Beethoven: Eroica Variations, Op. 35 (Prometheus Variations)

Emil Gilels in a pure Beethoven concert FROM 1980, the late phase of his artistic development. His musicianship is experienced in this late concert, performed five years before his death. An evening of the highest artistic intensity, a mature Beethoven interpretation.

Widely considered to be one of the best-known concert pianists of our time, Grammy Award winning American pianist Emanuel Ax (b.1949) releases this new CD, featuring Three works he has never recorded before. This release includes significant sets of variations by major composers Beethoven, Haydn & Schumann.

Brendel’s Beethovian credentials are displayed in this Regis release. The third piano concerto is coupled with four of his most popular sets of variations, including the Eroica, God Save the King and Rule Britannia. Accompaniment is given by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Heinz Wallberg.

Following on his acclaimed recordings of Beethoven’s sonatas, sonatinas and bagatelles, Ronald Brautigam here presents the first disc of four with variations, comprising works composed between 1796 and 1802.

The ‘Eroica variations’ Op.35 is on a much larger scale than any of the variations he had written before, and Beethoven himself described it as a work in ‘a wholly new style’.

Brautigam has used two different fortepianos on this recording: the earlier works are played on an instrument by Paul McNulty after Walter & Sohn c.1805, while the Op.35 set is performed on another by the same maker, after Conrad Graf c.1819.

Sviatoslav Richter’s comment that Hungarian-born Annie Fischer (1914–1995) was ‘a great artist imbued with a spirit of greatness and genuine profundity’ is just a sign of the esteem in which her fellow musicians held her. Curiously, of all the mid-century pianists, she seems to have been among the least recorded due to her profound dislike of the studio. Winner of the Franz Liszt International Competition in 1933, she made recordings of Schumann and Liszt with Klemperer (a close friend), Bartók with Markevitch and Mozart with Sawallisch. She recorded over a 15-year period all the Beethoven sonatas for Hungaroton.

Annie Fischer’s ‘unerring awareness’ (David Threasher) of the shifting moods in the Schumann Piano Concerto has been caught in wonderful sound by the WDR engineers in this ‘live’ recording which has never been issued before.

In the two Beethoven works, ‘she is powerfully authoritative’ (David Threasher).

Both these ‘live’ recordings have never been published before.

Maurizio Pollini said Fischer’s playing was marked by ‘a childlike simplicity, immediacy and wonder’ while the distinguished writer Bryce Morrison commented on her ‘depth and spiritual serenity’. All these recordings are great additions to her relatively small discography.

Parnassus's ongoing documentation of the little-known early period of Sviatoslav Richter's career continues with a monumental, mostly unpublished Beethoven recital from 1951. While there are well-known recordings of Richter playing the "Diabelli" Variations from 1971 and 1986, this is the earliest documented performance of him playing the music. Of the material in this concert, only the "Diabelli" Variations have ever been published before. The remaining material from this concert has never been published in any form.

The Russian-born virtuoso Shura Cherkassky was undoubtedly one of the finest pianists of the 20th-century, admired not only for the magnificence of his playing but also for the wide range of his concert repertoire. On this important and valuable double-album, we concentrate on his noted recordings of 19th-century repertoire, which constitute music from the heart of his fondly-remembered performances. The recordings, all except the Liszt Liebestraum appearing on CD for the first time, have been excellently remastered and the playing-time of these CDs is very generous - almost two hours and forty minutes of great musicianship.