Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 'Pastorale'

As Alfred Brendel celebrates his 80th birthday on 5 January 2011, Decca is marking this momentous occasion with FOUR major catalogue releases.

He’s a legend of the piano world, revered and applauded the world over. For long an exclusive Philips Classics artist, Alfred Brendel is the recipient of the 2010 Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award. Famed for his peerless interpretations of Viennese classics, 2011 sees Brendel celebrate his 80th birthday and for it we present four iconic sets – available at budget price for the first time.

This stunning collection of Beethoven’s entire Piano works, is a Beethoven and Brendel fan must -have. Brendel’s Beethoven is represented by his analogue traversal (1970 – 77) of the 32 Piano Sonatas and the 5 Piano Concertos, long unavailable and including the Choral fantasia [with LPO/Haitink, recorded 1976-77] and now packaged as a cap box.

Rudolf Buchbinder is firmly established as one of the most important pianists on the international scene, he is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world’s most distinguished conductors including Abbado, Dohnányi, Dudamel, Frühbeck de Burgos, Giulini, Harnoncourt, Maazel, Masur, Mehta, Saraste, Sawallisch and Thielemann and is a regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and other major festivals around the world.

19CD/1DVD

A deluxe, limited-edition box containing the three main sets of Beethoven for All, plus bonus material, is scheduled for release in October in anticipation of Barenboim’s 70th birthday on 15 November 2012

This premium collector’s set includes one CD of podcast material (previously available as a promotional tool only) featuring James Jolly, Gramophone’s Editor-in-Chief, interviewing Daniel Barenboim, as well as the Beethoven For All documentary on DVD and a 64-page hardback photobook celebrating Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in a selection of informal and performance images.

“The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra's woodwind section deserves a gold medal. Rarely in any orchestra do you hear tone quite so gorgeous and ensemble so unified, each individual’s artistry flowering to the full within the whole. Through the symphony they became a group of soloists within the larger ensemble, Beethoven’s harbingers of hope.” The Independent July 2012

“WEDO's Beethoven project has been under way for three years. That dedication showed.” The Guardian July 2012

19 CDs + DVD boxed set

The Idil Biret Beethoven Edition began in 1985 with a universally acclaimed box set of the Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, recorded for EMI in St. Bavon Church at Chamont Gistoux, Belgium. Another session took place in 1994 to record three sonatas in the same location to test how these would sound. Several years later, the decision was made to record the remaining 29 sonatas and to release them together with the nine symphonies on Idil Biret’s own label Idil Biret Archive (IBA). The project grew to cover all the works of Beethoven for piano and orchestra, adding the five piano concertos and Choral Fantasy with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit, which concluded this epic Beethoven Edition spanning a period of over 23 years.

Until his retirement in 2009, Alfred Brendel was renowned the world over for his mastery of the Classical repertoire that pushed forwards the boundaries of the piano at the turn of the 18th century. Here are his early recordings of these subtle and dramatic concertos and sonatas, all stereo and all as fresh and dynamic in impact as when they were recorded over 50 years ago.

Alfred Brendel’s early recordings for Vanguard may long have been scorned by the pianist himself as he sought ever to refine in particular his mastery of the Classical repertoire, but they have stood the test of time.

Brendel’s way with Beethoven back then was perhaps more eruptive, his Mozart less suave, and in the concertos he was accompanied by stalwarts of the music scene in postwar Vienna. This set includes Beethoven’s complete sonatas and concertos as well as the Choral Fantasy, various bagatelles and many of the more obscure variation sets as well as a splendid early traversal of the Diabelli variations. Eight Mozart concerto recordings include his favourite ‘Jeunehomme’ K271, which he returned to many times during the course of his career, including his very last concert and recording; smaller Mozart works in size rather than expressive content include the masterly quintet for piano and winds, the C minor Fantasy and endlessly consoling A minor Rondo.

Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991), one of the great piano masters, receives an exceptional tribute from the label with which he was most closely associated.

This is a beautiful, limited-edition 35-CD box of Kempff’s complete solo repertoire on DG and Decca Classics.

It includes the stereo Beethoven sonata cycle, the Schubert sonata cycle, generous anthologies of Bach, Brahms, Liszt, Schubert, and Schumann – plus Chopin and Baroque. There are many rarities, not readily available at present.

It comes with a Bonus CD of four early recordings from the 1930s – Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert/Liszt, all first-time releases – and a short series of spoken recordings by Kempff (synopses in English and French in booklet)

The booklet essay is a warm tribute from piano expert Gregor Willmes.

The complete Vox, Turnabout and Vanguard solo recordings

Alfred Brendel retires this year from public performance. He will give his last recital in December at Vienna’s Musikverein, in the city where he came to prominence over half a century ago. The recordings he made then for young American labels established in the wake of the Second World War, harnessing young talent in classic repertoire, have stood the test of time. They put down a marker for the music that Brendel would come almost to ‘own’ in the eyes of the piano-music-loving public: the Beethoven concertos and sonatas, Mozart concertos, Schubert, Liszt and Schoenberg. He would later bring deepening insights to the core of the Austro-German repertoire that was his mainstay, but these early recordings are of far more than merely historical value: they are the first, impetuous explorations of a true keyboard lion. Thus there is also music we don’t associate with Brendel, and to which he chose not to return, especially from Russia: Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. In sum, and at a specially reduced price, this is essential listening for anyone interested in piano music and in the career of one of the greatest living pianists.

Many of these performances have scarcely been available on CD: this is the first time they have been gathered together as a set Extensive booklet notes by pianophile Ates Orga, including a conversation piece with Brendel.