Perahia Mendelessohn

In recognition of his 40th anniversary with the label, Sony Classical is proud to present Murray Perahia: The First 40 Years. This limited- edition box set includes the artist’s complete recordings for Sony Classical on 68 CDs packaged in mini sleeves featuring the original album cover artwork.

Exclusive Sony Classical pianist Murray Perahia releases this collection of the keyboard concertos of J.S Bach. Celebrated by his fans and media alike on first release, several of the concertos have been unavailable for some time and make a welcome return to the catalogue, The set contains some of Perahia’s all-time best-selling recordings. The initial releases of these recordings of the Concertos Nos. 1-7 have sold in excess of 30,000 units in the UK alone, Murray Perahia’s recording of Bach’s Solo Keyboard Partitas 1,5 & 6 (88697565602) won the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Award for Best Instrumental Recording.

This unusual grouping presumably represents the first instalment of Perahia's planned Urtext edition of the complete sonata series.Opening with the "Piano Sonata No 12 in A-flat major, Opus 26", one is immediately struck by Perahia's poised, stately progress through the opening movement. The more animated second movement – unusually, a scherzo, Beethoven effectively turning the sonata form on its head – sets up the dirge-like final movement, the Funeral March For a Dead Hero. The two Opus 14 Sonatas (No 9 in E major, and No 10 in G major) are earlier, shorter, and simpler, the former boasting a particularly pleasing melodic motif and repetitive form.

Johann Sebastian Bach - Murray Perahia - Goldberg Variationen
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 240 MB | Full Artwork: 122 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Sony Classical # SK 892432 | Country/Year: Europe 2000
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Piano

"…Artists as individually outstanding as Gould, Tureck, Koroliov, and Schiff have all found solutions that are equally valid, but none, I think, have ever made the music sound so naturally, joyously at home on the modern piano as has Perahia. With gorgeously rich recorded sound fully worthy of the interpretation, this Goldberg Variations easily joins my short list of recommendations on any instrument. Perahia has given us a recording for the ages, no doubt about it." ~classicstoday

Soloist-conducted piano concertos can sometimes mean compromise, even chaos…but not in this case. Indeed, the playing of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Murray Perahia is even sprightlier than on a rival EMI recording of the same repertoire where Sir Neville Marriner conducts and Andrei Gavrilov plays the keyboard part. As soloist, Perahia is his usual stylish, discreet and pianistically refined self. He takes the D minor Concerto’s opening at a fair lick, a hot-foot sprinter embellishing the line with taste and affecting a little ritardando at 3'21 (just as the mood momentarily brightens) a la Edwin Fischer.

I was amazed to discover this wonderful performance of Schubert's D.959, by a pianist who I usually consider a bad Schubertist (in the Impromptus and last sonata, for example). In this work, however, he seems to get the very essence of the music. I've listened to many good and bad recordings of the work, notably Uchida, Eschenbach, Bolet (good performances) as well as Serkin, Brendel (worse, to my taste) and many others. The only good rival of this performance is another surprise: the romantic Liszt expert Jorge Bolet (Decca, not released on CD). Perahia seems to understand Schubert magnificently in this sonata.

This disc received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Awards for "Record of the Year" and "Best Instrumental Solo or Chamber Performance - 17th/18th Centuries." It also received the 1997 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Instrumental Recording," was Gramophone's "Recording of the Month" for May 1997, and was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra)."