“He was an amazing musician. There can be very few conductors who can manage stylistically the breadth that he did. But I think my favourite contribution from him was bringing Czech music to the West.” This is the opera star Renée Fleming’s glowing description of Sir Charles Mackerras, whose long and incredibly fruitful conducting career and life ended at the age of 84 in July 2010.

Indeed, over the past few decades, Czech music has not had a more vigorous advocate and champion in the world, nor a greater fan and connoisseur. “I am a great fan of Dvořák’s music because it always seemed to me that, apart from Mozart, Dvořák is the greatest composer... He wrote these symphonies, he wrote tone poems, he wrote operas, he wrote chamber music, he wrote songs, he wrote religious music, everything... He’s just the greatest composer, except Mozart perhaps.”

Supraphon had the truly great honour of cooperating with this superlative conductor until the very end. The albums featuring the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in particular have captured Mackerras’s vision of a wide scale of works by the four greatest Czech composers. The list of awards these recordings have received is long... Let us then instead spend our time listening to his musical legacy on these CDs, which Supraphon with respect and love for Sir Charles presents to all those who would like to recollect this great man.

Many of these are benchmark recordings of these works. A memorial booklet about Sir Charles, his life and impact on Czech music is also included in the set.

Contents:
CD 1
- Slavonic Dances, 1st Series, Op.46
- Slavonic Dances, 2nd Series, Op.72

CD 2
- Symphonic Variations, Op.78
- Symphony No.6 in D major, Op.60 (live recording)

CD 3
- Symphony No.8 in G major, Op.88 (live recording)
- Symphony No.9 in E minor, Op.95 ‘From the New World’ (live recording)

CD 4
- Legends, Op.59
- Scherzo capriccioso, Op.66
- In Nature´s Realm: concert overture, Op.91 (live recording)

CD 5: Symphonic Poems
- The Water Goblin, Op.107 (live recording)
- The Noon Witch, Op.108 (live recording)
- The Golden Spinning Wheel, Op.109
- The Wild Dove, Op.110

CD 6
My Country (live recording)