Brilliant Classics

Amongst the standard performances for this repertoire, here conducted by Jaap van Zweden, the current music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Great performances by 2 of the best Dutch orchestras,both were under his artistic leadership for years. This mainstream repertoire for all classical music lovers should be in your library anyhow.A...

With over 600 lieder as well as sacred, chamber, orchestral and piano music to his name, Franz Schubert was one of the most prolific and influential composers of his generation -- a man whose music, heavily influenced by the likes of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, drove critics to later argue whether he was of a Viennese Classical or Romantic...

Although famous for his evergreen Piano Concerto and the music he composed for Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Grieg's output is dominated by short works -- exquisite miniatures for piano and song.In the pantheon of composers influenced by the traditional music of their homeland, Grieg ranks along side Dvorak, Kodály, Bartok and Vaughan Williams. All in their...

In 1978 Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) wrote the incidental music for a production of The Inspector's Tale, an adaptation for stage of Gogol's Dead Souls. It was to have been directed by Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned the production. A suite was assembled from the score by Gennadi Rozhdenstvensky, and two leading colleagues of...

Francesca Caccini was certainly an exceptional woman. Not only was she a 'diva' of the Baroque world who had the voice 'of a nightingale', but she was also a lutenist, poet, and the first ever female to compose a full-scale opera (La liberazione di Ruggiero). She first rose to fame at just thirteen years old when she performed in scenes of Peri's...

The first Soviet conductor of whom it can truly be said that he is a citizen of the world' John Warrack BBCRadio 3 1978 Gennadi Rozhdestvensky is a musician of catholic taste as this 10CD illustrates. His discography includes around 800 works! He is capable of freshly considered and immaculately prepared interpretations of Elgar, Vaughan Williams,...