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Another outstanding recording from the golden era at EMI. Made in 1952, and produced by Walter Legge, it was the first of two that featured Boris Christoff in the title role. The second version, though fine and in stereo (conducted by André Cluytens), never dislodged the first recording from the top of the critics’recommended list. The reasons for this are twofold – firstly the conducting of Issay Dobrowen is simply superb, and secondly, because of Christoff ’s portrayal of Boris, and coincidental, two other roles. In these he adopts clearly delineated characters and voices – never sounding like one singer performing three roles in the same voice. For Boris he provides the superlative portrait of the tortured Tsar, but the anguish never spills over into histrionics. Another jewel in the crown is the young Nicolai Gedda – an ardent and fresh Grigory. The orchestral playing from the French forces sounds more Russian than on many recordings that have followed – a tribute to the conductor, Issay Dobrowen.

‘Dobrowen’s lean, vivid, acutely shaped direction, … taut rhythms and fastish tempos, is as vital as any version since. Its other main attribute is, of course Christoff … if that were not enough, there is the beauty and ardour of the young Gedda … the digital transfers bring out the excellence of the original engineering. So this version really is essential listening for admirers of the work.’ Gramophone

Originally planned as the second part of a trilogy consisting of Boris Godunov, with Pugachoyovschina the projected third and final part, Khovanschina occupied the composer during 1872, as Boris was being ‘adjusted’ to suit the theatre authorities ahead of the premier. The plot concerns the great militia revolt of 1682, and the reign of Tsarina Sophia Aleyevna as guardian of her feeble minded brother Ivan and his half brother Peter. Peter later overthrew her and reigned as Tsar Peter I, known as Peter the Great. A divisive figure, Peter is credited with bringing the enlightenment to Russia, though many (such as Mussorgsky’s fellow composer and friend, Balakirev) claim he destroyed Russian individuality by introducing Western thoughts and culture to Mother Russia.

This subject appealed greatly to Mussorgsky. In music the conflict between western and traditional Russian thought was highlighted by the Mighty Handful on one side, and the Western-facing Tchaikovsky, Anton Rubinstein and Glazunov on the other.

Mussorgky enjoyed working on the opera: ‘I revel in collecting material, my head glows like a cauldron under which a fire is constantly being stoked up’ he wrote in July 1872. He worked on Khovanschina until his death from acute alcoholism in 1881. A concert performance of parts of the work in 1879 proved a disheartening experience. The opera was left incomplete, Rimsky Korsakov editing and scoring it in 1883, with heavy cuts.

Stravinsky and Ravel re-orchestrated it in 1912 for Diaghilev, and between 1939-59 Shostakovich worked on what is now the standard performing edition of the opera. This recording however uses the first edition as prepared by Rimsky.

The Georgian pianist Nino Gvetadze was born in 1981 and studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Since winning the YPF National Piano Competition in 2004, she has appeared with many leading orchestras and performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Modest Mussorgsky’s turbulent and muddled life somehow enabled him to become one of the most visionary and innovative composers in Russia in the 19th century. ‘Art is not an end in itself, but a means of conversing with one’s fellow creatures’ he wrote in his autobiography. This view may in some way explain the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies in his music. He had been called a ‘barbarian’ by some of his colleagues, and even his friend and fellow member of ‘The Mighty Handful’ (the group of five leading Russian nationalist composers) Rimsky-Korsakov thought he lacked refinement.

His vivid tonal pallette was to become an important influence on composers such as Debussy and Ravel, the latter famously orchestrating Mussorgksy’s piano masterpiece Pictures at an Exhibition. The original is the main work on this disc which includes all his extant works for solo piano. Much of his output for piano dates from his early years as a composer, and two piano sonatas, in E flat major and F minor, have sadly been lost.

New recording, containing pieces that are rarely recorded.

One of a series of releases highlighting the winners of the principal prizes at the prestigious YPF Young Pianist Foundation’s National Piano Competition in Holland.

‘A musician to be reckoned with.’ De Telegraaf

The complete Vox, Turnabout and Vanguard solo recordings

Alfred Brendel retires this year from public performance. He will give his last recital in December at Vienna’s Musikverein, in the city where he came to prominence over half a century ago. The recordings he made then for young American labels established in the wake of the Second World War, harnessing young talent in classic repertoire, have stood the test of time. They put down a marker for the music that Brendel would come almost to ‘own’ in the eyes of the piano-music-loving public: the Beethoven concertos and sonatas, Mozart concertos, Schubert, Liszt and Schoenberg. He would later bring deepening insights to the core of the Austro-German repertoire that was his mainstay, but these early recordings are of far more than merely historical value: they are the first, impetuous explorations of a true keyboard lion. Thus there is also music we don’t associate with Brendel, and to which he chose not to return, especially from Russia: Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. In sum, and at a specially reduced price, this is essential listening for anyone interested in piano music and in the career of one of the greatest living pianists.

Many of these performances have scarcely been available on CD: this is the first time they have been gathered together as a set Extensive booklet notes by pianophile Ates Orga, including a conversation piece with Brendel.

Byron Janis (b1928) was born in Pennsylvania to Polish-Russian Jewish parents, and is one of a remarkable group of American virtuoso pianist that include Leon Fleischer, Gary Graffman, Julius Katchen and Raymond Lewenthal. Janis’s playing was high voltage, platinum plated, and the recordings on this 4CD set illustrate clearly why he was and still is held in such high regard. He was Horowitz’s first student, and he rocketed to fame by being the first American pianist to go to Moscow and Leningrad in 1960 at a time of high tension in the Cold War. He married the daughter of Gary Cooper (Maria Cooper was a successful artist) and so was brushed by Hollywood aristocracy. His last recording was made in 1970 for EMI and Bryce Morrison wrote in Gramophone ‘in every sense a true romantic..beneath a now frail exterior burns an inner light of an overwhelming and transcending strength’ Very much an intuitive Slavic pianist rather than a Teutonic intellectual, he epitomises Chopin’s exhortation to ‘play with all your soul’.

Booklet notes.

Recordings made for Mercury Living Presence.

‘Janis certainly storms the work with all the resources of his big technique, yet at the same time the performance is by no means without style’ Gramophone review Rachmaninov 3, 1962

‘And the performance? Given the approach, it is as outstanding as the recorded sound. Byron Janis rises to a phenomenal pitch of virtuosity, which brings to mind the shattering rapidity and precision of Horowitz; his machine-gun delivery of the battering octave passages takes one's breath away, while his flawless finger dexterity in the central - section of the slow movement flashes past at an incredible speed which leaves the ear toiling in pursuit’ Gramophone, Tchaikovsky 1, 1962

Piano sonatas (by Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Schumann) are featured extensively but this set also contains some rather original choices: music by Satie, Albéniz and Liszt for example.

A true discovery for many western ears: Valentina Levko, star contralto of the Bolshoi!

“In a career of 50 years, I have rarely encountered such a voice, rounded, youthful, with an uncommon timbre and astonishing warmth” , thus said the legendary Sol Hurok, one of the most famous American Impresarios, who introduced Valentina Levko in the New York Met.

Although she frequently toured the world, her real home was Russia, where she reigned for more than 40 years, and 25 years as the star contralto of the Bolshoi Theatre.

This set features Levko in a wide variety of repertoire, ranging from moving Baroque arias by Bach and Handel, through the art songs of Schubert and Brahms, towards great opera scenes from Prince Igor, Ruslan & Ludmilla, Ivan Susanin, Queen of Spades, Rossini, Verdi, the songs of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and a superb collection of Russian folk songs.

An unrivalled breadth of recordings.

Valentina Levko was another in the glorious line of Russian 20th‐century contraltos who in some ways defined the sound of Russian opera for ears, both Eastern and Western, which were often discovering the rich tradition of Russian opera for the first time through recordings. Levko's name, however, unlike compatriots such as Elena Obratzova, never travelled as far or as well. Committed to her contract at the Bolshoi, she spurned several opportunities to make a name for herself in the West, with the lucrative recording contracts that would surely have followed.

And yet hers was, as this important set reveals, a voice and dramatic presence firmly in the mould of greats of the past such as Zara Dolukhanova. The set is carefully curated by themes, thereby revealing Levko's remarkable versatility. Arias from Bolshoi classics by Glinka, Rimsky‐Korsakov and Tchaikovsky sit alongside Western operas by Ponchielli, Verdi and others; her ability to scale her voice to an intimate environment results in warmly idiomatic recordings of art song by Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. The pleasure she took in the popular song of her own country also resulted in many recordings with the Ossipov Folk Orchestra, but her facility extended to folk songs of many languages, as the last CD reveals. Perhaps most remarkably of all, the first CD reveals a natural interpreter of Bach and Handel. An extensive booklet note discusses her life and career; for anyone interested in Russian voices, this set will be essential.