Maurizio Zacaria Rachmaninov

How did you develop a taste for both music and piano? Jean-Jacques Bedikian: Simply in the family context. My father liked to gather at home friends or relatives who were amateur musicians, and he enjoyed these improvised concerts which took a large part of traditional, popular, or film music, as well as the classical repertoire. I would stay up as late as possible to listen, I would even wake back up to do so, and this is how the first contact with music took place, and also the awakening of the desire to get my hands on the piano keys. In fact, when I heard a piece of music that moved me, I would try to play it, without having taken any lessons, to replicate first the melody, then a semblance of a harmonic framework. So I had the desire to learn the piano, which is why I was introduced to my first teacher.

Yes, Olga Kern does appear in her photographs to be quite beautiful, glamorously, gorgeously, gloriously beautiful. Try not to hold that against her because, under all her appearance of beauty, Kern is actually a great musician and the proof is in her disc of transcriptions and variations by Rachmaninov. Kern's physical beauty is matched and surpassed by her tone, her technique, and, best of all, her interpretations. Her tone is clear, deep, rich, strong, and warm. Her technique is effortless, flawless, and just about beyond belief. And her interpretations are even better.

Legendary Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy is considered the pre-eminent interpreter of Rachmaninov’s music, and as he marked his seventy-fifth birthday (6 July 2012), he recorded a final album of the composer’s music featuring the Seven Pieces (Moments Musicaux) Op.10, three Nocturnes, and ten shorter early works, including an unpublished 'Song without Words'.

Ashkenazy Completes Lifelong Project To Record Each Of Rachmaninov’s Works With Piano. Vladimir Ashkenazy, one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our times, crowns his lifelong project to record each of Rachmaninov’s works with piano with the release of Rachmaninov Piano Trios. He performs the composer’s Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor and the Trio élégiaque No. 2 in D minor Op. 9.

Rachmaninov’s rarely heard, and unfinished opera, Monna Vanna is recorded here in a newer edition by Gennadi Belov and led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, an iconic artist and expert in Russian music. This recording of Monna Vanna is a world première recording of the sung Russian version – the language in which Rachmaninov originally intended the opera to be performed.

Although Sergei Rachmaninov considered himself first and foremost a composer, the last two decades of his life found him knee-deep in his “second career” as a touring concert pianist and recording artist. In 1992, RCA Gold Seal brought out all of Rachmaninov’s recorded performances in a 10-disc set, now reprinted as a space-saving budget box.

This very generous (79 min.) program of Rachmaninov and Liszt is a sterling representation of Horowitz's mastery in these two composers. It was issued in 2003 as a centennial tribute to the pianist, and quite a number of readings derive from live concerts. the span of time is relatively short - most of the performances come from 1967 and 1068, with several more from 1962, before he ended his self-imposed exile from concertizing. The sonics from that period could be a bit thin and shallow, but they are good enough, and at times, as in Rachmaninov's Etude-Tableau Op. 39 no. 5, Horowitz's full range of sound jumps out, making one wish that everything was this present and engrossing.

From the outset of his recording career, Maurizio Pollini has championed modern music – in benchmark accounts of Bartók, Boulez, Manzoni, Nono, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern, to which can be added his later recordings of Debussy and Berg. Here are his complete recordings of 20th-century music, brought together on a specially-priced 6-CD set for the first time.