Fete a la Francaise [incls 'Rhapsodie Norvegienne' & Phedre - Overture]

"beautifully warm and clear orchestral sound … a most excellent recording" Gramophone Magazine (Liszt)

"played with finesse and recorded with clarity" Gramophone Magazine (Massenet)

The recorded legacy of Albert Wolff is one of the most sought-after by collectors. Of Dutch parentage, but born in Paris, Wolff was something of a polymath: pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and had a long career in recording studios beginning in 1920. His first recordings for Decca, starting in the summer of 1951, were a complete Carmen (with Suzanne Juyol), a Manon (with Janine Micheau) as well as several French orchestral suites and individual pieces. This collection includes Wolff's much-praised versions of the Charpentier and Massenet picture-postcard suites as well as the thrilling music of Lalo's Rédemption and the searing (and very rare) recordings of instrumental music from Massenet's Werther. The mono versions of the Franck and Lalo pieces were never published, so those 1956 recordings had to wait nearly twenty years for their eventual (stereo) publication on the Decca 'Eclipse' imprint in August 1975.