Joachim Stiller

Robert Kahn was born in Mannheim in 1865 and died in Biddenden, Kent in 1951. How did a composer who impressed Brahms, and who the older composer offered to give lessons to end up in the UK in a small village? Kahn became an influential professor of music at the Berlin Hochschule, and before that had his works performed by the Joachim Quartet, and the Berlin Philharmonic under Hans von Bülow. Kahn was a friend of Joachim, von Bülow, Adolf Busch and Richard Mühlfeld. His compositional style was along the lines of Mendelssohn, Schuman and Brahms, he was an admirer of Reger, whose contrapuntalism no doubt had an influence upon Kahn. He avoided large scale romantic forms, and became famed for his songs, choral works, chamber music and the huge Tagebuch in Tönen, (Music from the Tree of Life) a collection of solo piano works, suites for piano and lieder that run to over 1100 pieces.

Robert Kahn was born in Mannheim in 1865 and died in Biddenden, Kent in 1951.

For five decades Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) held a central position in the musical world. That centrality was reflected in a series of top orchestral and operatic posts and in his interpretations, free of self-regarding eccentricities. His modest but highly effective conducting technique also made him the ideal recording artist. Sawallisch was a Bavarian born in Munich, city of orchestras and a great opera company, which he headed for 21 years. He started his career as an outstanding pianist and remained a sought-after accompanist to great Lieder singers and instrumentalists. Volume 1 of a complete conspectus of his Warner Classics recordings (made for Electrola and EMI Classics between 1954 to 1997) includes wonderful Lieder and song collaborations, as well as famous concerto accompaniments for eminent soloists and a heartwarming traversal of Schubert's secular vocal and sacred choral music with Bavarian Radio colleagues. But the main focus among the 65 discs is on his symphonic achievements: Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner and Dvorák - the latter's Eighth Symphony was his first published recording, from 1954. Richard Strauss, an early influence, is strongly represented. This 65CD-box brings together all the non-operatic recordings that the German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1954 to 1997 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics).