Bach, Mischa Maisky

Recorded at the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on March 13, 1990. Nikolai Lugansky is a Russian pianist, widely known for his insightful performances of Romantic music. A native of Moscow, he was born to a couple of research scientists. At the age of 5, he taught himself to play a Beethoven sonata by ear, and this led to taking lessons from his neighbor, composer and pianist Sergei Ipatov. Later, he attended the Moscow Central Music School and the Moscow Conservatory, studying piano with Tatiana Kestner, Tatiana Nikolaeva, and Sergei Dorensky. An active competitor, he won first prize at the All-Union Competition in Tbilisi and the silver medal at the 8th International Bach Competition in Leipzig, both in 1988, and won the second prize at the Rachmaninov Competition in Moscow in 1990. Lugansky was named best pianist in 1992 at the International Summer Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg. After recovering from foot and back injuries in 1993, he won the 1994 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. As a concerto soloist, Lugansky has performed with Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Valery Gergiev, Kurt Masur, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Edo de Waart, Leonard Slatkin, and many other conductors.

Between 2008 and 2014 Universal Classics reissued nearly all of Martha Argerich’s Deutsche Grammophon recordings in a series of boxed sets, largely according to genre (solo, chamber, duo, concerto, and so forth). There also was a box containing her output for the Philips label and another devoted to her complete recordings with Claudio Abbado. All of this material appears anew in DG’s 48-CD collection Martha Argerich: The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, with the addition of the 1977 Stravinsky Les Noces conducted by Leonard Bernstein, the Chopin and Schumann duos with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and more recent releases like the Berlin and Cologne Chopin Radio Recordings, the 2014 duo piano recital with Daniel Barenboim, and the 4-disc Lugano Concertos collection. The discs are packaged in original-jacket facsimiles and sequenced in more-or-less chronological order by release date.

Far from the troubled, coarse libertine that has become an archetype of the Romantic composer, Felix Mendelssohn was something of an anomaly among his contemporaries. His own situation – largely one of domestic tranquility and unhindered career fulfillment – stands in stark contrast to the personal Sturm und Drang familiar to his peers. Mendelssohn was the only musical prodigy of the 19th century whose stature could rival that of Mozart. Still, his parents resisted any entrepreneurial impulses and spared young Felix the strange, grueling lifestyle that was the lot of many child prodigies. He and his sister Fanny were given piano lessons, and he also studied violin, and both joined the Berlin Singakademie.

The stature of Johannes Brahms among classical composers is best illustrated by his inclusion among the "Three Bs" triumvirate of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Of all the major composers of the late Romantic era, Brahms was the one most attached to the Classical ideal as manifested in the music of Haydn, Mozart, and especially Beethoven; indeed, Hans von Bülow once characterized Brahms' Symphony No. 1 (1855-1876) as "Beethoven's Tenth." As a youth, Brahms was championed by Robert Schumann as music's greatest hope for the future; as a mature composer, Brahms became the most potent symbol of musical tradition for conservative musical journalists, a stalwart against the "degeneration" represented by the music of Wagner and his school.

A precocious child, Argerich began nursery aged two years and eight months, where she was the youngest child. A five-year-old boy, who was a friend, teased her that she would not be able to play the piano, and Argerich responded by playing perfectly, by ear, a piece their teacher played them. The teacher immediately called the mother and they "started making a fuss." She started learning the piano at the age of three. At the age of five, she moved to teacher Vincenzo Scaramuzza, who stressed to her the importance of lyricism and feeling. Argerich gave her debut concert in 1949 at the age of eight. The family moved to Europe in 1955, where Argerich studied with Friedrich Gulda in Austria, whom Argerich describes as one of her major influences. She later studied with Stefan Askenase and Maria Curcio. Argerich also seized opportunities for brief periods of coaching with Madeleine Lipatti (widow of Dinu Lipatti), Abbey Simon, and Nikita Magaloff. In 1957, at sixteen, she won both the Geneva International Music Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition within three weeks of each other. Following this success, Argerich had a personal and artistic crisis; she did not play the piano for three years and considered giving it up to train as a secretary or doctor. She credited Anny Askenase (the wife of Stefan Askenase) with encouraging her to return to the piano.

The events of Beethoven's life are the stuff of Romantic legend, evoking images of the solitary creator shaking his fist at Fate and finally overcoming it through a supreme effort of creative will. His compositions, which frequently pushed the boundaries of tradition and startled audiences with their originality and power, are considered by many to be the foundation of 19th century musical principals. Born in the small German city of Bonn on or around December 16, 1770, he received his early training from his father and other local musicians. As a teenager, he earned some money as an assistant to his teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, then was granted half of his father's salary as court musician from the Electorate of Cologne in order to care for his two younger brothers as his father gave in to alcoholism. Beethoven played viola in various orchestras, becoming friends with other players such as Antoine Reicha, Nikolaus Simrock, and Franz Ries, and began taking on composition commissions.