles Stanford. CD 5 includes music by four of the leading figures of late 20th-century English music: Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Walton.
The Complete EMI Recordings 1950-1991
Aldo Ciccolini
US Release Date: January 26, 2010
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099968582425
Beyond Aldo Ciccolini’s two best selling complete Satie recordings and other proofs of his natural affinity with the French repertoire (which put him very much in tune with the artistic policy of French EMI under the leadership of René Challan, Eric Macleod and Gréco Casadesus), or his unflashy Liszt – the ideal alternative to someone like Georges Cziffra – the public knows surprisingly little of the recordings that Ciccolini made for EMI between 1950 and 1991.
In 1950, as victor of the 1949 Marguerite Long Competition, the 25-year-old Ciccolini recorded his first 78; it was devoted to Scarlatti, a composer to whom he later returned. Following soon afterwards was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by André Cluytens – the pianist asked for the tapes of the second concerto to be destroyed, since he did not like the piece – and then produced an anthology of Mozart sonatas which has a finesse, balance and sonic splendor still typical of Ciccolini’s concert performances today.
The 56 CD collection contains numerous items which have become available for the first time (such as Mozart sonatas and Bach Inventions previously only released in Japan, or his first Debussy disc, dating from 1969), or which have never before been released, such as the magnificent Pictures at an Exhibition recorded in 1976. With particular care taken over the transfers, including remastering of all the late recordings, this box will convince any remaining skeptics that Aldo Ciccolini, though born in Naples, holds a place at the very summit of French pianism.
A Festival of Ballet
Various Artists
US Release Date: January 26, 2010
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099996706329
A Festival of Ballet , a 50-CD Box Set, covers the whole range of ballet, from its origins as an integral part of the Baroque operas of Purcell and Rameau, through its establishment in the 18th and 19th centuries in France and Russia in the form that we now think of as ‘classical ballet’, to the development of a more modern style – including the concept of abstract ballets – in the 20th century that found its flowering in the celebrated works of Fokine, Balanchine, Tudor, Ashton, MacMillan and many others
The set begins with substantial highlights from the three great Tchaikovsky ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, and then come more works by Russian composers such as Prokofiev, Glazunov, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Khachaturian. The rest of the set consists of basically national groupings of composers – mainly French, English, German and American – until the last four CDs, which contain ballet music from operas, oratorios and plays.
Many of the ballet scores are heard complete, but most of the full-length works are represented by highlights that cover all the best-known sections. Apart from the three Tchaikovsky ballets, other long works that have been highlighted include Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Sylvia and La Fille mal gardée.
The recordings feature the world’s greatest orchestras under many outstanding international conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Riccardo Muti, André Previn and Sir Simon Rattle, as well as leading ballet experts like John Lanchbery, Barry Wordsworth, Terence Kern and Robert Irving. Also heard are authoritative recordings of ballet scores that use arrangements of music not originally written for the dance, conducted by the men who so skilfully put them together, like Sir Charles Mackerras (Pineapple Poll) and Manuel Rosenthal (Gaîté Parisienne).
As well as all the most popular ballet music, the set includes some rarities of great interest, such as the first complete recording of John Antill’s Corroboree (1950), a spectacular score that vividly portrays the primitive ceremonies and dances of the Australian aborigines, and Charles Koechlin’s tone poem Les Bandar-Log that formed the bulk of the score for Antony Tudor’s atmospheric 1967 ballet Shadowplay. Also heard here is Cole Porter’s only classical ballet score, the 1923 work Within the Quota which, coincidently, was orchestrated by Charles Koechlin.
Mahler: The Complete Works
Various Artists
US Release Date: July 29, 2010
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099960898524
Gustav Mahler, born on 7th July 1860, was not only a great composer but a fine conductor who influenced his successors in both fields; indeed his appeal to subsequent generations has been extensive and wide – Zemlinsky, Schönberg, Berg and Webern in Austria, Shostakovitch in Russia, Britten in Britain and Copland in America are just a few to acknowledge their debt.
His influence also spread across the so-called boundary between classical and popular music in that Paul McCartney wrote “I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of The Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we’d take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was great.”
To celebrate his monumental 150th anniversary, EMI Classics releases Mahler’s complete works performed by some of the world’s most highly lauded performers of the past and present. Works include the rightly famous “Resurrection” symphony recording conducted by Otto Klemperer, a live recording of Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor – including the famous Adagietto, as well as Sir Simon Rattle’s account of the Third Symphony together with the movement Blumine, originally planned for the First Symphony, conducted by Paavo Järvi.