The Romantic Piano Concerto 79

With her refined, honest artistry, the Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires - who turns 70 in July 2014 - is one of the musicians who defined the Erato label in the 1970s and 1980s. This 17-CD box presents all the recordings she made between 1972 and 1987. Reflecting the consistent focus of her repertoire, this box set's emphasis is on Austro-German composers of the Classical and early-Romantic periods. Embracing solo works, piano duets, and concertos, this release contains works by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Beethoven, as well as by Bach and Chopin.

Josef Lhevinne studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Vasily Safonov, made his public debut at fourteen in a performance conducted by Anton Rubinstein, and graduated top of a class that included both Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin. Lhevinne is often included as one of the greatest golden-era pianists, and yet, his recorded legacy is approximately fifty minutes of repertoire for Pathé and Victor, albeit treasured and admired. And not unlike a star whose light went out too soon, the public created a mythos based on a small output and clamors for more examples of his playing to further justify his reputation. The wait is now over.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) - Piano Concertos 1 & 2
Jean-Yves Thibaudet / Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Herbert Blomstedt
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 191 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Decca # 468 600-2 | Country/Year: Europe 2001
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…In short, a release that does all of its participants proud (including the recording team, of course). Bravo, Jean-Yves!

Deutsche Grammophon's five-CD trimline box set of the complete concerto recordings by Maria João Pires, packaged in separate sleeves with their original cover art, focuses quite appropriately on her area of specialization, the piano concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The first CD offers her eloquent performances of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concertos No. 1 and No. 2, in performances conducted by Emmanuel Krivine and André Previn, respectively, and Disc 5 closes with her refined reading of Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor. Between them are seven piano concertos by Mozart, with six of those performances conducted by Pires' longtime collaborator, Claudio Abbado, who also led the Schumann, while one of the Mozart performances was directed by Frans Brüggen.