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Welcome to the Decca Music Group news
for September 2001. Select one of the headlines below to take a look at
what's going on this month. If you want to get all this delivered to
your email inbox, then don't forget to signup for our
newsletters. And if you have any questions to ask us, you
can write to us by using our Contact form. See you next month!
Cecilia Bartoli - Gluck Arias
The Pavarotti Edition
Andreas Scholl - Wayfaring Stranger
Claus Ogermann - Two Concertos
Cinema Italiano: see the video feature
Decca launches The Singers - WIN THE FIRST 20 RELEASES!
Bond on DVD- live at the Albert Hall
John Barry is back!
Soundtrack News - Enigma
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Cecilia Bartoli - Gluck Italian Arias |
Cecilia Bartoli follows the amazing
success of her Vivaldi Album with a new disc packed with world
premières The unique voice of the great
mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli, is heard in a collection of eight
arias by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87). Though Gluck was one of the seminal figures in the
history of opera, no less than six of the eight arias presented here
have never been recorded before.
Cecilia Bartoli's recent disc of unknown
Vivaldi arias, The Vivaldi Album, has sold nearly half a million
copies and collected prestigious international awards including Echo
Klassik 2000, Diapason d'Or 2000 and the 2001 Grammy Award for "Best
Classical Vocal Performance". The Italian mezzo-soprano's
stimulating voyage of musical discovery continues with Italian
Arias, unearthing numbers from six neglected operas by Gluck - all
with libretti by the outstanding Italian poet Pietro Metastasio
(1698-1782). For Bartoli, Gluck was a natural progression from
Vivaldi. "I was surprised to learn that Gluck spent some months in
Prague at the time when we know operas by Vivaldi were being
performed there."
Find out more about Cecilia's exciting new recording at out special site which includes audio excerpts from the entire album and an exclusive screensaver. 
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The Pavarotti Edition |
The year 2001 marks Luciano Pavarotti’s fortieth anniversary as an opera singer. To celebrate this important anniversary,next month sees the release of The Pavarotti Edition, a must-have collection, selected from Pavarotti’s finest recordings. Throughout this extraordinary career, Pavarotti’s impact on the world of music has been enormous: broadening the horizons of classical music and bringing untold numbers of new fans to the art of the tenor and opera, his thrilling voice and unique personality have touched countless people throughout the world. An exclusive Decca artist for over thirty-five years, Luciano Pavarotti is the most popular artist in the history of the classical recording industry.
The Edition includes selections from Pavarotti’s key opera recordings, alongside Italian songs, various arias (including two Mozart arias presented on disc for the first time), and Neapolitan & Italian popular songs. Featuring the tenor’s many illustrious collaborators (including Cecilia Bartoli,Richard Bonynge, Montserrat Caballé, Riccardo Chailly, Mirella Freni, James Levine, Herbert von Karajan, Zubin Mehta, Sir Georg Solti and Dame Joan Sutherland), the deluxe 10-CD box set is accompanied by a fully illustrated seventy-six-page souvenir photo book surveying Pavarotti’s operatic and recording career, and each CD comes with a comprehensive essay by internationally renowned writer John Steane.
Last month we published John Steane's essay about the Bellini disc, and this month we publish his essay about the Donizetti recordings. Click here to read on
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Andreas Scholl - Wayfaring Stranger |
The legendary countertenor Alfred Deller and contemporary jazzman, bassist Charlie Haden, were two seminal influences on Andreas Scholl’s decision to make a folksongs album for Decca. A meeting with veteran recording producer Craig Leon was the extra spark which provided the necessary creative framework for what the album would sound like. For Scholl, who likens the process of developing ideas of any kind to a game of billiards – "our ideas are like balls on a pool table, always struck by others and set in motion in ever new directions", reacting to all the diverse stimuli of the world around you is essential for developing both your artistry and your character. Music across genres - from pop and jazz to soul and funk (pop music offered Scholl his first exposure to English language songs, and he cites, in particular, Alexander O’Neill, Johnathan Butler and Earth, Wind and Fire) to literature, to conversation with friends, and not a small bit of philosophical musing: Scholl’s artistry is not only about great technique, but is a quest for experience, awareness and truth.
"I remember the moment when for the first time I listened to Alfred Deller singing folksongs," Scholl explains. Deller (1912-1979) was the self-taught pioneer in the early music movement who is credited with restoring the countertenor voice and repertoire to the concert hall and introducing it to the recording studio — all in the mid 20th century. "I was in a hotel room connected to my little loudspeakers and my CD Walkman and I had tears in my eyes. I thought this was the most beautiful music. This man manages to tell the most amazing stories with these simple songs." Scholl's folksongs project will include many of the songs that Deller sang - including such classics as `Barbara Allen,' `Black is the Colour,' and `Wayfaring Stranger - but the arrangements by Leon take the songs into rich new musical territory. With an eye-popping musical resume that includes serious classical music study, producer credits for albums from the Ramones to the Roches and Blondie, and his own numerous catalogue of transcriptions, Leon draws upon a uniquely
broad musical background with each new project. Despite his eclectic influences and experiences, however, it is folk music that has the most powerful hold on Leon's imagination, and meeting Andreas Scholl two years ago was a fortuitous event for both singer and producer."
"Andreas and I met through Decca to discuss a totally different project," explains Leon. "I gave him some of my ideas and recommended other people he should speak with. At the same time, I mentioned to him that if he ever wanted to do folk music I’d be up for it. A year later, he called me and we started planning what we were going to do."
For more information about Wayfaring Stranger, and to listen to clips from the album, go to our new release page here 
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Claus Ogermann - Two Concertos
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In 1979,
after writing orchestral arrangements for more than 200 jazz and pop
musicians, ranging from Frank Sinatra to Stan Getz, Claus Ogermann
put down his pen and vowed never to arrange another piece of music.
He wanted to devote himself to his own compositions. Despite
announcing his retirement, however, the requests continued to flood
in from around the world; artists such as Prince, Wynton Marsalis,
Ella Fitzgerald and Phil Collins asked for more. Ogermann refused.
Twenty years on, the fruits of that decision are heard in ‘Two
Concertos: Concerto for Piano and Concerto for Orchestra’, released
on Decca. "I wrote these works because I wanted to," he explains.
"My own voice is more important to me than all the orchestration
work."
Read more about the album here
Claus Ogermann's Two Concertos is released in October. Listen to a preview from the album here
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Cinema Italiano
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In the short history of Italian cinema music
composition, the industry has produced a rich and diverse heritage
unmatched by any other country. CINEMA ITALIANO is a celebration of
this tradition – a tribute to Italian film music.
The project’s co-ordinator and renowned flautist Andrea Griminelli has brought together top names from the disparate arenas of pop, rock and classical music to create a remarkable album of reinterpretations of evocative and inspirational themes, along side previously unreleased repertoire. Produced by Craig Leon and re-arranged by Luis Bacalov (who also plays the piano throughout the album) the collection features songs by Sting, Deborah Harry, Luciano Pavarotti, Lucio Dalla, Filippa Giordano and the vocal ensemble Elysium. Andrea Griminelli also plays the flute throughout the album and his powerful duets can be heard on pieces such as the themes from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Mediterraneo and Cinema Paradiso.
Andrea Griminelli says he found it surprisingly easy to gather such renowned names for the CINEMA ITALIANO project. He found that many of the artists he approached professed to gaining inspiration from Italian movie composers:
`I talked to some of my friends -such as Pavarotti, Deborah Harry and Sting - about the idea of reviving this music, giving it a new interpretation, and found that they all love Italian cinema music.’
Cinema aficionados universally agree that the visual impact of movie scenes is only half of the story, a large part of the emotional power of cinema lies in the music, and Italian cinema broke the mould, using subtle variations to gradually build atmosphere, so that the viewer is enraptured but never overly manipulated.
To find out more about the album, see our special feature(which contains video interviews with the stars and audio excerpts from the album) here.
Let a friend know about this album, by sending them our fantastic eCard
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Decca launches The Singers - win the first 20
releases!!
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The Decca Music Group proudly announces a landmark
series of discs featuring the incomparable artistry of the greatest
singers from the first century of recording. The first twenty
releases of The Singers feature such legendary names as Renata
Tebaldi, Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Teresa Berganza, Luciano
Pavarotti, Franco Corelli, George London and Nicolai Ghiaurov and
include a lavish enhanced CD to bring the magic of these classic
recordings to your desktop. More details about the series, including
a special demonstration of the enhanced CD can be found
here.
We're also giving away prizes to celcbrate this landmark series. You can win the first 20 releases by listening to audio clips from the albums and answering a few questions. If you're a real fan, you shouldn't have any problems. Good luck!
To enter the competition, visit our special Singers feature at www.deccaclassics.com/thesingers
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bond - live at The Royal Albert Hall,
London
on DVD & VHS |
Since the release of their album Born in the UK in September 2000, bond have become an international smash with gold records in the UK, France, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Chile and Austria and platinum in Turkey and Bulgaria. The Guinness World Records presented bond with an award for the highest entry into the UK pop charts ever for a female instrumental band. Their ground-breaking act has also made them the first all-girl string quartet, to enter the pop charts and to to sell a million albums worldwide.
bond are undeniably a visual group, and this DVD captures them at their best. It includes the Royal Albert Hall concert and is packed with many other features.
We've got five bond DVD posters to give
away, all you have to do is send in an email to webmaster@deccaclassics.com with the subject line "Bond DVD poster". The first five emails we receive will win a poster! back to top
John Barry is back!
Next month sees the release of John Barry's long-awaited new album Eternal Echoes, a new collection of original compositions by five-time Academy Award-winning composer John Barry
Like
its best-selling Decca predecessor, 'The Beyondness of Things', 'Eternal Echoes' consists of entirely original music and is not based on a movie soundtrack or music for another medium. The composer conducts the English Chamber Orchestra in a richly orchestrated tapestry of compositions that range from haunting to melancholy, from lighthearted to powerful. Come back next month to read more about this album.
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Soundtrack news - Enigma
Enigma is set
in wartime England inside ‘Station X’ (Bletchley Park), the
birthplace of the computer age and the top secret code breaking
centre. In March 1943 Nazi U-Boats have changed the code by which
they communicate with each other and German High Command and an
Allied convoy is at risk of attack.
John Barry has composed the score soundtrack which is available next month on Decca – it is classic John Barry. The characteristic Barry sound is prevalent in this score, marked by abundant string themes, graceful brass tunes, and rich orchestral textures.
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