Between January and December 1951, Dutch conductor Paul van Kempen recorded a series of major Tchaikovsky works with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performances are at once fiery and incandescent – a kind of meaningful sound and fury – and have long been out of the catalogue. But even when they were issued, they divided critical opinion - some seeing the recordings as revelatory, others as hysterical.

Van Kempen’s Tchaikovsky recordings are clearly those of a man who was not only a spiritual descendent of the Great Romantic conductors of the past, but was also a fiery, audacious and temperamental musician with a number of deeply personal things to say.

His recordings of the fifth and sixth symphonies of Tchaikovsky have long been prized among collectors. Here are all of Van Kempen’s Tchaikovsky performances with the Concertgebouw, collected on a 2CD set.

‘This recording of Capriccio Italien is arguably the very best performance ever recorded … this recording takes the sweepstakes.’ - MusicWeb International