Sergey Vassilievich Rachmaninov

Sviatoslav Richter represents the summit of pianistic achievement: his incredible virtuosity and strength, his vision of structure and form, the range of emotion he was able to express on his instrument in concert and on disc have never been surpassed.

Now, for the first time, all nine of the solo and concerto LP-recordings he made for Deutsche Grammophon have been gathered into a single box-set at budget price. All of these recordings have been in the DG catalogue since they were made; if they’re not still at top price, they’re in The Originals series.

It started in 1956 with a Schumann recital and ended in 1962 with a recital recorded live on tour in Italy. In between there were five concerto LPs (including Rachmaninov’s Second, Tchaikovsy’s First with Karajan, the Schumann and Prokofiev’s Fifth) and two more mixed recitals. Here they are, faithfully reproduced in their original couplings (newly mastered) and with original artwork in mini-LP format. The CD booklet (in the style of the The Martha Argerich Collection) has masterly new liner notes by piano expert Jeremy Siepmann, who manages to capture the essence of Richter the man and musician, as well as furnishing precise annotations on each of the albums in turn.

An essential box-set for all serious lovers of piano music.

Steven Osborne’s live performances of Rachmaninov’s preludes were greeted ecstatically by critics and audience alike: a new benchmark for performances of these works, and a new departure for this most subtle and sensitive of pianists. Now Steven has committed the complete cycle to disc—a surprisingly rare recording venture in itself. His matchless musicianship has rarely been so blazingly evident as it is here. Also apparent is his deeply individual relationship with the repertoire. This is a disc to treasure.

‘Russia is old, Russia is vast, Russia is mighty. But her advance in art, letters and music is comparatively recent’. So wrote Joseph Lhévinne in 1917. Mikhail, Glinka emerged along with Pushkin, Turgenev and Tolstoy in the early 1800s and was to become the father of Russian music. At the same time as Glinka was establishing himself as the first nationalistic composer of the nation, the first great pianist-composer settled in Moscow - the Irishman John Field. Field can lay claim to not only inventing the nocturne, but also to laying the foundation stone of what would become the great piano school of Russia. The latest students of this great tradition are very much with us today: Lugansky, Kissin and Demidenko can all be found in this set.

This remarkable 25CD survey of some of the great Russian pianists of past and present follows the tradition from those who can, through their teachers, trace a direct lineage to Clementi, Field, Beethoven, Czerny, Henselt and Liszt. The Rubinstein brothers Anton and Nikolai established the St Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, and from the 1840s, Russia started to produce the first of the great virtuosos.

Great names such as Neuhaus and Horowitz are to be found in this set, as well as Richter, Gilels – both with three CDs each – Berman, Ashkenazy, Pletnev, Gavrilov and many more. Other names (Konstantin Igumnov, Viktor Merzhanov, Yakov Zak) may be less familiar to Western ears, but will offer fascinating perspectives on the developing school of Russian pianism, and the subtly various approaches to phrase and timbre within it.

The repertoire ranges from Russian warhorses such as the First Piano Concertos by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev to intimate salon pieces such as Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, including rarely heard works such as Kabalevsky’s set of Preludes. The monumental concertos by Brahms, Beethoven and others are well represented, as are the litmus tests of Classical and Romantic piano literature: there are several contrasting versions of Liszt’s B minor Sonata and Beethoven’s Sonata No.32.

A fabulous survey of some of the greatest pianists of the past century and more to emerge from the great Russian tradition of piano playing and teaching. A must for all lovers of the piano.

Of historical interest – many recordings are rare, and have been hitherto been unavailable on CD.

Comprehensive booklet with detailed notes on every pianist and the recordings.

The song recital recorded here brings together five composers of vastly different persuasions. Ives, the inspired maverick, the first composer who captured the "feel" of America in music; Weill, who began life composing important "classical" scores and spent the last ten years of his life writing for movies and Broadway; Rachmaninoff, whose piano concerti and symphonies are known the world over; Strauss, Germany's last all-around genius; and Hugo Wolf, the only one among the five who devoted himself to song, to the exclusion of almost everything else. This recording was made early in Dawn Upshaw’s career after she took the First Prize of the 1985 Walter W. Naumburg Vocal Competition. Since then she has performed all over the world in works from Mozart to Messiaen, on both the opera and concert stage. She has championed contemporary music, giving first performances of over 25 works in the last decade. She has made over 50 recordings and won 4 Grammys.

The Vespers by Rachmaninov has become one of the choral treasures of Russian Sacred Music. Premiered in March 1915 it has remained a firm favourite ever since. Deeply moving and packed full of glorious rich sounds and tones, this is unmistakably Russian music. This release is part of a series dedicated to the art of the outstanding conductor Alexander Sveshnikov. This recording stands as one of his most outstanding achievements.

history but in the entire history of performance. In that year the USSR established the first International Tchaikovsky Competition as a showcase for its own imperial talent. Once again the USSR would demonstrate that in the sphere of great romantic piano playing (one extending from Anton Rubinstein to Richter and Gilels) they had no equals. Summoning the finest pianists and jurors they prepared for a foregone victory followed by international acclaim. But neither they nor anyone else could have expected the gauntlet thrown down by a twenty-four-year-old 6’ 4’’ blond Texan pianist called Van Cliburn. Viewed with suspicion, Cliburn’s nationality invited hostility. This was the time of the cold war and the very real possiblity of a nuclear Armageddon as the USSR and America viewed each other across a seemingly unbridgeable chasm. Pre-conceived notions of American, Juilliard-trained pianists were in the air, of a crew-cut school expressed in broken-glass sound. So that Cliburn’s performances, characterised by broad tempi, rare poetic rhapsody and freedom captured in massive and delicate tone, came like a bolt out of the blue. All possible animosity turned to awe and amazement as Cliburn’s outsize audience listened to a pianist ‘more Russian than the Russians’, one who played their own music with a rare emotional warmth and charisma. Suddenly Cliburn, an outsider from alien territory, became their beloved ‘Vanushka’, the stage and dressing-room littered with gifts and flowers. Cliburn arrived in Moscow with three suitcases and left with seventeen. Later, when both jury and audience had recovered, their comments came thick and fast and this Testament release will surely re-ignite not a controversy but a unique triumph and occasion. Sviatoslav Richter, happily oblivious to competition protocol, gave Cliburn a hundred marks, his competitors zero, remarking, ‘he is a pianist, the others are not’. Shostakovich joined in the chorus of praise and Irina Zaritskaya (herself a major prize-winner, taking second place to Maurizio Pollini in the 1960 Chopin Competition in Warsaw) spoke with a special eloquence of Cliburn’s unique quality. “For we Russians his way with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov in particular was uncanny. Such grandeur, romantic warmth and empathy. He came close to sentimentality, but he never quite crossed the line. His playing had an extraordinary nobility. You can’t even imagine the furore he caused and his playing is still endlessly discussed in Russia today.” Extract from the note © Bryce Morrison, 2008

Each disc in the set takes the listener on a fascinating journey through the century, composer by composer and work by work, from Russian Romanticism, French Impressionism, English Pastoralism, Atonalism, Neo Classicism right up to Post Modernism, and from as wide a range of countries and genres as possible.