Weber: Piano Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op.49

Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997) is acknowledged today as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century along with his great Russian contemporaries, David Oistrakh, Emil Gilels and Mstislav Rostropovich.

This rare broadcast recording makes its first appearance on CD.

The June 1967 recital at the Royal Festival Hall very much reflects the pianist’s personal taste, containing the rarely played Haydn and Weber Sonatas together with the Schumann Novelettes with the more popular additions of Chopin and Debussy.

He declared, ‘my principle is to play only works that I really love and not just those that are currently accepted’.

Of all the Haydn Sonatas that Richter played, No.62 featured more frequently in his programmes as did the Weber Sonata No.3, which he regarded in a notebook entry in 1990 as a ‘highly original work and I like it a lot’.

The two Schumann Novelettes were often played in the 1960s though Richter did not perform No.8 for the following two decades. With the Chopin and Debussy, Richter is on familiar territory, which he invests with his characteristic imagination and spontaneity.

Superb Ambient Mastering recreates the atmosphere in the Royal Festival Hall perfectly.

Weber, best known for his operas today, was also a very fine pianist and he wrote a sizeable body of piano music of which the four sonatas are the centrepiece. These are perhaps the first truly ‘Romantic’ piano sonatas and were a great influence on the succeeding generation of German composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann; all are large scale and virtuosic and their quality makes it surprising how rarely they have been recorded. The set also includes the most important of Weber’s other piano works including the once hugely popular ‘Invitation to the Dance’, a work which has become better known in the orchestration of Berlioz.

‘These are distinguished performances, by a pianist of true romantic temper, of four works that have had more than their share of misunderstanding from performers and critics alike’ (Gramophone)

Garrick Ohlsson is the pianist, acclaimed for his performances of Brahms and Chopin on Hyperion. These delightful recordings were originally released on Arabesque.

Volume 3 ) was recorded at Moscow recitals in 1954 and 1958. None has ever been published before on CD or LP.

The 1958 material included some major discoveries. Most of it is made up of pieces from Liszt’s Années de Pélèrinage, only one of which exists in any other Richter recording. It also offers the offers the only live performance published of Richter playing Beethoven’s famous “Pathétique” Sonata. The 1954 recital includes mostly works of Ravel, including the published Richter performance of Le Gibet from Gaspard de la Nuit , the only selection of that suite he ever palyed. Two more of the Ravel works, Pavanne pour une infant défunte and Jeux d’eau , are the only Richter performances yet published on CD. The disc concludes with three pieces by Rachmaninov and one by Prokofiev.

Described as ‘miraculously gifted’ by Alfred Cortot, Dino Ciani was a contemporary of Maurizio Pollini. Born in Croatia in 1941, he died aged just 32 in a car crash in Rome in 1974, robbing the world of one of the great pianists of the late 20th century. He had a remarkable rise to fame, and was offered a Deutsche Grammophon contract. His repertoire centred on Beethoven, Bartók , Brahms, Debussy, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Schumann, Schubert and Weber. He also explored lesser-known areas of the repertoire, making pioneering recordings of Hummel and Kozeluch. As a pianist he divided opinions, but with supporter such as Cortot, and the support of conductors of the calibre of Abbado, Muti, Barbirolli, Guilini and Gui, his reputation is assured. Like many artists who die young he became a cult figure for some. He can now be judged for what he was – in the words of Cortot ‘one of the most remarkable examples of the rarest talents one could hope to find’.

‘Ciani commands a very fine technique and impressive musicality. …there are many virtues, such as Ciani's beautiful handling of the Intermezzo of this work, or of the latter part of the second Trio of No.8. Note also how well he manages No.4 where so many pianists would lose control, or the whole of No.5 which with its piano and orchestra overtones, is in several respects the most demanding of the set.’ Gramophone, Schumann Novelletten, 1969

‘Dino Ciani, although not a Frenchman, was a pupil of Cortot and the first thing to be said about his Debussy is that it is absolutely idiomatic. I admire him particularly because his view is sane and steady and because it has been formed from a conscientious interpretation of every detail of Debussy's text.’ Gramophone, Debussy Preludes, 1973

The story of Dino Ciani unfolded in the brief span of a few years.

A period rich in events, successes and hopes that everybody, friends and admirers alike, felt were soon to be realised. Memorable were the technical ease, the smoothness and elegance of Ciani’s playing. Dino Ciani left us on 27th March 1974, meeting his sad destiny on the Via Flaminia near Rome: a road accident, one of the many tragedies to which journalistic routine generally reserves just a few lines at the bottom of the page. News of Dino’s death struck a chill blow to the heart of the entire world of music, not just in Italy, at the time. Twenty-eight years have passed since that tragic accident and Dynamic has decided to dedicate Ciani this 6-CD box set at half price, containing live and studio recordings which have not been digitally re-mastered in order to offer an authentic document of this pianist’s talent.