Ashkenazy's Chopin was one of the treasures of the Decca catalogue in the 1970s, and the combining of the four Ballades (thoughtfully poetic, brilliant but never barnstorming) with the dazzling Scherzos admirably demonstrates the range of his interpretative approach. The rhapsodical Op 45 Prelude makes an apt interlude, and the well-balanced Decca recording ensures that the Scherzos never sound shallow. The photographs of the young Ashkenazy and excellent notes by Bryce Morrison are another asset (all these reissues are fascinatingly illustrated).
Radu Lupu's coupling of the Grieg and Schumann concertos is another fine pairing from the same period, and the present remastering of the 1973 Kingsway Hall recording is very successful, the Grieg properly brilliant and 'boldly and imaginatively presented' (to quote the original Gramophone review) - and how touchingly Previn opens the slow movement. The Schumann, with its gentler, more feminine style of romanticism is just as poetically caught: the performance balances freshness with warmth and the recording image is appropriately less robust, rather less sharply defined.
It was Sir David Willcocks who pioneered the first major stereo recording of Haydn's Nelson Mass, and his thrilling and expansive 1962 performance stands the test of time. Coupled with Handel's Zadok the Priest and Vivaldi's most famous Gloria, this should attract many newcomers to the Haydn masterpiece. The solo singing, alongside the fine contribution of King's College Choir, is consistently distinguished, and the sound is excellent.
The BBC TV series The Onedin Line popularised the 'Adagio' from Khachaturian's Spartacus (a perfect musical backdrop to the romantic image of a sailing ship). The composer recorded his selections from both ballets in the Sofiensaal in 1962, and the playing is wonderfully fresh, the sound spectacular. In Ansermet's Seasons, the SRO violins cannot match their Viennese colleagues for opulence, but this remains a vintage Ansermet performance, the conductor's meticulous ear for detail again being helped by fine engineering.
Peter Maag's Mozart concert gives much pleasure. The layout of the opening Notturno, an ingenious Mozartean contrivance, separates its four echoing instrumental groups quite naturally, forwards and backwards, as well as to the left and right. It opens rather like Gluck, and is a little bland. But the rest of the programme contains much finer music, played with vitality, warmth and finesse. The Serenata notturna gains from not too intrusive timpani. The very vigorous German Dances (added for this reissue) are a bit over the top, but the canaries are engagingly songful in K600/K605, the hurdy-gurdy is gently ushered in during K602/K603 and the closing 'Sleigh ride' swings along, propelled by a virtuoso posthorn solo. The 1959 recording sounds remarkably undated.
I need say little about Dido and Aeneas. It is a truly legendary recording. One could offer minor criticisms of the rest of the cast (although I relish Monica Sinclair's bizarre Sorceress), yet everything is put in the shade by Dame Janet Baker's portrayal of Dido: her celebrated, despairingly moving, closing lament is unforgettable. This was also Anthony Lewis's finest record (although I do not forget his King Arthur), and his chorus and the ECO both give their very best, while the 1961 sound is strikingly full and natural in this superb new transfer.
For lovers of piano music the pick of this release will be Clifford Curzon's cherishable coupling of Schumann (from 1954) with Schubert's Wandererfantasie, made four years earlier in somewhat shallower sound. The Gramophone's superlatives flowed freely for the original issues: 'masterly' (the Fantasie), 'utterly delightful' (Kinderszenen) and 'magnificent' (the Wandererfantasie). In Curzon's hands the elegiac sadness of Schubert's yearningly lovely 'Wanderer' slow movement is thrown into the sharpest focus by the following Scherzo and the bold drama of the outer movements. Schumann's Fantasie, indelibly associated with his deep feelings for Clara, is given a reading that's extraordinarily inspirational and totally spontaneous in feeling. The lovely, gentle Kinderszenen make an exquisite centrepiece between the two main works.
Karajan was a great Straussian, and this collection, produced by John Culshaw in 1959-60, with the VPO (especially the strings) in superb form, shows him at his most charismatic. Also sprach Zarathustra was a famous early Decca stereo demonstration record, and remains as spectacular as ever. The many-faceted portrait of Till is delectably witty, Don Juan is exciting, racy, and full of sensuality, which is voluptuously shared by the dramatic and sinuous 'Salome's dance'. The transfers undoubtedly recreate the sonic excitement of the originals.
Last but by no means least, one of the finest Four Seasons ever put on disc, which in stylish freshness (Alan Loveday in superb form) puts many of the period-instrument versions in the shade. 'I have never enjoyed Vivaldi so much, 'said the original Gramophone review, and I can go along with that. This reappeared not long ago as one of the 'Penguin Classics', but is now made the more enticing by the inclusion of three more hand-picked Vivaldi concertos which are hardly less winning or more appealingly played.'