This 18-CD set offers a comprehensive overview of Messiaen’s work in recordings made between 1963 and 2000 by the Warner labels Erato and Teldec. The performers include the composer himself, his wife the pianist Yvonne Loriod, Pierre Boulez, Marie-Claire Alain and other champions of Messiaen’s work.
As a tantalising and unique bonus, a full CD is devoted to an extensive interview with Messiaen recorded in 1988 in which he speaks, in French, about bird-song, colour, travel, religious faith, opera and the avant-garde. The richly illustrated 149-page booklet includes a full English translation of the interview as well as the composer’s detailed commentary about most of the works included in the set – with booklet editor Fabian Watkinson supplying information about the remaining works.

Willi Boskovsky was born and trained in Vienna and served as concertmaster of the great Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for forty years. The outstanding performances of Viennese waltzes and other music by Johann Strauss II – The Waltz King – as well as by his father Johann I, and his brothers Josef and Eduard which are presented on these CDs make clear that Boskovsky thoroughly mastered the essence of this delightful musical idiom. This is beautiful music superbly conducted and played by people who understand and love it. All of the Strauss favorites and many delightful lesser-known works are included. Very highly recommended.

Lübeck Virtuosos: Music of Dietrich Buxtehude and His Colleagues - Hamburger Ratsmusik
Buxtehude - G. Schütz - Grecke - Baudinger - Radeck
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 357 MB | RS
Recorded: 3-5/1 2005, Schloß Salzau, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Released: 2005 | Label: Thorofon CTH 2474 | TT: 70:59
Hamburger Ratsmusik, Simone Eckert - viola da gamba

Echo Classic Award 2006

The people of Lübeck had a decided preference for music for strings. Important violinists and viola da gamba players worked there even at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and their teaching abilities ensured a continuous supply of successors. Initially influenced by the English music for viols, there developed a string style in Lübeck which combined English polyphony with a new degree of virtuosity. Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's trio sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo were in the possession of the Marienkirche, and they caused South-German and Italian ideas to be incorporated as well. The music for strings was additionally influenced by the North-German organists' preference for the stylus phantasticus; often several hundred bars in length, the North-German chorale fantasias feature fascinatingly colourful and often abrupt changes in technique, tone colour, improvisatory quality and virtuosity. (Simone Eckert, CD-booklet)