Welcome to Toccata Classics, the label dedicated to producing recordings of the host amount of top-notch classical music that the concert halls and major record companies are ignoring. We bring you revelations from the staggering quantity of good music that doesn't otherwise get heard, from forgotten Renaissance polyphony and obscure Baroque cantatas via overlooked Romantic symphonies to composers once hidden behind the Iron Curtain.
Join the Toccata Discovery Club to explore the hidden gems of music – and save money as you do so!
The Toccata Discovery Club brings you big discounts on all the recordings in the Toccata Classics catalogue, both new and earlier releases — in your choice of CDs or downloads, as you prefer — and all the books in the Toccata Press catalogue. The £20 annual subscription to the Discovery Club brings you a stonking £5.00 off CDs, £2.00 off album downloads and 25% off books — all delivered post-free anywhere in the world. Not only that: as soon as you join, you can choose two CDs from the Toccata Classics catalogue or a Toccata Press book entirely free (stocks permitting). There's no minimum purchase, and you're not sent anything you haven't asked for. Click here or on the Discovery Club tab for more details and to join.
Major new recording on Toccata Classics
We are proud to present an important new recording on Toccata Classics: 30 Dvořák songs in transcriptions for violin/viola by his great-grandson, Josef Suk, with none other than Vladimir Ashkenazy at the piano – two of the world’s greatest musicians (and the two patrons of Toccata Classics) in a recording of an hour of ‘new’ music by one of its greatest composers. Available through this website.
Two British composers...
Two recent releases from Toccata Classics feature two living British composers 61 years apart in age: a CD of chamber music by Hugh Wood, one of Britain’s most distinguished creative figures, and Velesslavitsa, a concerto for piano, two violins and cello by Alexander Prior, sixteen years old when he wrote the piece – recorded live for Channel Four's final episode of The World's Greatest Musical Prodigies (and remastered for this release), with Alex conducting the Northern Sinfonia and four young soloists: Zhang Xiao Ming (10), piano, Michael Province (13) and Simone Porter (12), violins, and Nathan Chan (15), cello. Both CDs are available now through this website.
...available in a British music special
As well as the two new CDs from Toccata Classics, our sister company Toccata Press has recently published two new titles of interest to British-music enthusiasts: the second volume of Havergal Brian’s writings on music and the paperback edition of Michael Barlow’s classic study of the Life and Music of George Butterworth. There are special offers on both volumes of Brian’s writings and the Toccata Classics CD of Brian songs on the Toccata Press homepage; if you want all three books and all three CDs, we are offering a British music special – all six items for only £84, which is over £60 cheaper than you’ll find them in the shops. Of course, if you’ve joined the Toccata Discovery Club, you’ll get another 25% discount – only £63 for all six.
Some other recent releases...
... included the second instalment of Telemann’s bright and buoyant chamber cantatas of 1726, glorious music for string orchestra in the folk-inspired tradition of Holst and Vaughan Williams from one of Britain’s best-kept musical secrets, Kreisler-like melodic miniatures for violin and piano from a forgotten American master-violinist, and the Shostakovichian cello works of one of Poland’s leading contemporary composers. July releases in the shops but already available through this site at £13.50 each – and the price falls to £8.50 each, and only £28 for all four (for a limited time only), when you join the Toccata Discovery Club.
Another series of first recordings...
... brought you a long-forgotten anthology of Victorian choral gems beautifully sung by Spiritus Chamber Choir in its first recording; the sparkling folk-inspired piano music of a Balkan master of the miniature; song-cycles and chamber music by one of Shostakovich’s most original students; and joyous lute songs and duos from one of the freshest figures in the Italian Baroque. £13.50 each through this site – but £8.50 each, and only £28 for all four, if you join the Toccata Discovery Club.
What is Toccata Classics?
Toccata Classics is a label dedicated to producing recordings of the huge amount of top-notch classical music that the concert halls and major record companies are ignoring.
We make a point of seeking out interesting composers from less familiar musical cultures and from all periods, in the Nordic and Baltic countries, in central and eastern Europe, Russia and further afield.
Toccata Classics was launched in 2005 to bring you these forgotten gems. We now have over 50 CDs in the catalogue with, in the pipeline, recordings of music by Alkan, Alnæs, Ashton, Bach, Beethoven, Brian, Enescu, Lavista, Lyadov, Lyatoshynsky, David Matthews, Nin-Culmell, Oppel, Peyko, Rameau, Ramey, Reicha, Röntgen, Shebalin, Shostakovich, Sinigaglia, Süda, Boris Tchaikovsky, Alexander and Nikolai Tcherepnin, Telemann, Vassilenko, Weinberg, Woyrsch and many more.
The journey on which Toccata Classics is launched might never end, but it will be an exciting voyage of discovery nonetheless. And we hope that you will want to come on board for the ride. That's where the Toccata Discovery Club comes in. In the first place this music is being discovered for people like you (and then, of course, for audiences further afield, we hope). When you join the Discovery Club, you get instant access to everything we do at a considerable discount, and you'll be able to buy each new CD — at a discount, of course — long before it comes into the shops. We want you to share our sense of excitement as each new recording is made and our anticipation as it nears release.
It works both ways, too. We want Toccata Classics to be an interactive label. You might know of some composer whose work is not yet on CD but deserves an audience. So tell us! We are keen to have your suggestions and we need your support.
Martin Anderson
Toccata Classics
Special Burns/Shostakovich offer
Toccata Classics marks Robert Burns’ 250th birthday with the release of Shostakovich’s Burns songs in Russian Settings of Robert Burns, along with Burns settings by four other Russian composers. If you're interested in Shostakovich, you might want our specially priced combination of the new CD with the paperback edition of the Toccata Press Shostakovich Reconsidered, which The Washington Post called 'essential reading'. Normal price for the two: £38. Offer price: £25 – and £20 to Discovery Club members.
