French Romantic Music: Fauré, Chabrier, Bizet

This release kicks off our major Thomas Beecham retrospective, whith a box set of all the stereo recordings made by the great British conductor to follow. Among the maestro's latest recordings is a series of albums of French music on which he conducts the Orchestre National de la Radio Française, including a legendary version of Carmen with Victoria de los Ángeles. He can also be heard conducting works by Bizet, Chabrier and Fauré, in an orchestration by Henri Rabaud of the Dolly suite. Thomas Beecham, who remembers playing this piece on four-hand piano alongside the composer himself but had never conducted it either on record or in concert by then, gives us an admirable version.