Serious collectors will want to take note of two press releases we recently received, the first from Countdown Media, the second from Decca:
“Countdown Media, a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management plans to reissue all early classical music recordings of the American “Everest Records” label from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The Everest catalog is one of the truly historic and ground-breaking music catalogs of the past half century. Everest created a number of historical sonic and music benchmarks during its early history in the 1950s and 60s. Everest was one of only two labels (arguably the first, with the historic Mercury Living Presence to follow) to record in 3-channel stereo, mostly with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic (in the guise of the “Stadium Symphony Orchestra” due to contractual obligations). Some of the famed conductors active during the middle of the century, including Leopold Stokowski, Malcom Sargent, and Adrian Boult, were responsible for these ground-breaking recordings on 35mm video tape.
At first we will publish 48 albums of this series on I-Tunes in their “Mastered-For I-Tunes” program (release date is April 2, 2013) and also as Disc-On-Demand on Amazon (release date May 1, 2013). All albums were carefully digitally transferred, restored and remastered from the original master tapes.
The albums will be published with the original cover artwork, in many cases created by the “inventor” of the Vinyl Cover, Alex Steinweiss, plus a digital booklet containing comprehensive additional information on the recordings and the technical background.”
Decca Releases the First-Ever Complete Edition of Verdi
Decca celebrates the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth in matchless style with a 75-CD box containing his entire canon of works. This is a special limited-edition and each luxurious, embossed box is individually numbered. A box set of this size and magnitude has not been assembled before making this a truly unique and highly collectible addition to any opera lover’s library. The set will be released on March 5, 2013.
Representing the lion’s share of the box are 30 complete opera recordings which trace the evolution of the composer’s genius from his first opera, Oberto, through the so-called galley years and the much-loved masterpieces of his middle and late periods – including Rigoletto, La traviata, Aida and Otello – to the sublime valedictory comedy Falstaff. Two of his grandest works are each represented by two complete recordings, since the anthology includes Don Carlos (as originally written in French) and its Italian revision, Don Carlo, and also both the 1862 and 1869 versions of La forza del destino. Each recording has been individually selected to be as definitive as possible. Completing the collection are the epic Requiem, other sacred and choral works, arias, songs, ballet music, chamber works and piano pieces. A number of hard-to-find rarities are included.
Drawing primarily on the rich catalogs of Decca and Philips, as well as Deutsche Grammophon and EMI, the collection is a who’s who of the greatest singers and conductors of the past 50 years. Among the singers are: Montserrat Caballé, Mirella Freni, Joan Sutherland, Jessye Norman, Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Ileana Cotrubas, Margaret Price, Katia Ricciarelli, Elena Souliotis, Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Marilyn Horne, Agnes Baltsa, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Carlo Bergonzi, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Piero Cappuccilli, Tito Gobbi, Sherrill Milnes and Nicolai Ghiaurov. The conductors include: Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Fabio Luisi, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Lamberto Gardelli, James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Myung-Whun Chung and Richard Bonynge.
Beyond the cornucopia of operatic and vocal glories, a special feature of the box is the first-ever CD release of Quartetto Italiano’s recording of the String Quartet in E minor.
Included in the box are two hardback books containing information on the recordings, comprehensive musicological notes and a detailed synopsis of each opera.
