Georg Philipp Telemann – Paris Quartets Nr.1-6

Georg Philipp Telemann – Pariser Quartette Nr.1-6 About the Work: Six quartets for flute and continuo were composed by Telemann [1681-1767] as early as 1730 in Germany and achieved enough success to be “pirated” and printed in 1736, without his knowledge, by the unscrupulous French publisher Le Clerk. Undaunted, the increasingly popular Telemann “refurbished” the [...]

Niccolò Piccinni – Iphigénie En Tauride

Niccolò Piccinni – Iphigénie En Tauride Recorded live in Bari, Italy, between the 6th and the 10th of December, 1986 (First world recording) About the Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride (Iphigeneia in Tauris) is a tragédie lyrique in four acts by Niccolò Piccinni, which was first performed at the Académie royale de musique (the Paris Opéra) [...]

Christoph Willibald Gluck – Iphigénie En Aulide

Christoph Willibald Gluck – Iphigénie En Aulide About the Opera: This is the only available recording of a neglected masterpiece, Gluck’s first “Iphigenie” opera, (there was a recording by Riccardo Muti, a few years back, which is now deleted) premiered in Paris in 1774, five years before his greatest work, “Iphigenie en Tauride”. Though “Iphigenie [...]

Johann Sebastian Bach – Six Sonatas For Violin And Harpsichord

Johann Sebastian Bach – Six Sonatas For Violin And Harpsichord About the work: Missing Bach’s sonatas and partitas is like missing the Art of Fugue or the Passions:  it means loosing one of the pillars of the whole classical music. Bach is ground to all his successors in all fields: he wrote everything for any [...]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Ascanio In Alba

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Ascanio In Alba Recorded in Paris between 16th and 24th of September, 1990 About the Opera: Ascanio in Alba, KV 111, is an Italian pastoral opera in two acts written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1771, Based on the play by Count Claudio Nicolo Stampa with libretto by Giuseppe Parini. Mozart [...]

Gaetano Donizetti – Maria Stuarda

Gaetano Donizetti – Maria Stuarda Recorded in 1976 About the Opera: Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart) is a tragic opera, tragedia lirica, in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Friedrich von Schiller’s 1800 play Maria Stuart. It received its premiere on December 30, 1835 at La Scala, Milan. The [...]

Joseph Haydn – Armida (Eszterházy opera cycle)

Joseph Haydn – Armida (Eszterházy cycle) Recorded in Switzerland on September 1978 About the Opera: Armida is an opera in three acts by Joseph Haydn, set to a libretto based upon Torquato Tasso’s poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) and written duringhis services for the Eszterházy family. The first performance was 26 February 1784 and it [...]

Gabriel Fauré – Piano Quartets I & II

Gabriel Fauré – Piano Quartets Recorded on 25-26 February, 1985 About the work: There are three great chamber music composers from the second half of the 19th century: Brahms, Dvorák, and Fauré. Of the three, Fauré is by far the least well known, even in France. French music in the 19th century was almost entirely [...]

George Bizet – Carmen

George Bizet – Carmen About the Opera: Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845,itself influenced by the narrative poem “The Gypsies” (1824) by Pushkin. Mérimée had read the poem [...]

Leonardo Leo – Complete Cello Conciertos

Leonardo Leo – Cello Conciertos About the Work: Better known for his vocal works than his instrumental contributions, Leonardo Leo nonetheless left us with a number of highly enjoyable and musically significant instrumental works. This two-disc Brilliant Classics set features his “Six Cello Concertos,” a definite oddity at the same time as the cello was [...]