Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

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.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

‘The Time of Day’ provided Haydn with an inspiration to compose and his Symphony numbers 6, 7 & 8 collectively became known as The Day Trilogy. Celebrating their 30th anniversary, Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande are highly respected exponents of this repertoire and this recording is no exception to their consistently high standards. Carrying on with their ‘one instrument to a part’ policy, the recording is presented in a wonderfully light and airy way, allowing the music to shine through.

Musical scholar that he is, Charles Mackerras adopts period performance practice, but opts for modern instruments. The Prague Chamber Orchestra is one of the world's best small ensembles. They play this music with impeccable wit, sophistication, and style. Of course, Mackerras himself studied in Prague–Mozart's musical home away from home–and has long enjoyed an excellent relationship with the city's orchestras and musicians. With swift tempos, employment of a harpsichord accompaniment, and all the repeats taken in each work, these finely honed interpretations offer a uniquely consistent view of Mozart's symphonic achievement. Telarc's superb sound allows the music to fall very gratefully on the ear.

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.

Joseph Martin Kraus, also named as the "Swedish Mozart", has been many years a shadowy existence in music history. Gluck and even Joseph Haydn saw "a real genius" in his virtuose and nearly early-romantic works. His position as composer at the swedish court under Gustav III. made it possible to have a fix income and a blithe creativity. This CD-Set gives us an overall musical impression about his compositions in all genres: Beginning with the incidental music to Amphitryon, the high virtuos Italian Cantatas, his Symphonies from different life periods, till the early String Quartets- Gluck and Haydn have not been mistaken.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Complete Beethoven Recordings made for Archiv Produktion have been brought together for the first time to mark Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020. This 15-CD set features the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir under the leadership of John Eliot Gardiner with soloists Robert Levin and Viktoria Mullova in the Piano and Violin Concertos. The Complete Beethoven Recordings include a bonus disc, never before commercially released, featuring an interview with Gardiner discussing the symphonies, and new liner notes written by Thomas Otto.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Symphonic Testament: Following a long maturation process, Jordi Savall presents his interpretation of Mozart’s Last Three Symphonies. He has chosen - on this double album - to repeat the Symphony No. 40 twice, in order to underline the continuity existing from one work to the other (this is an important dimension of this milestone of the orchestral music in the XVIIIth Century).

Divin poeme starts off with an immediate advantage over the others listed above: it has the obvious and perfect coupling.

From the unique trajectory of Scriabin’s career – two decades of ecstasy in its old-fashioned sense and of egotism in its timeless one – come the Second and Third Symphonies plus the two Poems: music raised through the engorgement of sumptuous timbre and chromatic harmony to the richness of foie gras.

Switzerland has always had a great attraction for Russian composers. Peter Tschaikowsky, Sergei Prokofjew and Igor Stravinsky were impressed by the beauty of the Swiss Alpine landscape. The composer Sergei Rachmaninoff should even find his new home here. Not far from Lucerne, on Lake Lucerne, the famous composer and pianist built a magnificent house, the "Villa Senar", in 1930 and found the peace and quiet here to compose famous works today. In the summer of 1934 he wrote his highly virtuoso "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini" for piano and orchestra, and a year later his 3rd symphony.

This CD, recorded live, will leave you smiling with delight and amazement. These symphonies are among Haydn's greatest; written in 1788-89, they exhibit every facet of his technical skill, inspired inventiveness, and emotional range. At the height of his mature mastery, he experimented with new forms, daring modulations and key changes, and breathtaking swings of mood and character. One of his fingerprints is the alternation between serene major and somber minor, especially in his variations; but he has surprises in store everywhere, as solemnity gives way to sprightliness, elegance to rusticity, tragedy to mischievous humor.