Gulda

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.

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.

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.

The 24 Preludes represent what must be the best known cycle of pieces by the Impressionist composer Claude Debussy. The compositions are alive with magic, poetry and depiction in sound.

Die hier vorgestellte Sinfonie in G wurde erst im Zuge der Recherche für die bei SWR music erscheinenden Gulda-Reihe im Archiv des SWR entdeckt.

Being a highly acclaimed international classical pianist for almost five decades Friedrich Gulda also cultivated a great passion for modern jazz.

Following the 7 disc box set of Gulda's Stuttgart solo recitals, this instalment features his SWR recordings of piano concertos. Several of these recordings have never been released before: Mozart K491, Beethoven No. 4, the piano concerto by Haydn, Strauss Burleske and the encore by Debussy. These recordings reveal Guldas youthful mastery and his equally fresh and exciting interpretations of the classics.

Gulda begann im Alter von sieben Jahren mit dem Klavierspiel.

“Tribute to Gulda” is a fascinating new project to be released on Warner Classics by an exceptionally talented young Polish pianist, Adam Kosmieja. “Tribute to Gulda” features five pieces written by the legendary Austrian pianist and composer, Friedrich Gulda as well as Beethoven’s last Piano Sonata Op. 111. The compositions, with elements of jazz improvisations and classical virtuosity, are haunting and beautiful.