Various Artists - Complete Brunswick & Electrola - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Mélanie Bonis was one of the most interesting and prolific composers in France in the 20 years before the First World War. Married in 1883 to the industrialist Édouard Domange, her duties as a housewife and mother distanced her from Parisian musical life yet did not consign her to silence following her studies at the Paris Conservatoire she had mélodies and piano pieces issued by various publishers. Obsessed with striking a balance between music and family, she came to notoriety late, becoming the first woman on the board of the Society of Music Composers. Nevertheless, The Great War put an end to any further publication, with Bonis devoting herself to sacred music (for organ or voice) and pedagogical works. She left a large amount of unpublished material to posterity, however, which demonstrates a knowledge of compositional and orchestrational technique unfairly neglected in her lifetime. Christiane Geliot, her great-niece, has dedicated her life to rediscovering Mel Bonis's works, searching for manuscripts mislaid within her household and inviting celebrated instrumentalists to play and record her music. Bonis's talents found expression in many genres, and the piano was undoubtedly her favourite instrument. Nevertheless, in her chamber music scores the flute is often the protagonist, and in the flute repertoire, Bonis's chamber music output bridges the gap between Romanticism and Impressionism. In her Flute Sonata in C sharp minor Op. 64, throughout four large-scale movements Bonis creates a post-romantic atmosphere full of poetry and light. The piano score, strongly influenced by Franck's use of the keyboard, requires exceptional virtuosity. The flute writing is very dense as well, and both instruments link and exchange motifs as if they were one. The 3 Mélodies, originally for soprano and piano, are arranged here for flute and piano, creating a passionate, if wor

It was a long-standing wish to combine all 18 albums recorded by Benjamin Schmid into one because they yield an impressive mirror of this unique violinist's concert activities. The desire was given new impetus by the two magnificent new albums Benjamin Schmid approved for by OehmsClassics on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday in 2018. The prize-winning recordings of this set, covering almost five centuries, explain why Benjamin Schmid has been perceived by the music public not just as 'the specialist' in one individual field. Benjamin Schmid, a native of Vienna, has won a number of awards including the 1992 Carl Flesch Competition in London, where he also won the Mozart, Beethoven and audience prizes. Since then he has been a guest soloist in the world's most renowned concert halls with prestigious orchestras. His soloistic quality, the range of his repertoire, and especially his improvisatory abilities in jazz make him a violinist with a unique profile. Album Tracks 1. P.I. Tchaikovsky. A. Dvorak 2. My Favourite Paganini 3. Bach Reflected - Improvisations on J.S. Bach 4. E.W. Korngold 5. F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy. R. Schumann. M. Bruch 6. H. Wieniawski. K. Szymanowski. W. Lutoslawski 7. Hommage a Grappelli 8. W. A. Mozart 9. K. Goldmark. J. Brahms 10. L. Van Beethoven 11. A. Vivaldi. F. Kreisler 12. From Fritz to Django 13. J.S. Bach 14. J.S. Bach 15. J.S. Bach 16. J.S. Bach 17. E. Ysaÿe 18. J. Brahms 19. J.S. Bach 20. Pièces de Concert

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the of a 17-album box set collecting the recordings made between 1940 and 1956 for American Columbia by the renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti. Szigeti had a remarkable career. Born in 1892 in Budapest, where he studied with Jeno Hubay, one of most celebrated virtuosos and teachers of that golden era of violin playing, he was praised by the iconic German violinist Joseph Joachim at his Berlin debut in 1905; lived in London for several years following his acclaimed 1907 debut and played chamber music with, among others, Myra Hess and Ferruccio Busoni; was a frequent visitor after the war to the Soviet Union, where he introduced Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto; made his triumphant American debut at Carnegie Hall under Stokowski in 1925; toured the world during the 1930s before finally settling in the US in 1940. It was in that year that Szigeti renewed his friendship with fellow Hungarian émigré Béla Bartók, and in April the two gave a now-legendary recital in Washington which featured Bartók's First Violin Rhapsody of 1928 - a work dedicated to and premiered by Szigeti in Europe. In May 1940, Columbia recorded their interpretation of this Inchvehicle for Szigeti's biting and wholly magnificent fiddlingInch (MusicWeb International) in New York. That performance appears here for the first time on album along with another important work by Bartók, the classic first recording of his Contrasts for clarinet, violin and piano, written for and performed with Szigeti and Benny Goodman. The rest of the new collection displays many more treasures of Szigeti's passionate dedication to chamber music in Bach, Handel, Tartini, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvorák, Debussy, Ravel, Bloch, Busoni, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Henry Cowell, collaborating with such artists as Andor Foldes - another Hungarian émigré - as well as with