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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Vladimir Horowitz Vol. 2: Schumann, Chopin, Liszt & Balakirev
Vladimir Horowitz (piano) Sony Masterworks expands the catalogue of its Carnegie Hall Presents series with a set of previously unreleased recordings by legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, one of the most important performers of classical music in the twentieth century. The Sony Masterworks release of the three albums in The Private Collection makes these dazzling performances, previously held in the archives of Yale University as part of Horowitz’s papers, available to the public for the first time. In 1988, a year before his death, Horowitz donated to Yale University a treasure trove of original recordings composed of Carnegie Hall concerts and performances he gave during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Horowitz had employed an engineer to make 78-rpm recordings of his Carnegie Hall concerts in this period, and he used them to review and judge his performances. Most of these mono recordings were originally contained on 12- and 16-inch acetate discs. They have been impeccably mastered, with the sound restored, from new transfers made in the Yale archives. Significant press accompanied the original announcement of the donation of these recordings to Yale, where Horowitz performed often through the years and was an assistant fellow of Silliman College. | 
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| |  | Mussorgsky & Balakirev - Solo Piano Music
Michel Béroff, Ronald Smith (pianos) | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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"Sheer talent does not come more transparently and, to top it all, harmonia mundi's sound is of demonstration refinement and quality." (The Gramophone) | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Sergei Levitin (violin) Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Igor Golovschin “Iindeed this is quite the finest orchestral account of Islamey I have ever heard.” CD Review | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Grigory Ginzburg - The Goldenweiser SchoolHis Early Recordings 1
Grigory Ginzburg (1904-1961) was perhaps the most astounding virtuoso to emerge in Soviet Russia and it is a tragedy that he was never allowed to travel to the west after the mid 1930’s. He focussed his repertoire very much on the 19th century Romantic period and, above all, in Liszt, and his prolific recordings include many of Liszt’s virtuosic opera paraphrases that had fallen into neglect. This CD is the first of two devoted to his earliest 78rpm recordings mainly dating from the 1940s. These discs are extremely rare and many of the performances included will be unknown to even the most ardent collectors. The disc finishes with the most astounding performance of the greatest virtuoso warhorse of the 19th century – Balakirev’s Islamey. Ginzburg’s supremely elegant performance shows total control in even the thorniest passages, for him it appears no more difficult than a Haydn sonata, and the result is that we hear so much more in the music than is normally the case. “…Grigory Ginzburg's… legendary performance of the Mozart / Liszt Figaro Fantasy remains a marvel and stylised elegance and dazzling fluency.” Gramophone Magazine, 2008 Awards Issue “Goldenweiser's greatest student, Grigory Ginzburg (1904-61), clearly resembles his teacher in some ways: his tone is solid, his technical craft everywhere apparent, and his identification with the music beyond reproach. …even when the going would be heavy for most pianists, Ginzburg has a musical or expressive purpose that cuts deeper than mere showmanship.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Freddy Kempf plays Mussorgsky, Ravel & Balakirev
Two years since his last release on BIS, Freddy Kempf returns to present a programme featuring three central works in the great virtuoso repertoire for solo piano. Each piece has the qualities in terms of characterisation and timbre that have resulted in well-known orchestral arrangements. Pictures from an Exhibition was composed following the death of Mussorgsky’s friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann. Balakirev’s Islamey was composed five years earlier and was long regarded as the most difficult work in the entire piano repertory, and in fact, when Ravel 1908 composed Scarbo, the third movement of Gaspard de la Nuit, he specifically wanted to write something that would be even more difficult. “The pianist Freddy Kempf looks poetic and serious on the cover photo. He’s also straining for effect in these performances. In the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition he settles too quickly for the brilliance that screams and thumps. There’s some of that, too, in the finale to Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, though the hanged man in Le Gibet is barely sensed. Still, he can be subtle, and Balakirev’s Islamey, the virtuoso’s nightmare, comes off well” The Times, 20th June 2008 *** “Freddy Kempf's forthright performances of all three [works] contain some impressive moments, and his mastery of the technical challenges in the works is formidable, but in each case individuality and character are in short supply. There's plenty of colour in Pictures, and a high degree of characterisation, but little of the physicality and teetering excitement that Richter's famous live recording has in bucketfuls, while the subtly shifting textures of Ravel's three fantasy portraits are too prosaic for music that should glimmer and glitter in an almost intangible and indefinable way.” The Guardian, 18th July 2008 *** “Freddy Kempf here tackles three giants of the piano repertoire and conquers them with spirit and imagination. Armed with all the necessary technical resources, he is able to bring colour and well-defined character to Pictures from an Exhibition, revealing how ingeniously Mussorgsky exploited the piano's palette of sound without the aid of all those later arrangers who chose to embellish it with orchestral timbres.
One of those was Ravel, whose Gaspard de la nuit here glows, ripples and, in "Scarbo", bristles with malevolence. The bravura of Balakirev's Islamey is brilliant.” The Telegraph, 12th July 2008 “For fans of the contemporary virtuoso, this disc is not only stupendously recorded, but a sign that standards these days are extraordinarily high in this area.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 **** “…a formidable programme formidably played. This is "live" virtuosity with a vengeance, with absolutely no hint of a safety net, of playing within studio confines.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| Alexander Gavryluk in Recital
Alexander Gavryluk (piano) The first VAI DVD featuring this brilliant young Russian pianist won rave reviews from the world’s press. The headline in the Gramophone Magazine review cautioned, “Fasten your seatbelts” but went on to praise his Haydn as well as the more pyrotechnical aspects of his wide-ranging program. For his second DVD release, also captured live at the Miami International Piano Festival, Gavrylyuk offers elegant Mozart and lyrical Schubert along with thunderous Rachmaninoff and Balakirev, and ending with a group of encores Recorded 8th May, 2007 at the Amaturo Theater Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale, Florida | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Sir Eugene Goossens conducts Mussorgsky & Rimsky Korsakov
Philharmonia Orchestra & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens Recorded: 1956 & 1957 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Steinway Legends - Claudio Arrau
| | | This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched. |
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