Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 in D flat major ‘Raindrop'

“When I feel in good form and strong enough to find my own individual sound, then I need a Pleyel piano.” “Pleyel pianos are the last word in perfection”.

Two quotes from Chopin, proving his preference of the Pleyel piano as the perfect medium for his artistic ideals. This new recording features a superb 1845 Pleyel Grand Piano, of the Frederick Historical Piano Collection in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, USA. Master pianist Yuan Sheng plays the complete ballades, impromptus, preludes and nocturnes, with exquisite taste, poetry and power, fully exploring the instrument’s unique possibilities. The booklet contains extensive background information on the instrument and its place in history.

The works include: Sonata No.3 in B minor Op.58, 14 Waltzes, Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor Op.21 and 24 Preludes Op.28. The studio recordings were made in Paris and London between 1931 and 1943. This collection is now available again.

It’s hard to believe that Martha Argerich is now approaching her 70th birthday – on 5 June this year. She has been recording for Deutsche Grammophon for 50 years, and has made some of the greatest recordings on the label, now fully documented on The Martha Argerich Collection capboxes (Solo Recordings, Concerto Recording, Chamber Ensemble Recordings).

Three generously filled CDs (nearly 240 minutes of music) portray the incredible virtuosity, style and range of this incomparable artist. We follow her solo and concerto career that is gradually subsumed in recordings with musical partners like Nelson Freire, Stephen Kovacevich, Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer – Argerich’s five decades of recording with DG and Philips (Decca) are surveyed in a magnificent chronological sweep.

This specially priced 4-CD set combines the romantic spirit and dignified musicality of Cuban-born pianist Jorge Bolet, who made many celebrated recordings as a Decca artist. He was to many a cult figure who brought a rare spontaneity and warmth to a broad range or repertoire, including popular favourites and dazzlingly virtuosic encores.

The art of Jorge Bolet is celebrated in this set which is released to mark the 20th anniversary of his death [16 October 1990].

Booklet includes an appreciation of Jorge Bolet by piano specialist Jeremy Siepmann

Celebrating the 2010 bicentenary of Chopin’s birth, pianists Grigory Sokolov and Janusz Olejniczak, both renowned Chopin greats, are brought together in a beautifully presented boxed set (4 CDs for the price of 1) featuring some of Chopin’s best-loved piano works. These beautiful, deeply moving performances (previously available as four separate albums from Opus 111) are among the finest available, making this the ideal boxed set for music lovers and pianists. Grigory Sokolov’s interpretations are poetic and highly individual, and his rhythmic freedom and elasticity of phrase are perhaps unequalled among pianists today. Janusz Olejniczak is an award-winning pianist and played Chopin in Andrzej Zulawski's film The Blue Note, and also appears as the hands of Wladyslaw Szpilman in Adrien Brody's role in the film The Pianist.

The public image of Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) is divided: for some, he is one of the most important Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century, whereas others perceive him as an enfant terrible whose battle against the cultural establishment and the constraints of the music business, which limited his multifaceted artistic interests and talents, became legendary.As ever, such generalisations are both true and false. This compilation of hitherto unreleased recordings made by Gulda for the RIAS Berlin between 1950 and 1959 enables us to experience the pianist and musician Gulda in a more differentiated and unprejudiced manner. For even here, the 'complete musician' - as Gulda saw himself throughout his career - comes into view.The spectrum of recordings which, given the almost frightening concert and recording activities Gulda tackled during this decade, only represents the tip of the iceberg, speaks for itself: it stretches from Mozart to Prokofiev and shows Gulda to be a universal artist who, from the beginning, sought to combine the highest possible degree of objectivity and authenticity with the greatest intensity of music-making. Gulda's musical and pianistic foundations had been laid in Vienna by his teacher Bruno Seidlhofer, who had formed nearly all the important pianists of the 'Viennese School'; the quality of Gulda's training was confirmed by his being awarded the first prize at the Geneva Piano Competition in 1946 which Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli had won before him. Gulda looked for role models who displayed a spontaneous and at the same time controlled intensity in their playing, and he found them in American Jazz, whose inexorable rise in post-war Europe was to fascinate him throughout his career. The early Mozart and Beethoven recordings, made in 1950, demonstrate Gulda's phenomenal analytical understanding of compositional structures and his unerring sense of rhythm and touch. His Chopin and Ravel recordings are sensational: on the highest pianistic level, Chopin's Prélude Op. 28 and Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit are presented in a rare, incisive manner on both a musical and dramatic level.With his interpretation of two important early works by Debussy, the Suite pour le Piano and the Suite bergamasque, as well as a selection of the Préludes, Gulda also proves to be one of the few non-French pianists who found a decidedly modern and yet authentic access to these masterworks.The programme closes with single pieces by Chopin (Nocturne in C minor,Op. 48 No. 1 and Berceuse Op. 60), demonstrating Gulda's intensive exploration of romantic works, as well as a spectacular recording of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 Op. 83, made in 1950. Prokofiev's music, whose wildness in the end proved incompatible with Gulda, did not remain in his repertoire for long; he did, however, pass on important impulses to his most famous pupil, Martha Argerich.

The great Hungarian pianist Géza Anda was born in Budapest in 1921, and studied with Dohnanyi, who provides a direct link to Brahms, and the great virtuoso composer pianist Eugen D’Albert. He died aged only 55 in 1976. Furtwangler called Anda ‘the troubadour of the piano’, and he was indeed a philosopher-virtuoso. His career was devoted to finding the perfect balance between head and heart, intellect and instinct. The first pianist to record all the Mozart concertos, he was also capable of producing a big heroic sound which led to him acquiring a large repertoire in which he could display his gift for panoramic sound painting. Two composers are especially associated with Anda – Bartók and Schumann, and it is the latter of these two masters that is featured on two of the CDs in this four CD set. CD4 contains two recordings of the fearsome Études symphoniques, made in 1943 in his firebrand youth and 20 years later, at the peak of his maturity. His mastery of Beethoven and Schubert is evident on CD1 where the transition from the classical to the romantic age is apparent in Anda’s extraordinary performance of Schubert’s last sonata. The Beethoven is startling, unconventional, thought provoking and in places uneven – intellect winning over instinct perhaps? Anda questions the composer, challenges the listener, and earns our respect in doing so.

A must for all lovers of the piano and its great performers

Recording details; Beethoven 1961 · Schubert 1963 · Chopin 1959 · Etude op25/5, Mazurka Nos. 47 and 49 1943 · Liszt La Campanella 1942 · Mephisto Waltz 1966 · Schumann 1966

Anda’s interpretations of these works was constantly evolving, so these performances will differ from those he made for EMI

The Schumann recordings are among the greatest ever made of this repertoire.