As Sir András Schiff turns 70 (in December 2023), this 78-disc edition celebrates an artist who has made a significant contribution to shaping Decca’s history through an array of artistic endeavours. Neatly divided into four sections – solo, concertante, lieder and chamber music, the set includes several currently unavailable recordings; the first international release of Beethoven’s complete Violin Sonatas, with Sándor Végh; four CDs’ worth of material recorded on Mozart’s fortepiano; and the booklet includes an interview with Misha Donat in which Schiff tells the story of his journey with Decca.

The famous oboist Heinz Holliger and the legendary musical ensemble recorded for the posterity one of the most pyramidal musical documents in the second half of the past Century. There's no any flaw. Every single bar is perfect. Holliger dominates not only the variegated tonal possibilities of the instrument, but he gives to each score the expected degree of expressiveness and feverish lyricism.

Mozart really liked the number 5. Aside from the group of six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, just about all of his greatest chamber works are quintets, and some of them are very unusual too. This particular set contains three magnificent late string quintets, the ever popular Clarinet Quintet, and weirdly wonderful Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Oboe, Viola and Cello. A glass harmonica, by the way, is a set of water-filled glasses that you set spinning and play with moistened fingertips. It was invented (or at least perfected) by Benjamin Franklin, and was wildly popular in Mozart's day, particularly among amateur female performers. An excellent collection in every respect.

A couple of the concertos included here, RV 452 and RV 446, were only discovered in the 1960's, and while there is a discussion in the notes about their provenance (they "differ slightly, in terms of style, from what is generally regarded as undoubtedly authentic Vivaldi"), they have been accepted as having come from the master's pen. In any case, Heinz Holliger and I Musici perform these small masterpieces to perfection. The allegro of RV 463 exemplifies the glorious sound produced by I Musici - big, lush and swinging - and a modern musical approach that now ironically may be somewhat out of fashion.

For her new double-album Sol Gabetta teams up with excellent French pianist Betrand Chamayou, with whom she plays sold out concerts in major concert halls. The album features Mendelssohn's complete works for cello and piano and new, short pieces written by famous contemporary composers Wolfgang Rihm, Heinz Holliger, Francisco Coll and Jörg Widman specifically for this album, all of which were inspired by Mendelssohn’s beautiful "Lied ohne Worte, Op. 109." The album was recorded at the famous new Philharmonie de Paris.

In his Éventail de musique française, Swiss oboist and composer Heinz Holliger traverses a broad selection of French works for oboe and piano in a multichromatic programme of early 20th century music. As Holliger states in his liner note, “the closeness of the oboe to the human voice inspired my idea of opening up the richly coloured fan of French music through the still far too little known collection of Vocalises-Études.” Contained in this wide-ranging recital are compositions by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus as well as Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen – Holliger cultivated a personal relationship with several of the composers. On piano returns Anton Kernjak, who appeared on Holliger’s 2014 recording Aschenmusik, while French harpist Alice Belugou comes in to play on André Jovilet’s Controversia pour hautbois et harpe. The richness of the 20th century oboe-repertoire is on full display throughout and finds Holliger in engaging dialogues with piano and harp. Éventail follows the release of Heinz Holliger’s multiple awards-winning large-scale opera Lunea from 2022.

Heinz Holliger's first full length opera is a radical reworking of the Snow White story, with libretto based on the version by Swiss author Robert Walser. The opera opened in Zürich to rave reviews, applauded for its energy, invention, wit and psychological insight. Soprano singer Juliane Banse was singled out for her exceptionally inspired performance in the title role. This New Series recording features the original cast, under the direction of the composer.

A countryman of Bela Bartók and a sometime teacher to both György Ligeti and György Kurtág, Sándor Veress emigrated to Switzerland from what was then part of Hungary in 1949. Settling in Bern, he collected various prizes and teaching posts while working in relative obscurity on who knows how many pieces–most of which have been unavailable. This collection is made up of a pithy trio of compositions dated 1938 (Six Csárdás), 1951 (Hommage à Paul Klee), and 1952 (Concerto for Piano, Strings, and Percussion), and they show what a deftly melodic force Veress was. He's thrilled by blustery string wafts, especially in the concerto, where the percussion adds drama and immediacy. But he also favors sweetly chipper string formations, which surprise the ear during the homage to Klee, especially given the dissonances fostered early on by the twin pianos. The closing piano miniatures of Six Csárdás are counterpoint-rich gems, played with sharp precision by András Schiff.

Hungarian-born Sándor Veress (1907-1992) is a sadly neglected figure in modern music. Despite his pupilage under Bela Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and even his succession over the latter as professor of composition at the Budapest School of Music in 1943, Veress has never attained the same international recognition as his two most successful compatriots. One might blame his preference for solitude or his idiomatic methodology for keeping him in obscurity. Yet as one who made the most of his outlier status and ideological exile, he seems never to have been one to wallow in self-pity. Exposed to much of the folk music that also captivated his mentors, Veress nurtured that same spirit when sociopolitical upheaval exacerbated his emigration to Switzlerland in 1949. Whereas Kodály in particular saw cultural preservation as central to the musical act, Veress saw it as an incision to be teased open and unraveled.

Exploring 20th-century repertoire – both acknowledged masterpieces and new discoveries – this 14-CD anthology reflects the diverse aesthetic strands of Pierre Boulez’s programming over the course of his ground-breaking and influential career. These Erato recordings, made between 1966 and 1992, feature composers otherwise absent from Boulez’s discography – Xenakis, Donatoni, Grisey, Dufourt, Ferneyhough, Harvey and Höller – and the first CD release of the interpretation of Stravinsky’s incantatory Les Soucoupes in the version for female voices and four horns.

Born in Moravia in 1759, Franz Krommer was trained as a violinist and organist. Relatively late in his carrier, in 1975, he settled in Vienna as a violin teacher, but he quickly earned a reputation as a composer, which is evident by the large number of his works published at the time.

Famous Oboe Concertos" is a mistaken title to give a collection in which none of the works is really well-known and two of them not even specifically for oboe. Leelair's Concerto, for violin, flute or oboe, is a poised, elegant work, well worth including in the record; Vivaldi's D minor Concerto, for either violin or oboe, is a light, cheerful piece, very agreeable in manner without making any claims to greatness.

The artistry of Holliger (b1939) prompted Evelyn Rothwell (Lady Barbirolli) to call him 'The Paganini of the oboe' Holliger's mastery of the oboe ranges over a vast expanse of repertoire, from the baroque to contemporary – Bach to Berio and Zelenka to Zimmermann. His style is notable for its flexibility, agility, integrity and ability to communicate convincingly across the wide range of repertoire he performs. Holliger has done much to champion the oboe music of composers such as Zelenka and Krommer, and has also had over 100 works composed for him by composers including Berio, Carter, Henze, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Penderecki and Stockhausen.