Ludwig van Beethoven

Claudio Arrau was born on 6th February 1903. Such was his prodigious talent that he gave his first public recital in Santiago at the age of five.

When he was nine he was sent, with support of the Chilean Government, to study in Berlin where he was a pupil of Martin Krause at Stern’s Conservatory for six years, he never went to another teacher.

He received many awards during his student days such that his name was already in circulation when he gave extensive tours in Germany and Scandinavia following his first recital in Berlin in 1914. He embarked on a tour of Europe after WW1. Conductors of the highest calibre – Nikisch, Mengelberg and Furtwängler amongst them – accompanied him.

After a successful return visit to his homeland in 1921 he visited London the following year where he appeared in a concert with Dame Nellie Melba and Bronislaw Huberman, the violinist who, at the age of 14, had won Brahms admiration for his performance of his concerto. In 1923 he toured the USA.

He joined the staff of Stern’s Conservatory in 1924 and taught there until 1940. In Berlin he played the complete works of Bach over 12 concerts but decided that the piano was not the instrument for these works and never played them in public again. Leaving Berlin in 1940 he returned to

Chile, where in its capital, Santiago, he founded a piano school. It was whilst on a highly successful tour of the USA during the following year that he decided to settle his family in New York.

Arrau’s reputation is built on his special affinity for the music of Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and, above all, Beethoven whose complete sonatas he played in many major cities. His performances had all the virtuoso technique required but it was accomplished without the least ostentation; for him the music was what should remain in the audience’s ear and should not be disturbed by the flamboyance of the pianist in the audience’s eye.

Twenty years have passed since he departed but these recordings will bring back happy memories for all those lucky enough ever to have attended his concerts.

Gilels’ legendary performances of the Beethoven Piano Concertos, re-mastered and presented at super budget price.

‘This Beethoven Fourth is one of the most perfect accounts (and perhaps the most perfect account) of the Concerto ever recorded. Poetry and virtuosity are held in perfect poise, with Ludwig and the Philharmonia providing near-ideal accompaniment. Gilels’s ‘Emperor’ is also a masterful and compelling performance.’ Gramophone

Gary Cooper: "The decision to use a historic Viennese instrument for this recording - built in the very year Beethoven completed his Diabelli Variations – is, in one sense, self-explanatory. Newly & magnificently restored by Edwin Beunk, the Walter und Sohn grand piano featured here is both a beautiful & charming instrument. In approaching the timeless, expansive sound world of Beethoven's late, great works, any piano is constantly tested; historic instruments not far off two hundred years old additionally so! This is the first commercial recording, to my knowledge, which attempts to place this particular masterpiece firmly in the sound-world of the early 1820s, when it was conceived and first played."

In his extensive liner notes, based on many letters and historical documents, Gary Cooper wonders why Beethoven chose to continue composing, after the onset of deafness. (...) ‘I cannot imagine that I am alone in feeling both puzzled & amazed by this, as well as gratitude that he did so, since many of his very finest, most sublime works stem from this later period. (...) The key word here is imagination: while we imagine Beethoven should be pitied, I also imagine he pitied others since, through deafness, he was no longer prey to the prosaic nature of general conversation which he abhorred above all else; and in this new-found world of profound silence, his fecund imagination created nothing but unadulterated music, without reference to anyone but himself, and his maker. All great art, in Beethoven's own philosophy, is simply a process of a 'returning to the divine when achieved'.

These archive recordings are extremely rare and have never been issued before.

The live performances from London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1967 captures Gilels

at his best, playing in front of an audience away from the confines of the studio.

His earlier recordings were all made in the studio and date back to 1954 and 1957 (both no longer available) as well as a complete set with Szell in 1968 where the recorded sound came under some criticism.

William Mann in the Times wrote after the concert of Concerto No.3, “For all his truly Beethovenian brio in the first movement, Gilels never allowed this to get the better of the clarity and firmness of his phraseology, indeed his opening was like chiselled stone. There was immense dignity in the Largo and the Rondo, taken at what I thought to be exactly the right speed, came across with remarkable vivacity”. Every critic praised Boult’s accompaniments of both concertos.

Excellent stereo sound remastered by Paul Baily.

There can be few, if any, musicians who have singlehandedly done so much in the establishment of resources for musical performance than Sir Thomas Beecham.

During WWI he conducted and supported financially both the Hallé and London Symphony Orchestras and the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1915 he formed the Beecham Opera Company which trained many young British singers in this field. Eight years later this became the British National Opera Company and was absorbed into Covent Garden in 1932 when Beecham returned to be its Musical Director.

To quote David Cairns “We are nationally and individually a more musically aware people because of him and what he gave us”. A forceful statement, true, but whose life could ever challenge it?

Dissatisfied by conditions and practices, notably the supply of deputies for rehearsals, prevalent in British orchestras, he formed the London Philharmonic Orchestra that same year. Beecham was now able to be at the fulcrum of all developments in music in Britain. WWII put an end to this halcyon period. With Covent Garden shut he travelled, primarily in America, and did not return to Britain until 1944. The London Philharmonic had now become a self-governing body so Beecham, then aged 67, launched the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This was the orchestra with which he committed to disc so many classic recordings with which EMI Classics marks the 50th anniversary of his passing.

It is true that Beecham had particular favourites in composers – Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Bizet and Puccini spring immediately to mind; also his love for Handel – even though his performances were always BIG-scale! He was an early champion of Richard Strauss and became a most effective exponent of Sibelius. His name will always be inextricably linked with that of Delius whose music Beecham seemed to know better even than the composer and it is appropriate that they are buried not far apart in the graveyard at St. Peter’s Parish Church, Limpsfield, Surrey.

He was knighted in 1916, the year he succeeded to his father’s baronetcy, and made a Companion of Honour in 1957.This affable, brilliant, usually charming, ever-communicative, quick-witted – even, at times, to the point of cruelty, dedicated conductor was also the most gifted executive musician England has ever produced.

He was fortunate that his grandfather, a chemist, had created the highly successful pharmaceutical manufacturing business which bore his name. His father, who had started in the company whilst still a teenager, was also fond of music so he was prepared to fund his son’s enthusiastic appetite to attend operas and concerts both here and abroad.

Born on 29th April 1879 in St. Helens, he attended public school at Rossall where his talent at the piano became a legend (the only boy ever to have been allowed a grand piano in his study!). From there he briefly attended Oxford (Wadham) but the composition classes, with Charles Wood in London and Moszkowski in Paris, were funded privately. As a conductor he was purely self-taught.

He formed an orchestra in his home town and deputised for Richter at a Hallé concert when his father was mayor. His career path was clear: he would use his financial resources to support the art which he enjoyed with the aim of bringing it to as many as possible.

At the age of 30 he launched the Beecham Symphony Orchestra, all young and carefully chosen. They would tour, play for opera and ballet and give concerts of adventurous music. London duly welcomed him for a season of intensive opera performances and over the next three years introduced many new ones to British audiences, including by Strauss, Delius and the Russians. He also brought Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes starring Nijinsky and Karsavina to the British stage.

After huge success with their cycle of Beethoven Symphonies on BIS, Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra return with the great composer’s Piano Concertos performed by the sensational young pianist Yevgeny Sudbin.

Sudbin made his début on disc with a programme of sonatas by Scarlatti, but soon continued with recordings of music by later composers from his own country of birth, Russia. He has recorded the Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos No.1, Medtner’s Concertos Nos. 1&2 and Rachmaninov No.4 2010 saw Sudbin’s return to the 18th century, with a Haydn recital that confirmed his reputation as a highly versatile musician. “Few seem as fresh and necessary as this release from this wonder pianist” The Times (5 Star review) on Sudbin’s Tchaikovsky/Medtner concertos

Opening with the composer’s final two works in the genre, Sudbin shares the stage with Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä, a team whose Beethoven credentials are assured after their recent cycle of the nine symphonies which critics claimed to be one of the great Beethoven Cycles.