Comic Megastore Alpha From No.3, 2016

I have many versions of this great concerto. My first ever exposure to this work was a recording by Witold Malcuzynski that I have now acquired on CD. Since the 1960s I have collected recordings by many great pianists including Bronfman, Glemser, Ashkenazy, Janis, Gilels, Vasary, Horowitz, Lympany, Gieseking, Helfgott, de Larrocha, Rachmaninoff, Wild, Kapell, Bolet, Argerich, Malcuzynski - and just when I thought I'd heard all the Rach 3 had to say, along comes this sublime recording by the late great Lazar Berman. The playing is clear, romantic, musically intelligent, exciting and enjoyable and satisfying in every way.

Looking ahead to the 300th anniversary of the birth of Haydn in 2032, the Joseph Haydn Foundation of Basel has joined forces with the Alpha Classics label to record all of the composer’s 107 symphonies. This ambitious project is placed under the artistic direction of Giovanni Antonini, who now presents the third volume, after two previous issues that attracted great attention and received numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik Prize 2015 for the ‘best orchestral recording’ of the year.