Turca

This album is the result of an extraordinary adventure of self-development that began when the pianist Aldo Ciccolini offered Genny Basso to move to his house in Paris and be his personal assistant at international master classes. Much of Basso's current playing style has evolved from this experience, which has deeply influenced the way he feels and perceives interpretation. In the years that followed, Genny Basso had the privilege of listening to Ciccolini every day, trying to discover his secrets, taking his suggestions, listening to and commenting on music with him. And thanks to him Basso probably learned his most important lesson: making music is not narcissism, but full of love and sincerity. That's why his first album could not be anything but a tribute to him, to the intensity and purity of his soul, to his piano art and to the artistic lessons he left Genny Basso.

Philips has reissued, at an affordable price, Mitsuko Uchida's recordings of all the Mozart piano sonatas. It's a great package for anyone who hasn't heard her celebrated performances of these or may have only heard one or two. She uses a lightness of touch and approach as if she were playing on an instrument more like what Mozart would have had, rather than its modern, sturdy descendent. There is also a deliberateness and care given to each phrase, adding a delicate nuance here, a smidgen more drama there. E

„An outstanding instrumental soloist who is also brilliant conductor is hard to come by. However, Christian Zacharias of Germany is one such exceptional talent – a well versed, intelligent pianist on the one hand and a conductor with a broad repertoire, including opera, on the other.“ (BZ Basel, Alfred Ziltener, 11 May 2015) With his distinctive combination of integrity, unique style, surpassing linguistic expressiveness, deep musical insight and assured artistic instinct paired with his charismatic and captivating personality, Christian Zacharias has made a name for himself not only as one of the world’s leading pianists and conductors, but also as a musical thinker.

While today it is easy to listen to almost any piece at any time and in almost any place, before the invention of the record it was quite complicated: you had to go to a concert or to the opera or you played yourself… In the emerging bourgeoisie, arrangements of the most popular works in instrumentations suitable for chamber music were popular and, of course, Mozart's famous operas were at the top of the popularity scale. In many places, publishers set about transcribing Mozart's works for small and very small ensembles. The two violinists Florian Deuter and Mónica Waisman have found a whole series of such contemporary arrangements of Mozart's operas and piano sonatas in "pocket format" for violin duo, which bring the well-known melodies into the new form with much wit and finesse. In the process, the listener can grin and observe the reduction of the full sound and delve into delightful details of house music around 1800.

The thirty-five CDs that make up the present boxed set are designed to acquaint listeners with one of the most important pianists of the 20th century or, if they are already familiar with his work, to allow them to rediscover it anew. Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991) was the final representative of the great tradition of German pianists that also included Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) and Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969). Of the three, Kempff had by far the longest career - he gave his last public concert in 1982.

Michael Wessel is a professor for piano playing, song accompaniment and methodology at the University of Protestant Church Music in Bayreuth. He studied piano, composition, music theory and school music in four major courses at the music academies in Detmold and Stuttgart: piano with Hanns-Ulrich Kunze, Jürgen Uhde and Elisabeth Leonskaja, composition with Helmut Lachenmann, music theory and music theory with Martin C. Redel, music pedagogy with Karl Heinrich Ehrenforth. During his studies at Lachenmann, he received a graduate scholarship from the state of Baden-Württemberg. The present release is the fourth volume in his project of recording Mozart's complete piano sonatas.