Artur Zeilinger

Odradek Records is delighted to present the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos performed by Artur Pizarro and the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal under the baton of Julia Jones. This is a recording not to be missed: Artur Pizarros interpretations are renowned internationally for their insight and nuance, and this album represents for Pizarro and his fellow musicians a very personal labour of love, especially when overcoming the obstacles of the pandemic in order to record together. The majesty, power and innovation of the Beethoven Piano Concertos is contrasted with a selection of solo pieces by Beethoven; Romances and Rondos that round off the release with irresistible intimacy. On this recording Artur Pizarro plays Bechstein grand pianos kindly provided by Bechstein. Artur Pizarro has recorded a series of highly-acclaimed albums with Odradek, including the complete Rachmaninov piano music, and Lebensreise, a disc of music by Robert Schumann, for which Pizarros playing was praised as: soft as velvet, but muscular and virtuoso if necessary technique and virtuosity are unconditionally at the service of the composers intentions (Klassiek Centraal). Pizarro also performed the Poulenc Piano Concerto with the Beethoven Philharmonie and Thomas Rsner on the album Couleurs, praised in Gramophone magazine: Pizarro seems delighted to meet the score on its own terms, turning in a performance of considerable sensitivity and subtlety.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin had hardly opened on 24th September 1961 before it started preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. How was that possible? Had it entered into some sort of time warp? That might indeed have been possible for a theatre that in the past had devoted itself to Richard Wagner’s works. But there was a simpler explanation: the Deutsche Oper Berlin had, in fact, originally opened on 7 November 1912 under the title of Deutsches Opernhaus.

Portuguese virtuoso Artur Pizarro makes a welcome return to the Romantic Piano Concerto series with the outpourings of two brilliant pianist-composers. Their names may not be familiar to listeners today. The Brazilian Henrique Oswald and the Portuguese Alfredo Napoleão were born in the same year, less than three months apart, when Schumann, Brahms and Liszt were alive and Chopin recently deceased. Both were of mixed European heritage: Oswald with a Swiss-German father and Italian mother, Napoleão with an Italian father and Portuguese mother. Both were child prodigies who became widely travelled concert pianists, pedagogues and composers. In 1868 Oswald gave his ‘farewell recital’ and left Rio de Janeiro to study in Europe; Napoleão went to Brazil.

Time has brushed lightly against this remarkable man … Nothing appears to have impaired Rubinstein's unique wit, his sensitity, his urbanity or his cool-headed, warm-hearted, ever-idelaistic honesty … The concertos are imbued with an extraordinary fusion of twilight sentiment and nonchalant joie de vivre. Even more remarkable, however, are the flashes of self-revelation that emerge in Rubinstein's words. (Martin Bernheimer)

This DVD is the first release of this legendary performance by a legendary artist. "Rubinstein's superb form is matched by the incredible musical sensitivity of Haitink and the orchestra… Sounds and images are expertly cued to the split second… Rubinstein's face, body and hands are captured in a smooth flow of shots and reflectionsThe Beethoven takes on an almost Mozartean delicacy, the Brahms is infused with all the power it requires." -The New York Times