Saint Saens Edition

The range and variety of French piano music in the 19th and 20th centuries is exemplifi ed in these critically acclaimed albums bringing together rarely encountered pieces, a number of which are performed on period instruments. Théodore Gouvy’s little-known sonatas and Benjamin Godard’s fragrant lyricism are part of a lineage that includes the masterful large-scale Piano Sonata of Vincent d’Indy, the virtuosic rarities – many in première recordings – of Saint-Saëns, Satie’s tenderness and wit, and unknown piano versions of some of Debussy’s greatest orchestral masterpieces.

The Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and its Artistic and Music Director Kazuki Yamada, interprets the now ‘traditional’ recorded pairing of two sumptuous, escapist French song cycles: Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and Ravel’s Shéhérazade. Complementing them both musically and thematically is a third, less frequently heard cycle by another great French composer, Camille Saint-Saëns: his Mélodies Persanes (Persian Songs). “From the first note to the last, Lemieux’s interpretation of the Berlioz was exemplary …” wrote Bachtrack when she performed Les Nuits d’été in Paris. “From the depths of her lower register to her shimmering high notes, she traced a supple trajectory through the work, phrasing with amplitude and missing no opportunity for word-painting.”

To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Camille Saint-Saens, the Basel Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Ivor Bolton had set itself the goal of giving the public an insight into the composer's well-known as well as lesser-known symphonic works.

The box comprises all (live) recordings made by Martha Argerich at the Lugano Festival, from 2002 to the last edition in 2016, and released by EMI Classics and Warner Classics. An impressive collection of 22CDs without equivalent. It includes a variety of genres: some solo piano music, lots of music for piano duo and among them many arrangements, chamber works and concertos.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the pianist’s death, EMI has brought out the largest and most comprehensive Cortot collection ever. The set offers nearly every commercial studio recording released under Cortot’s name on 78 shellac, vinyl LP, 45 rpm single, or compact disc, including unpublished takes already released on CD. To be sure, it is not quite “The Complete Cortot”. For example, the collection omits Cortot’s 1903 sessions accompanying soprano Felia Litvinne, plus a 1925 recording containing the second half only of Chopin’s First Ballade coupled on shellac with the same composer’s Second Impromptu. There is no broadcast material, either. However, we do get Cortot’s unpublished 1957 Chopin Preludes and Ballades, along with a few samples from the pianist’s long-rumored, unfinished Beethoven cycle recorded at the Ecole Normale in 1958/59

Celebrating the 175th Anniversary of the New York Philharmonic, America’s oldest symphony orchestra. 65 CDs of famous New York Philharmonic performances conducted by many of its most renowned music directors, from the very first recording in 1917 up to 1995.

For the 100th anniversary of Emil Gilels, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, Melodiya presents an anthology of his pianistic legacy. “Titans of the piano like Gilels are born once in a hundred years,” wrote a Japanese correspondent in 1957; similar comments accompanied the musician’s performances throughout his performing career.
The performance of the young man from the Odessa Conservatory at the 1933 First All-Union Competition in Moscow came as a bombshell: the audience gave him a standing ovation, and unfamiliar people congratulated each other on the emergence of a genius.