Legendary Russian pianist, Grigory Sokolov, is an uncompromising, exclusively serious rather than commercial artist and has consequently paid a price. Even today, considered one of the greatest pianists alive today, he remains an awe-inspiring figure to connoisseurs rather than a wider public.
At the age of sixteen, Grigory Sokolov was awarded first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1966 and has since gained an almost mythical status throughout the world. His recordings, too, are sadly few, though this reissue reaffirms him as among the most formidable and characterful pianists of our time. So deeply is every bar, indeed, every note, weighed and considered that each Prelude emerges in a new and arresting light. And true, he can bear down so intensely that Chopin isn't always allowed his truest or most natural voice. But glories far outweigh queries.
While performing a recital of music by Frédéric Chopin, the sound captures Sokolov's immense dynamic range exceptionally well, and even if you're a lover of understatement or of careless and unforgettable rapture you'll surely admit that this is among the most powerfully individual of all Chopin recordings. The beautifully presented boxed set including 2 high quality audio cds and a very nice booklet contains Sokolov's live recordings on June 17th, 1990 and November 10th, 1992 in Paris, and June 13th 1992, featuring some of Frédéric Chopin’s best-loved piano works.
Unmissable for all pianophiles and Chopin connoisseurs. Highly recommended.
These outstanding early Gilels SU 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 superb Liszt-Busoni Fantasia - "Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni (Le Nozze Di Figaro)" - was one of his finest 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.
Only few pianists have possessed a more comprehensive, magisterial technique or musical integrity than Emil Gilels. Highly recommended.
In large-scale sonatas by Glazunov, Medtner and Prokofiev, his playing glows with conviction and includes passagework spun off with an all-Russian legato.
Then, his outwardly formidable and unsmiling demeanour on the concert platform is erased in a performance of Tchaikovsky's "Chant sans paroles" of a beguiling charm.
Here was a real artist, and a real communicator. Highly recommended.
Here, in performance after performance, is the sort of playing that made Rubinstein, on hearing the teenage Gilels in Russia, exclaim, 'if that boy ever comes to America I might as well pack my bags and retire'. Even in dated sound an 'elemental virtuoso gift' and a 'sonority rich in noble metal' are omnipresent.
And whether you hear Gilels in his exquisite Rameau, the thunderous brilliance of his Godowsky or in the way his decorations in Smetana's A minor Polka shimmer like the beating of a hummingbird's wings, you will hear a nonpareil pianism.
True, in years to come Gilels would find greater depth than his enviably spruce and immaculately turned Mozart conveys, but even here the playing is of an aristocratic distinction and finesse. Highly recommended.
Benutzer