Liszt: Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, S697 (Figaro Fantasy)

Emil Gilels played a sonata by Scarlatti at his first public concert in 1929 and included them in his tours to the West in the 1950s. These recordings present a splendid group of the composer’s widely contrasting moods. Gilels was a true virtuoso in the Lisztian tradition, combining musical integrity with rarely equalled technique. The Fantasia was one of the works with which he won the First Soviet All-Union Competition in 1933, while his recordings of the Hungarian Rhapsodies and three works by Chopin are full of character and personality. A recently discovered notebook in which Gilels logged some of his recording sessions has made the dating of these recordings more accurate in this edition.

Ward Marston, audio restoration engineer

We are delighted to present an eagerly awaited recital disc from Stephen Hough. This fascinating programme begins with some of Mozart’s most audacious and forward-looking piano works. Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor K475 is a wonderfully unfettered and uninhibited work, suffused with high drama and a sense of constantly shifting moods. The Piano Sonata in B flat major K333 is a similarly ground-breaking piece, developing in scale and drama from its lyrical, gentle opening.

The second part of the disc features Mozart as seen by others, from the homage of a near-contemporary right up to the modern day, with Hough’s own irresistibly quirky Mozart imaginings, and from elegant miniatures to Liszt/Busoni’s virtuosic Figaro Fantasy. This disc is full of surprises, and demonstrates the full range of Hough’s extraordinary artistry.

Born in Odessa, the pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. Bloch’s detailed knowledge of the piano literature of the last three centuries, his familiarity with the entire history of music and its protagonists along with his stupendous pianism and above all things his strong artistic personality form the basis for the much vaunted depth of expression, the abundance of colour, the amazing stylistic originality and the incomparable “singing tone” of his playing, manifesting themselves equally in the thougtfully composed programs of his recitals.

“The 200th birthday of Franz Liszt is a welcome opportunity for me to pay a modest yet all the more loving tribute to the one who reformed piano playing, the father of our profession, the four times visionary genius as composer, pianist, conductor and teacher and to bow before him in deep gratitude and reverence.” (Boris Bloch)

First off is a revelatory compilation of Liszt’s most daring and virtuosic piano music, a special celebration of his wild and crazy side from an array of great pianists – dazzling virtuosity, extreme harmonies and textures – a helter-skelter ride through his piano oeuvre, with just the occasional moment of relaxation.

From the first strumming chords of the First Mephisto Waltz to the spooky harmonies of La lugubre gondola and the obsessive threnody of Totentanz, a master of the instrument stands before us in all his glory.

Featured are such names as Géza Anda, Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Jorge Bolet, Shura Cherkassky, Vladimir Horowitz, Zoltán Kocsis, Lang Lang, Alice Sara Ott, Mikhail Pletnev, Sviatoslav Richter and Yundi Li.

Rarities include four first releases on CD by Jean-Rodolfe Kars and Egon Petri – the latter aMasters of the Old School, with two incomparable performances of transcriptions (of Mozart’s Figaro and Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) , guaranteed to bring the house down.

On the nineteenth of September 2010, a rapt audience in Glasgow’s City Halls witnessed the extraordinary emergence of a young, 23-year-old pianist from Kazakhstan, who had already won the International Music Critic Prize at the 2009 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. Oxana Shevchenko revealed an extraordinary command of structure, rhythmic dynamism and sheer pianistic exuberance in her performance. She seized the moment with unbridled musical commitment and drive and carried away the first prize with unanimous approval from the distinguished international jury. She also returned home with £10,000, the Alexander Stone Memorial Trophy, the Frederic Lamond Gold Medal and a Bluthner grand piano, presented by Herr Bluthner himself, after performing Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto in the finals.

Just three days after her triumph in the concerto final, Shevchenko returned to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the setting of the first two rounds of the competition, to record a varied recital programme for Delphian as part of her first prize. Her chosen programme for the recording represents some of the highlights of her competition repertoire, and showcases the remarkable musical and pianistic qualities that she demonstrated during the competition.

Works by Mozart, Liszt, Shostakovich and Ravel feature on Oxana's debut disc in a programme full of highly pictorial musical genres.

“The results were announced following a tremendous, all-afternoon concert in which each pianist performed a concerto with the BBC SSO, playing in heroic form with conductor Martyn Brabbins… Shevchenko was next with Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. She has been, frankly, gobsmacking since the start, and was absolutely consistent in her delivery of the Prokofiev: total power, complete clarity of articulation and a phenomenal level of musicianship that is already world class.” The Herald

In 1986 Vladimir Horowitz was asked if his 1926 recordings made for the Welte-Mignon piano could be released. Having no faith in the technique he refused but some personal friends persuaded the great man to listen to the remarkable sound quality of the recordings and when he had done so, he immediately gave his consent. This release is of Horowitz playing those 1926 recordings.

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.