Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15

Book + CD

Edited by: Bice Horszowski Costa

Following on from Bice Horszowski Costa’s previous book Remembrances of Mieczyslaw Horszowski, which drew a comprehensive picture of the long and intense life of the great pianist, Dynamic are pleased to be able to present another rare book titled Letters and postcards of Janina Roza Horszowska.

The collection of picture postcards has been retrieved after decades of being hidden away in a garage in Nice. The letters and postcards are from Miecio’s mother Janina which she sent home to her husband almost daily between 1900 and 1904.

There are over 130 postcards which provide a striking overview of the beginning of the last century and a unique glance at the musical development of a child-prodigy from a mother’s perspective.

The book includes a CD featuring recordings of some of the works mentioned in the letters and postcards. The recordings have never been recorded on CD before.

Also included are a small biographical glossary, an updated discography, and bibliography.

This is the first disc in Ronald Brautigam’s Beethoven Piano Concertos cycle; part of his ongoing cycle to record all of Beethoven’s music for solo piano. Brautigam now takes on Beethoven’s complete works for piano and orchestra, choosing to do so on a modern piano and with a modern instrument orchestra: the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, internationally acclaimed for its many fine recordings on BIS. Conducting the series is Andrew Parrott, and together with the soloist, he brings all his expertise in period performance practice to bear in interpretations that in many ways are as fresh and revolutionary as those of the sonata cycle. As Ronald Brautigam explains in the liner notes: ‘I truly believe that what Beethoven wanted was chamber music rather than a battle between orchestra and soloist, and this makes for a wonderfully interactive set-up, where individual players have far more contact with the pianist than in a regular concert set-up’.

This is the first volume of a forthcoming cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos performed by François-Frédéric Guy, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Philippe Jordan. François-Frédéric Guy is now firmly established as a pianist of immense interpretative authority and superlative technique. He is especially admired for his performance of music from the Austro-German tradition. With his exceptional command of keyboard sonority he has a special gift for music of the grandest scale, such as the major works of Brahms, Liszt and Beethoven. His recording of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” sonata for Naïve was recently picked as BBC Radio 3’s “Building a Library” choice. He is now embarking on an important phase of his career when he will be playing all of Beethoven’s concertos and sonatas around the world, as well as appearing at festivals and international concert venues playing other music central to his artistic personality, including pieces by Brahms, Prokofiev and Bartok as well as a range of more contemporary music.

Philippe Jordan is one of the rising stars of the conductor’s world. He has recently been appointed as Music Director of the Opera National de Paris, starting in the 2009-10 season.

After the symphonies? Well, one could certainly do worse than record Beethoven’s Piano Concertos, as the next project! Serbian-born Jasminka Stančul has adopted Vienna, and Austrian citizenship, and been rewarded with first prize in the city’s International Beethoven Competition – an impeccable pedigree for the task in hand, which these performances demonstrate very clearly.

This second volume of recordings by Géza Anda is dedicated to 19th century piano masterpieces. Impressive recordings from 1955 until 1969 can be heard, beginning with Beethoven: the strictly non-histrionic but nonetheless poetic interpretation of an early and a late Sonata is contrasted by an energetic and intense performance of the Piano Concerto Op.15.

Anda’s significance as a Brahms interpreter is demonstrated by his powerful performance of the early Piano Sonata Op. 5 and his subtle, melancholy realisation of the three late Intermezzi.

The high point of this disc, however, is Anda’s technically stupendous and musically superior interpretation of Liszt’s B minor Sonata, whose combination of grandeur and quasi-improvisatory boldness only few pianists are able to execute.