Recorded live in 1983, Alfred Brendel's third go-round with these works drastically improves on his previous Beethoven concerto cycles. He finds a calmer, more direct route to the Emperor Concerto, although the Fourth's first movement is still pock-marked with finicky phrase adjustments that pull focus from the music's poetic arcs. Levine provides sympathetic and alert support, yet is much more than a mere deferential accompanist.

Solti finds all the detail in the score not only in the very grand passages but brings tenderness to the more reflective sections which is a joy to listen too. The CSO are magnificent, the strings have that bloom that makes you think of the Vienna Philharmonic at their peak, the rest of the ensemble are no less perfect either. The Decca recording, which just predates digital sound, is full and opulent and puts you in the best seat in the concert hall and is as just as good, if not better, then many later recordings of these works.

These are both exciting, high-powered performances very typical of Sir Georg. The dazzling qualities of the Chicago orchestra in achieving knife-edged precision of ensemble shine out consistently, and anyone who still thinks that Mendelssohn has Victorian cobwebs on him could hardly find more striking proof otherwise. The performances certainly bring out the exuberance of the inspiration, with the Scottish Symphony made almost as bright and athletic as the Italian.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Anyone who loves twentieth century music, who loves English music, or who just plain loves music will love this collection of the music of Michael Tippett. Culled from previously issued but long out-of-print Philips, London, Argo, and l'Oiseau-Lyre LPs, most of these recordings were world premieres made in close consultation with the composer and in the hands of conductors Colin Davis, Georg Solti, Neville Marriner, pianist Paul Crossley, and the Lindsay String Quartet, they receive what can fairly be described as definitive performances. From the ecstatic lyricism of the Suite for Double String Orchestra of 1939 through the luminous vitality of the First Symphony of 1945, the radiant sensuality of the Ritual Dances of 1955, the blues-based modernism of the Third Symphony of 1972, to the glistening transcendentalism of the Fourth Symphony of 1977, Tippett's unique fusion of line, drive, color, and form is performed throughout with passionate dedication and absolute faith in the music's greatness.

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and bass soloist Alexey Tikhomirov in this poignant performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 (Babi Yar), recorded live in September 2018.

Recorded in 2000 at the world's most important festival for 20th century music, the Musik Triennale Cologne, this concert programme successfully set out to capture the great wealth and diversity of modern classical music.

This live recording was made at the Royal Albert Hall during one of London’s famous Promenade Concert seasons. Sir Georg Solti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a magnifi cent performance of Berlioz’s concert cantata La Damnation de Faust. This feast of Berlioz launched Solti’s farewell tour with the orchestra he had directed for twenty years and was described by The Times as “the unsurpassable culmination of two decades of music-making…one that summarised all that has been most admirable about Solti’s long reign in Chicago.”

Solti in Chicago at his very best. The promising excitement in the first movement opens to a performance of drama and poetry… This is simply great conducting, great orchestral playing, captured in superbly recorded early digital engineering.