Wilhelm Kempff The Solo Repertoire 35cd .

This important set contains the sixteen Beethoven sonatas that Wilhelm Kempff recorded for Grammophon in Germany between 1940 and 1943. Several are reissued here for the first time since their original release on 78rpm discs and none are currently available elsewhere. The sound is excellent for the period and all reveal the young Kempff at his best, in performances that compliment his later thoughts. The release is the companion of two previous APR releases of early Kempff Beethoven recordings the late sonatas (APR6018) and piano concertos 1, 3, 4 & 5 (APR6019), both of which received excellent reviews and were amongst APRs best sellers.

Karajan’s artistic grip on the Salzburg Festival unofficially spanned three decades and woe betide anyone who upset him. Whether Kempff did or did not must be a matter of conjecture. What is sure is that this was his one and only appearance at the event. He was 63 years old at the time and lived to the ripe old age of 96, outliving Karajan himself. He was also a major recording artist for DG and their influence on the Festival was almost as pervasive as the conductor’s. Nevertheless this disc manages to fill a gap in Kempff’s discography with the Beethoven and Brahms works, two of the composers (Schubert and Schumann the others) with whose music this great pianist is readily associated.

Five Piano Concertos and the Piano Sonata No. 32, opus 111, recorded in stereo in 1962 and 1964, respectively, by Wilhelm Kempff [1895-1991] and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Ferdinand Leitner [1912-96]. The sonata, the composer’s last, is certainly more than a mere filler, from the opening hesitancy of the ‘Allegro con brio ed appassionato’ to the extended closing section of the second movement.

There are few more sublime manifestations of the numinous in the mundane than Bach chorale prelude transcriptions sensitively played on the piano. Unfortunately, such things are now virtually forbidden by the authentic instrument law that does not permit Bach to be played on the piano, no matter how sensitively. In the past 20 years, there have been only two recordings of Bach chorale preludes: Murray Perahia's oh-so-sensitive performance and Paul Jacobs' just-the-facts performance. One has to reach further back than that to get good Bach.