Liszt Complete 67

Leslie Howard’s recordings of Liszt’s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard’s Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt.

Moriz Rosenthal was from the earliest generation of pianists to have made a significant number of recordings, and he was also one of the more important Liszt pupils, therefore his legacy is of the utmost importance as representative of 19th century style.

Franz Liszt’s project of transcribing all of Beethoven’s symphonies took him 25 years to complete. His approach retains a deep fidelity to the original score with piano writing that is sumptuously rich and always perfectly suited to the instrument and its possibilities. A celebration of music as an independent and absolute language, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is considered the perfect utterance of his musical philosophy, while the Second Symphony looks to the future as it wrestles with the conventions of symphonic tradition. Gabriele Baldocci’s second volume in this edition (CDS7771) was admired in ClassicsToday.com, in which the ‘Beethoven/Liszt ‘Eroica’ symphony transcription conveys an impressive, multi-levelled pianistic sheen’.

‘Samson de la nuit’ was the affectionate epithet given to this pianist who seemed never to sleep and who was almost as famous for spending his early morning hours in Parisian jazz clubs as he was for playing Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. Like the Biblical Samson, Samson François wore his hair long – it often hung in front of his eyes as he played – and like the character Scarbo in Gaspard, he could be mischievous and evasive. A man of contrasts, he was in many ways the epitome of what one thought a romantic pianist should be – confident, dashing, poetic, moody, passionate, tender and temperamental. Today, more than 40 years after his premature death, a new generation of listeners has come to appreciate the qualities that made him one of the great pianists of the 20th century.

Leslie Howard's recordings of Liszt s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard's Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt. Every known note of Liszt's piano music has been recorded and is included here: Leslie Howard's 57 original volumes plus the further 3 supplements. GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for the world s largest recording series by a solo artist.

Kurt Masur's achievement is defined above all by his relationships with two orchestras exemplifying vastly different traditions. Having spent some 20 years as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, which traces it's roots to the 15th century, he became the transformational music director of the New York Philharmonic, an embodiment of the New World. Through all this, his musical integrity remained consistent. As the New York Times wrote: "He brought to the podium the ardent conviction that music-making was a moral act that could heal the world." Masur himself put things more simply: "My goal is meaningful playing… What counts is to be able to communicate the composer's meaning to the audience… When I conduct Beethoven, I wouldn't like to replace Beethoven. He should be in your mind, not me." This 70CD set consolidates the entirety of the catalogues that Masur built for EMI and Teldec between 1974 and 2009.

Never before have all Arthur Rubinstein albums been available together like this. Arthur Rubinstein – The Complete Album Collection features all of the legendary pianist’s issued recordings made by RCA Victor between 1940 and 1976, plus one recording issued on the DECCA label in 1978. Also included in this set are the recordings Rubinstein made in England for the His Master’s Voice (HMV) label between 1928 and 1940. As a bonus, this special package also has the sensational world-premiere release of two Carnegie Hall concerts recorded on December 8 and 10, 1961.