This Blu-ray sampler with carefully selected concerts accompanies Seiji Ozawa's impressive career over 3 decades. Seiji Ozawa was not only Japan’s best-known conductor but also the founder of the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, which in 2015 was renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Special feature included in this edition from Matsumoto: on the occasion of Maestro Ozawa’s 80th birthday, Martha Argerich and Matthias Goerne joined the orchestra to perform Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, plus a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ - a deeply emotional moment for the Maestro!

1931 was the breakthrough year for 32-year-old Hungarian immigrant Eugene Ormandy. First, he was engaged by the Philadelphia Orchestra to deputize for his idol Toscanini, who was briefly indisposed. Then, a few months later, he was asked to step in for the conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, also indisposed – but in this case permanently. Soon Ormandy was hired to take over that rising Midwestern orchestra. At the end of his five-year tenure in Minneapolis, which produced a considerable discography for RCA Victor (available in an 11-CD Sony Classical box set), Ormandy was called back to Philadelphia, this time to become its co-conductor with Leopold Stokowski. In 1936, he began recording regularly for Victor with his new orchestra, picking up the pace in 1938 when he became its sole music director.

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous instalment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”.

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous instalment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”.

Russian composers have made a significant contribution to the repertoire of music for cello and orchestra. Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, deftly scored for an 18th-century orchestra, reveals his admiration for Mozart whereas the Pezzo capriccioso is full of ripe charm. in the year of Tchaikovsky’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov composed the attractive Serenade, Op. 37 and his student, Glazunov, both absorbed and continued the great Romantic lineage with his own sonorous and beautiful Concerto ballata, the poignant Chant du ménestrel, and the iberian evocations of the Sérénade espagnole from Deux Morceaux.

Over 40 years of collaboration between Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is among the most dazzling and longest connections in the history of classical music. In this unique edition, all mono recordings from the period from 1944 to 1958 appear on 120 CDs for the Columbia label. They also reflect an important section of record history in the changing cover design. Ormandy, a master of orchestral brilliance and timbres and also appreciated as an excellent companion, created the famous "Philadelphia Sound" with his orchestra.

Over 40 years of collaboration between Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is among the most dazzling and longest connections in the history of classical music. In this unique edition, all mono recordings from the period from 1944 to 1958 appear on 120 CDs for the Columbia label. They also reflect an important section of record history in the changing cover design. Ormandy, a master of orchestral brilliance and timbres and also appreciated as an excellent companion, created the famous "Philadelphia Sound" with his orchestra.

Over 40 years of collaboration between Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is among the most dazzling and longest connections in the history of classical music. In this unique edition, all mono recordings from the period from 1944 to 1958 appear on 120 CDs for the Columbia label. They also reflect an important section of record history in the changing cover design. Ormandy, a master of orchestral brilliance and timbres and also appreciated as an excellent companion, created the famous "Philadelphia Sound" with his orchestra.

Following up on the success of Sony Classical’s recent large-scale Ormandy collections – his monaural discographies with the Minneapolis Symphony and Philadelphia orchestras – the label now presents the conductor’s stereo recordings from Philadelphia containing all recordings released from 1958 to 1963 (plus some fillers from later years) Eugene Ormandy took over the music directorship in Philadelphia from Leopold Stokowski in 1938 and held the position for 42 years. During that time his name and the orchestra’s became inseparable as he cultivated and further developed the voluptuous sound that originated with his predecessor.

Simon Trpčeski presents a fascinating programme of Russian classics, two of which are heard in unfamiliar guises as works for solo piano - Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain, in the arrangement by Rimsky and then the latter’s Sheherazade. The programme starts with Prokofiev’s delightful Tales of the Old Grandmother. Trpčeski’s new album is a pianistic tour de force and will delight pianophiles.

The pianist Zlata Chochieva is well known for creating unexpected associations. In "Chiaroscuro", her first album for naive (V7542, 2022), she had combined the worlds of Scriabin and Mozart, in whom she hears not only the same desire for clarity and weightlessness but also a similar poetic sense of rhetoric. Her next album ("i'm Freien", V7959, 2023), a homage to nature, revealed alongside Ravel's Miroirs and Schumann's Waldszenen a short cycle, so little known and graceful (Petite Histoire), by Felix Draeseke! No wonder she is now offering us, for her first album with orchestra, one of the most obscure works of Russian Romanticism, the Piano Concerto by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Kirill Kondrashin is one of the few Russian conductors to celebrate an international career, next to Eugen Mravinsky, Igor Markewisch and Jascha Horenstein. In 1943 he became principal conductor at the Bolshoi theatre, an institution so important for Soviet musical life, to which he would belong for 13 years. In 1956 he was appointed chief conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic. This position opened doors for him internationally and Kondrashin was able to accept tour invitations from western countries.

Named after the 18th-century dance-style movement 'Badinerie', this beautiful new album from flautist Julien Beaudiment and harpist Marie Pierre Langlamet offers a diverse span of repertoire, with a rich collection of works from across the centuries. At the heart of the album lies Francis Poulenc's Sonata FP 164, with it's three emotive movements, each painting a vivid musical picture. The wistful Allegro malinconico and the playful Presto giocoso show Poulenc's stylistic intricacies, while Mozart's soul-stirring Adagio from K 285 transports listeners to a realm of serene beauty. Johann Sebastian Bach's iconic Badinerie infuses the collection with Baroque charm.

This substantial 25CD set offers a fascinating journey through one century of Russian Chamber Music. All Russian composers were active in this genre and often composed their most profound, personal music for it.