Gulda Chopin

Gulda, a brilliant master of rhythm, uncompromising Bach interpreter and jazz musician, is in the best keeping with Chopin. Works by Chopin appear in Gulda’s concert programmes from quite early on. His secret in playing Chopin with so much vitality? It is the inimitable mix of rhythmic strictness, most cantabile tenderness and controlled outbursts of emotion. Although he would become one of 20th-century music’s most capricious rebels - as in love with the free spirits of jazz as with the living monuments of classical - pianist Friedrich Gulda (1930–2000) was born and bred in that most traditional of musical cities, Vienna. He studied theory with the late-Romanticist Joseph Marx at the Vienna Academy of Music, and he won the Geneva International Pianists' Competition at age sixteen, eventually earning a reputation for the rare blend of cogency and freedom within his interpretations of music from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to Ravel and Debussy. His most notable recordings included both books of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and the complete sonatas and concertos of Beethoven (in 1954 and 1966).

This compilation features recordings made between 1950 and 1959 and proves the outstanding pianist to be an equally brilliant and exciting performer of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel and Strauss. In addition the compilation boasts highlights from the legendary 1956 Birdland sessions.

Gulda's hottest Chopin phase was the mid-1950s, when he regularly played the complete Preludes and complete Ballades in concert. Captured here are recordings from a variety of sources, all released for the first time, with the exception of the Piano Concerto recording, made for Decca (with whom he also recorded the Preludes and Ballades)

Beethoven and Bebop, Debussy and The Doors, Mozart and Mash-Ups. Such pairings are strange, even improbable bedfellows, yet the pianist Friedrich Gulda, one of 20th-century music’s most capricious rebels, managed to connect the dots and bring these disparate musical worlds together throughout his life, to the delight of many and perhaps the disdain of others. Gulda signed to Decca as a teenager, and his first recordings (presented in this set for the first time internationally) are indicative of the repertoire he would continue championing to the end. His complete recordings on Decca are brought together in one edition for the very first time, 40 years after he recorded his last recording for the label, the Beethoven Concertos with the Wiener Philharmoniker and conductor Horst Stein.

Beethoven and Bebop, Debussy and The Doors, Mozart and Mash-Ups. Such pairings are strange, even improbable bedfellows, yet the pianist Friedrich Gulda, one of 20th-century music’s most capricious rebels, managed to connect the dots and bring these disparate musical worlds together throughout his life, to the delight of many and perhaps the disdain of others. Gulda signed to Decca as a teenager, and his first recordings (presented in this set for the first time internationally) are indicative of the repertoire he would continue championing to the end. His complete recordings on Decca are brought together in one edition for the very first time, 40 years after he recorded his last recording for the label, the Beethoven Concertos with the Wiener Philharmoniker and conductor Horst Stein.

Frédéric Chopin was the most famous composer of Polish origin in the history of Western concert music. He was a progressive who revolutionized the harmonic content, the texture, and the emotional quality of the small piano piece, turning light dance forms, nocturnes, and study genres into profound works that were both daring and deeply inward. Born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin to a French father and a Polish mother, probably on March 1, 1810, he was a native of Zelazowa Wola village west of Warsaw.

Frédéric Chopin was the most famous composer of Polish origin in the history of Western concert music. He was a progressive who revolutionized the harmonic content, the texture, and the emotional quality of the small piano piece, turning light dance forms, nocturnes, and study genres into profound works that were both daring and deeply inward. Born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin to a French father and a Polish mother, probably on March 1, 1810, he was a native of Zelazowa Wola village west of Warsaw.

Frédéric Chopin was the most famous composer of Polish origin in the history of Western concert music. He was a progressive who revolutionized the harmonic content, the texture, and the emotional quality of the small piano piece, turning light dance forms, nocturnes, and study genres into profound works that were both daring and deeply inward. Born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin to a French father and a Polish mother, probably on March 1, 1810, he was a native of Zelazowa Wola village west of Warsaw.

Friedrich Guida was born in Vienna on May 16, 1930. He began his musical education at the Grossmann Conservatory and subsequently took private lessons from Felix Pazofsky. From 1942 to 1947 he studied piano at the Vienna Academy of Music under Bruno Seidlhofer and Music Theory and Com position under Joseph Marx . He gave his first public performance in 1944 and, two years later when just 16 years old, won the Geneva International Music Competition. Starting after the Second World War, as a 20-year-old, Guida established himself as a piano soloist with an excel I ent international reputation and even performed at Carnegie HalI in New York City in 1950.