Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 - CD

Hungarian-born Géza Anda (1921–1976) was described by the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as ‘a troubadour of the piano’ whose early death robbed the world of one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. Anda was an incredible virtuoso, who in 1957 played all the Bartók concertos in one concert but also took up a different challenge by performing and recording all the Mozart piano concertos later in his life. He performed with all the major orchestras and conductors of the time, including Boulez, Fricsay, Karajan, Kubelík and Solti, and made a large number of definitive recordings for EMI and Deutsche Grammophon of music by Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and especially Schumann.

This spine-tingling account of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 has never been issued before. It is a ‘live’ studio recording from 1958 with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra accompanied by Georg Solti, a fellow Hungarian, and the performance generates enormous electricity between the two artists.

The live recording from 1954 of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.2 conducted by Otto Klemperer has been issued before but it has been newly remastered for this release. It qualifies for a re-release on the basis that it is one the most recommendable versions of the work and should never be out of the catalogue.

An unusual pairing of Tchaikovsky’s two most popular scores by two uncontested Russian masters: the resurrection of one Richter’s rare encounters with the most Russian conductor of the 20th century, Yevgeny Mravinsky.

An indispensable account from Praga's recorded legacy over the last 20 years.

Recorded Leningrad July 24, 1958

Daniil Trifonov, winner of the XIVth International Tchaikovsky Competition, is probably the world’s most exciting young pianist. On his first Mariinsky recording he joins Valery Gergiev for a scintillating performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1. Daniil also presents a selection of recital repertoire including music by Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Liszt transcriptions of Schubert and Schumann.

Written for Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto is one of his most popular works. Revised three times, including an arrangement for two pianos, the concerto was finally set in stone in 1888 and it is this version that is most frequently performed today. Tchaikovsky balances core motivic elements with a sense of lyrical spontaneity to create a technically challenging but instantly appealing work.

At only 21 years old, Daniil Trifonov has won countless awards, including the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, the Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (Gold Medal). Valery Gergiev personally awarded Trifonov the ‘Grand Prix’ in Moscow, an additional award given to the best overall competitor in any category of the International Tchaikovsky Competition.

In 2011, Trifonov gave his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and has since performed with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Orchestra, as well as touring throughout the USA, Europe and the Far East. In the coming season he will make debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony orchestras, as well as performing recitals at Salle Pleyel, Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall and Wigmore Hall.

Van Cliburn's extraordinary rise to fame in the late fifties was in no small part due to his performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto featured on this disc. This Regis release is a valuable document of the birth of a pianistic legend. The Schumann coupling shows a more introspective side to his musicianship.

Alice Sara Ott follows up the complete Chopin Waltzes – her highly successful international debut – with her first concerto recording on Deutsche Grammophon. The young artist presents two of the greatest hits in the repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s and Liszt’s First Piano Concertos.

Alice Sara Ott recorded this partly live (Tchaikovsky) album in her home town of Munich with the superb Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Thomas Hengelbrock, known as a modern interpreter with strong ideas (and a strong work ethic).

Alice says about the Tchaikovsky: “This piece is a revolution for me. It actually contains very different perspectives on life: the melancholy and gloomy, the majestic and, then again, the bright and light, lyrical and soaring. In any case it’s a challenge. A physical one, of course, but, in the end, really a mental one.” A challenge she has mastered, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung confirmed: “In the midst of Tchaikovsky’s avalanche of notes, Ott somehow manages to tease out the quiet passages, and with great poise to make room for lyricism and gently grazing the keys for a dreamy but distinct play of colours.”

The two concertos in this album are works that have accompanied Alice Sara Ott since her early youth. She played the Liszt before an audience the first time when she was 14 and the Tchaikovsky at 17. She has an intense relationship with both works, something clearly audible in the 21-year-old pianist’s vivid interpretations.

The Romantic Piano Concerto series reaches Volume 50. This series has been described as a jewel in Hyperion’s crown and one of the glories of the recording industry. Rarely in the history of recorded music has such a rich seam of undiscovered delights been mined to such consistently dazzling effect. These first fifty volumes include 131 works for piano and orchestra: fifty-nine of these works are premiere recordings and many other featured works have only been recorded once before. The performers include some of the greatest pianists, orchestras and conductors in the world, and each disc in itself is a miracle of virtuosity, scholarship and musicianship.

For Volume 50, a stellar cast has been assembled for a two-disc set that includes, unusually, one of the most famous concertos in the repertoire. Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 has certainly achieved warhorse status—but in the expert hands of Stephen Hough it is a new creature. With the rest of this fascinating two-disc set we are in more usual RPC territory, with music which is actually not widely known. This is a complete survey of Tchaikovsky’s music for piano and orchestra and includes alternative versions of the second movement of Piano Concerto No 2 as well as some delicious extras.

Stephen Hough performed all four concertos at the BBC Proms in 2009 and was described as ‘the epitome of a “golden age” virtuoso with his balletic elegance and dazzling rhythmic reflexes’ (The Independent). Armed with this inestimably important experience, he travelled to Minnesota to record the set live with the Minnesota Orchestra under their acclaimed conductor Osmo Vänskä. The result is a set of unique importance: a winning combination of a pianist at the zenith of his artistry, a world-class orchestra and director, a pre-eminent producer and engineer, repertoire both familiar and unknown, and packaged with even more than the usual care that customers have come to expect from Hyperion.