La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun–partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm–but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Riccardo Chailly is a dynamic and sometimes controversial conductor known for his devotion to contemporary music and for his attempts to modernize approaches to the traditional symphonic repertory. His many recordings for the Decca label include modern masterworks by Zemlinsky, Hindemith, and Schnittke, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, and a number of operas.

This wonderfully re-issued Orchestral Music of Giacomo Puccini - (1858-1924) offers a unique orchestral side of this genius of opera. These orchestral compositions may be divided into two areas: orchestral and operatic. Selections I & II are from Puccini's student days at the Milano Conservatory. Selections III-XI date from his early days as an operatic composer including the truly delightful Minuets - I-III and the lush and haunting Crisantemi of 1892, written for a funeral.

Chailly and La Scala maintain the gold standard for Verdi in this new release coupling two great but rarely recorded choral works. The Hymn of the Nations (Inno delle nazioni) features Decca’s star tenor Freddie De Tommaso, the first tenor to record this work for Decca since Pavarotti. First performed in London in 1862 the Hymn incorporates ‘God Save the Queen’, ‘La Marseillaise’ and ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’: the national anthems of Great Britain, France and Italy. The Four Scared Pieces were published as a set in 1898, shortly before Verdi died. It portrays themes promising peace and the hope of paradise. This album follows the success of ‘Verdi Choruses’ which BBC Music Magazine awarded a 5* review: “Chorus and orchestra are both on their mettle here: the orchestral playing is clean and brilliant, the choral tone full and healthy.” “Chailly is meticulous and pays attention to the fine details, drawing performances from the chorus that are always sonorous and tasteful.” - Gramophone

All of Rachmaninov’s music - from his earliest student compositions to his final masterpieces – has been collected together for the first time on 32 CDs, in what is definitively the most complete and comprehensive edition of Rachmaninov’s works ever released.

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is probably the most frequently performed choral work of the 21st century. The name has Latin roots – 'Carmina' means 'songs', while 'Burana' is the Latinised form of Beuren, the name of the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria. So, Carmina Burana translates as Songs Of Beuren, and refers to a collection of early 13th-century songs and poems that was discovered in Beuren in 1803 – although it has since been established that the collection originated from Seckau Abbey, Austria – and is now housed in the Bavarian State Library.

Along with Wit's Naxos recording, this is one of the best versions of Messiaen's phantasmagoric Turangalîla-Symphonie available, and it's very different: swifter, more obviously virtuosic in concept, perhaps a touch less warm in consequence, and engineered with greater “in your face” immediacy. The playing of the Concertgebouw, always a wonderful Messiaen orchestra, is stunning throughout. Chailly revels in the music's weirdness. The Ondes Martinot, for example, is particularly well captured. It's interesting how earlier performances tended to minimize its presence, perhaps for fear that is would sound silly, which of course it does, redeemed by the composer's utter seriousness and obliviousness to anything that smacks of humor. In any case, it's not all noise and bluster. The Garden of Love's Sleep is gorgeous, hypnotic, but happily still flowing, while the three Turangalîla rhythmic studies have remarkable clarity. Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays the solo piano part magnificently, really as well as anyone else ever has.

This live performance has a novel premise: it pairs The Rite of Spring with some pieces that led up to it. The big news is the Chant funèbre of 1908, lost (Stravinsky said he remembered it as one of his strongest early pieces and hoped someone would uncover it), rediscovered at the Moscow Conservatory, and given frequent performances in 2016 and 2017. This is the first recording.

The album marks 45 years since Chailly’s debut at La Scala, and also the signing of his exclusive contract with Decca.

Ein Rückblick auf zehn Jahre Cecilia Bartoli: Die Arie "Non piú mesto" aus der 1992 entstandenen Gesamtaufnahme von Rossinis La Cenerentola ist das älteste Tondokument dieser Anthologie, und mancher, der wie der Rezensent diese Cenerentola damals erworben hat, wird sich gut erinnern an die unbeschreiblich elektrisierende Wirkung, die die junge Italienerin mit ihrem vollblütigen Stimmmaterial, ihrem Temperament und ihrer faszinierenden Virtuosität auf ihn ausübte. Das Besondere: Die Geschwindigkeit der rasend schnellen Koloraturen geht niemals zu Lasten des Ausdrucks oder der Intensität.

Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra complete their cycle of Schumann s four symphonies, presented together in a specially-priced 2-CD set. The Gewandhaus Orchestra under it s Music Director Riccardo Chailly brings generations of authentic romantic style to performances of all four Schumann symphonies. These symphonies, recorded in the wonderful acoustic of the Gewandhaus itself, include the revisions made by the composer Gustav Mahler a lifelong supporter of Schumann and his symphonic writings.

Following the 2011 landmark Beethoven cycle, Riccardo Chailly returns with a recording of the complete Brahms symphonies and orchestral works including the overtures and Haydn Variations. Rarities include world premiere recordings of two piano intermezzi orchestrated by Paul Klengel (brother of the Gewandhaus’ long-standing principal cellist Julius Klengel); the 9 Liebeslieder waltzes; the original first performance version of the Andante of Symphony No. 1 and the even rarer revised opening of the Fourth Symphony. Chailly has radically rethought his approach to these works, re-examining the scores and returning to the recorded interpretations of a generation of conductors alive during Brahms’ lifetime, principally Felix Weingartner and one of his Gewandhaus predecessors Bruno Walter.

This album uses the term “discoveries” rather loosely, especially as it applies to the Piano Concerto No. 3 in E minor, for which the third movement existed only as an incomplete sketch. This was reconstructed and finished by Mendelssohn specialist Marcello Bufalini and premiered in 2007. The resulting work is full of buoyant energy, but it’s oddly short on melodic distinction–not a characteristic we normally associate with Mendelssohn. What it does have is some wonderfully bravura piano writing, delivered with engaging brio by Roberto Prosseda, whose masterful technique makes it a bit easier to overlook the music’s shortcomings.