Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony follow their recently completed Mahler cycle with a series of new live recordings, including an all-Beethoven disc featuring the Fourth Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax, and Symphony No. 5.

Following the recent completion of their award-winning and ground-breaking Mahler recording project, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony will continue to bolster their discography with recordings from both the core classical repertoire as well as works new to or rarely heard by audiences. The new recordings reflect the broad range of programming that has been a hallmark of the 15-year MTT/SFS partnership. The new releases, recorded live in concert in the orchestra’s home Davies Symphony Hall, will be available as Hybrid SACDs.

The first of these new releases includes an all Beethoven-recording featuring the composer’s Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 4 with world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax.

After a first dedicated to the School Lazare-Lévy (Tah 556-558 deleted) we are releasing this set illustrating the Schools of Isidore Philipp (Monique de la Bruchollerie, Youra Guller) and Alfred Cortot (Yvonne Lefébure, MagdaTagliaferro) which contains three previously unissued recordings. Furtherùmore it contains two rare documents with the voices of Lefébure recalling Ravel and of Tagliaferro speaking of Chopin. This is a complementary set to the album « Pianistes Françaises I » (Tah 653-4).

The follow-up to Dejan Lazic’s impressive, if controversial, arrangement for piano of Brahm’s Violin Concerto, and a string of critically lauded ‘Liaisons’ discs.

This Austrian pianist unusually performed both jazz and classical music. He was highly acclaimed for his Beethoven interpretations. These recordings from 1953/56 include Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4, as well as 4 Bagatelles Op. 126. These Bagatelles have not been released before.

This release is the first in a series of three which will offer Beethoven’s piano concerts recorded live during the summer 1958 in Italy, performed by two different RAI orchestras.

Austrian pianist Till Fellner, whose two Bach albums on ECM have won him unanimous international acclaim, teams up with conductor Kent Nagano and his Orchestre Symphonie de Montréal for a sensitive and meticulous interpretation of Beethoven’s much-loved Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5.

In a review of the recording to be published in the March issue of ‘Fanfare’ Jerry Dubins speaks of “a stunning achievement” and points out that “the recording has a fullness, depth, and solidity to it that are equal to the very best modern technology has to offer.” Fellner and Nagano, musical collaborators for more than a decade, share a delicate and sensitive approach to Beethoven’s middle period that, by eschewing all demonstrativeness, focuses on natural tempi, transparent sound and maximum clarity of articulation. While Fellner continues his muchlauded cycle of Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas on major concert platforms in Europe (including London’s Wigmore Hall), the US and Japan, Nagano and his Montreal orchestra have received much attention with their Beethoven project “Ideals of the French Revolution”.

Clara Haskil was born in Budapest in 1895 and was a child prodigy. She studied at the Bucharest Conservatoire when she was only 6 and later studied in Vienna and Paris. She was regarded as an excellent interpreter of the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Scarlatti.