Ludwig van Beethoven

Sviatoslav Richter was born in 1915 and died in August 1997. He was a Soviet pianist, widely recognised as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. He was well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique and extensive repertoire. In March 1934, Richter gave his first recital in his home town of Odessa. He did not start formal piano studies until three years later, with Heinrich Neuhaus, a famous pianist and piano teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire. During Richter's audition for Neuhaus, the teacher apparently whispered to a fellow student 'this man's a genius'. Although Neuhaus taught many great pianists, including Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, it is said that he considered Richter to be 'the genius pupil' for whom he had been waiting all his life. The West first became aware of Richter through recordings he made in the 1950s. One of Richter's first advocates in the West was Emil Gilels, who stated during his first tour of the United States that the critics, who were giving Gilels rave reviews, should 'wait until you hear Richter'. Sviatoslav Richter (who had received the Stalin and Lenin prizes and became People's Artist of the RSFSR), gave his first concert tours in the USA in 1960 and in Britain and France in 1961. While Richter enjoyed performing in front of an audience, he hated planning concerts years in advance, and in later years took to playing at very short notice in small, quite often darkened halls, with only a small lamp lighting the score. Richter claimed that this setting helped the audience focus on the music being performed, rather than on extraneous and irrelevant matters such as the performer's grimaces and gestures. Richter's repertoire ranged from Handel and Bach to Szymanowski, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Britten, and Gershwin. Central to his repertoire were the works of all the composers who are represented in this Icon set.

This 5 CD set covers the best of Björling’s EMI solo recordings and includes highlights from the three complete operas:

CD 1 contains Opera and Oratorio Arias and Songs in their original language recorded between 1936 and 1941.

CD 2 covers similar repertoire from 1941 to 1950.

CD 3 goes back to the period from 1929 when Björling was still a local Swedish artist and recorded all his material in Swedish. The CD opens with the two recently discovered test recordings that Björling made for EMI Sweden on 4 September 1929: ‘For You Alone’ and ‘Mattinata’, both sung in Swedish.

CD 4 contains a selection of Lieder and Songs, all sung in their original language, recorded between 1939 and 1959.

CD 5 contains a generous selection of highlights from Björling’s three complete EMI operas: La bohème, Pagliacci and Madama Butterfly. He is partnered in all three recordings by the soprano Victoria de los Angeles. All tracks, except those from Pagliacci and Madama Butterfly on CD 5, have been transferred and digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios from the best available source material in the EMI Archives by the award-winning audio restoration engineer Andrew Walter.

Over the more than 40 years of its activity, the Suk Trio underwent several personnel changes. Yet it was the “classic” Suk – Panenka – Chuchro line-up (the configuration from 1960 onwards) that wrote the most colourful chapter in its illustrious history.

The ensemble was a rare example of perfect coordination between opposites: a noble virtuoso pianist with a crystal-clear touch (Jan Panenka), an earthy and energetic cellist (Josef Chuchro) and a lyrical and melodious violinist (Josef Suk). These outstanding individuals managed to uniquely meld together their disparate temperaments, creating a legendary chamber grouping that was enthusiastically received by listeners worldwide.

Beethoven and Schubert’s piano trios were one of the pillars of their repertoire and at the same time represent the first great apex of this genre. The 25-year-old Beethoven published Piano Trio No. 3 in C major together with another two trios under the opus number “1” in 1795, shortly after his arrival in Vienna. The extensive Trio No. 7, the “Archduke Trio”, was written in 1810-11 and is the work of a mature composer.

Schubert completed his Trio No. 1 in B flat major during the last year of his life (1827) alongside serious and melancholic pieces. The work’s optimistic vein therefore comes as something of a surprise.

Legendary recordings of vintage Beethoven and Schubert by the classic Suk Trio line-up.

The critically acclaimed ensemble, The Endellion String Quartet, celebrate their 30th anniversary with the release of a spectacular 10 CD Box Set of new recordings of Beethoven String Quartets and String Quintets, and all quartet and quintet fragments. The release also coincides with the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University, where they have been quartet in residence since 1992, and therefore form a key part in the quartet’s celebrations as musical ambassador.

The Endellion String Quartet formed in 1979, and is renowned as one of the finest quartets in the world.

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Chamber Ensemble, the quartet have an international touring schedule and have performed at every major venue and festival across the globe. They have worked with the likes of Sir Thomas Allen, Joshua Bell, Michael Collins, Steven Isserlis, Mitsuko Uchida and Tabea Zimmerman. Their presence in London has been marked by several series both at the South Bank and Wigmore Hall, where the quartet were Artistic Directors of several ‘Quartet Plus’ series.

All the music featured in the recording is from the new scholarly performing edition by well known Beethoven scholar, Jonathan del Mar, and published by Bärenreiter. These Beethoven symphony editions are already used by orchestras worldwide.

To mark the double anniversary celebrations, the quartet will be performing six concerts at West Road concert hall in Cambridge, four concerts at the Wigmore Hall in London throughout October, January, March and June, plus master classes and educational workshops worldwide. The Endellion String Quartet will also feature in the BBC film ‘Searching for Beethoven’ (Seventh Art Poductions) due for broadcast in January 2009, where a number of excerpts of the Beethoven recordings played by the Endellion String Quartet will be featured.

Continuing with its series of major concerto recordings with Evgeny Kissin, EMI Classics will release the pianist’s first ever complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos in September this year. Kissin is partnered in these recordings by one of the master Beethovenians of our time, Sir Colin Davis, leading the London Symphony Orchestra.

Recording the Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle is a momentous experience for any pianist. For generations the concertos have been the touchstone of an artist’s maturity for their stylistic bridge from the classicism of Haydn and Mozart to the first flowering of Romanticism. Although Evgeny Kissin has performed these works numerous times over the years - and even recorded some of them previously - he waited until now to find the best possible musical environment in which to make this very personal statement.

Recording Producer Jay Saks, who has worked closely with Kissin since his 1990 Carnegie Hall’s debut, said of the project: “Recording the five Beethovens with Genya [Kissin] and Sir Colin was just wonderful. [It was] such beautiful playing, so musical and entirely in the character of Beethoven. It’s not strange, not quirky, it’s just astonishingly beautiful, technically proficient, musically extremely thoughtful - and profound. As a producer, I have to remember that I am present at recording sessions […] for professional reasons. It is so easy to just sit and listen and get swept away with what he’s doing. These Beethovens are remarkable.”

Hailed as one of the most exciting musicians of her generation: “Dazzling…” (The Daily Telegraph); “…lavish virtuosity” (The Financial Times); her eagerly-awaited follow-up sees Batiashvili, internationally regarded as a superb interpreter of the classical repertoire and a decided champion of new music, in another adventurous collaboration with her trademark twist of unusual pairings: this time Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen coupled with Miniatures by Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925-1991) featuring the Georgian Chamber Orchestra.

Most unusually, both orchestras are directed by Ms Batiashvili herself.

Ms Batiashvili was recently featured in The Guardian as one of the “four young stars of classical music you need to hear”. Now, in her mid-20s, she continues to make an indelible impression on the international music scene with stunning successes throughout Europe, North America, Australia and the Pacific-Rim territories.