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PREFACE
This book is intended to provide guidance for anyone wishing to purchase recordings of pianists
on compact disc. Its format is alphabetical, with each entry consisting of a biography followed by
comment on the recordings of the pianist concerned. Where an important recording has not been
reissued on compact disc I have referred to the original LP. The career list is intended to outline the
pianist’s life at a glance by noting salient points.
Biographical information is only as good as the source from which it is gleaned and in many
cases conflicting evidence has been discovered: for example the date of birth of Gina Bachauer
is given variously as 1910 and 1913, that of Felicja Blumental as 1908, 1911 and 1918, and Shura
Cherkassky in nearly every source has a date of birth cited as 1911 when in fact it was 1909. Some
of this confusion arises from a pianist’s years as a child prodigy when parents and manager needed
their charge to appear as young as possible for as long as possible. I have tried to ascertain the
correct information for the biographies in every case.
For the comments on the recordings of each pianist, I have highlighted what I think to be their
best and most representative work. In cases where it is possible to encompass a pianist’s complete
work in the recording studio by session or different record label, I have endeavoured to do this, but
in many cases a pianist’s complete recordings are not covered.
With a work of this nature it is impossible to take account of every pianist one would wish
to include. Some artists who recorded, but who were primarily teachers and not performers, such
as Isidor Phillip, Lazare Lévy, Richard Buhlig and Louis Diémer, have been excluded for reasons of
space; others are excluded because they produced no commercial recordings, and what survives of
their playing is not representative of their art: into this category fall pianists such as Alexander Siloti,
Isaac Albéniz and Joaquín Malats. Some pianists had to be omitted purely on grounds of space,
since the project risked never reaching an end if I had continued to add pianists as I thought of
them. Into this category regrettably fall pianists including Mieczysław Munz, Yolanda Mero, Nicolas
Orloff, Maria Roger-Miclos, Madeleine de Valmalette, Herbert Fryer, Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Edith
Vogel. I have also avoided including very young pianists at the start of their career. There has been a
huge change in the classical recording industry (and it should not be forgotten that it is an industry)
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where record labels pick up a visually appealing pianist and vigorously promote him or her with the
artistically questionable tools of modern marketing. These pianists can be dropped just as quickly as
they are acquired, and can be left languishing in an artistic wilderness. This is not a particularly recent
phenomenon: many names from the 1970s and 1980s who had a high-profile recording career with
a big label are now forgotten, and a number of these have not been included. Conversely, there are
certain pianists of a high standard who are little known today for various reasons and to these I have
deliberately devoted more space: researching, and in certain cases discovering, new information
which I hope will be of interest. Into this category I would place Karol Szreter, Youra Guller, Pietro
Scarpini, Jakob Gimpel, Walter Rummel and Joyce Hatto.
Discographies invariably go out of date before they are even published, and recordings are
issued and reissued under a plethora of different labels and catalogue numbers. I have therefore not
attempted to include record numbers, but have tried to include the original name of the company
for whom the recording was made so that it can at least be identified. Today, with a few huge
multi-national companies in control of the heritage of past recordings, attributing labels to particular
recordings is not an easy task. It should also be remembered that recordings by certain artists are
sometimes more readily available in their own country, where they are reissued for the domestic
market: Eric Heidsieck, Jacques Février and Monique Haas in France and Christian Zacharias in Germany
for example. Also, the historic reissue industry is particularly active in Japan and some interesting
historic CDs are only issued there; but with the advantages of the Internet, much of this material can
be located. Most of the major companies have ceased production of historic reissues, particularly of
recordings from the first half of the twentieth century. EMI France is a welcome exception with their
historic series on Références, Les Introuvables boxed sets and most recently Les Rarissimes 2-CD sets;
but the short-lived, and exemplary, Masterworks Heritage Series from Sony in the late 1990s and the
comprehensive surveys of pianists such as Arthur Rubinstein and William Kapell by RCA/BMG now
seem to be things of the past. It has been up to the smaller labels to provide important recordings by
pianists of earlier generations, and these labels, including Biddulph and Pearl, have done the collector
and musician a great service by taking up the reins dropped by the larger companies. It is refreshing
to know that important recordings are still being discovered: after the main part of this book went to
press four hitherto undiscovered sides by Emil von Sauer for Spanish Regal were found and Monique
Haas’s complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon were issued.
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I have strongly resisted recommending recordings that are incredibly rare, and therefore
inaccessible to practically everyone. There is nothing worse than the collector who has a unique
test pressing of a unique performance by an artist of stature and does not want anyone to hear it,
yet wants everyone to know he possesses it. Fortunately, most collectors are generous in sharing
their discs and recordings for reissue.
The most famous teachers of piano at the end of the nineteenth century were Franz Liszt and
Theodor Leschetizky but although neither of them made sound recordings, many of their pupils
did. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that a pupil of Liszt will play his master’s work in
the same way as the composer; yet something of the style, tradition, the milieu, can be extracted
from listening to performances by Moriz Rosenthal, Emil von Sauer, Eugen d’Albert, and Arthur
Friedheim. Pianists who studied specific works with their composers, such as Vlado Perlemuter with
Ravel, can be revealing, but caution needs to be exercised with pianists such as Marguerite Long
who attempted to build their careers on this circumstance. Personal contact with the composer
certainly cannot guarantee an authentic or authoritative performance; while many composers
(such as Ravel) knew that there were many better pianists than themselves. Who can say in such a
case what is authentic or authoritative?
Every generation seems to think that the previous one was better. It is generally thought that
as the technical standard of pianists has increased, the musical value of their performances has
decreased in proportion. The competition circuit encourages pianists to play faster and louder
than their competitors as they strain for the first prize. Individuality in performance has all but
disappeared, and whereas pianists of past generations such as Schnabel, Horowitz, Cherkassky,
Horszowski or Cortot could be identified by their own unique sound and style, many young
pianists today lack individuality while many modern performances and recordings leave the listener
completely unmoved and uninvolved. Some commentators would argue that music itself has
disappeared from piano performance and all we are left with is the notes.
Were the pianists active in the 1920s and 1930s, the so-called ‘Golden Age of Pianism’ better
than those we have today? ‘Better’ is not perhaps the word, but although one may think that
the artistry and communication of music has all but disappeared from the concert platform and
recording studio of today, it is interesting to read the following. ‘Speaking of Chopin’s time a pianist
wrote, “In those days one was not afraid to play with a great deal of sentiment, although pianists
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who were capable of doing this poetically were rare. In modern times it has become the fashion
to ridicule any tendency toward emotional playing and to extol the intellectual side beyond its
just proportion.” ’ Those words could have been written at any time during the twentieth century,
but were in fact quoted by William Mason in 1900. It could be applied to the playing of Artur
Schnabel and his followers in the 1930s, or the Urtext followers of later times, but one hopes that
the revelatory purpose and communication of music, and pianism in general, has not been lost.
This is what the great musician-pianists of the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half
of the twentieth century possessed. They were artistically rounded people who had an interest in
politics, philosophy, literature and all things artistic.
The compact disc, whose introduction in 1982 heralded a new era of improved sound quality,
surprisingly opened up a whole new catalogue of historic recordings. Within the last twenty
years almost every important historical recording by the great pianists of the past has been made
available and we have been in the enviable position of having the complete recordings of such
great artists as Emil von Sauer, Ferruccio Busoni, Eugen d’Albert, Josef Lhévinne, Ignaz Friedman and
Sergei Rachmaninov available, while even slightly less eminent pianists like Mischa Levitzki have
also had their entire commercial recordings reissued on compact disc.
The value of historic piano recordings is immense. Enshrined in the original wax of the older
recordings are some sublime performances by great people of the past who were also great artists,
musicians, characters and individuals, whose playing was based on musical talent, intellect and
muscular relaxation. These recordings are a reflection rather than a representation of the time in
which they were made and although the history of performance practice through recordings is a
subject now eagerly taken on by academics, the early commercial 78rpm disc can ultimately only
present a brief snapshot of the time in which it was made, under conditions very different from
those of a live performance. It is possible to listen to these discs purely for pleasure, but pianists and
piano students of today, if guided in the right direction, may also learn a very great deal from them.
It is my hope that this book may go a little way towards providing such guidance.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Klaus Heymann, Nicolas Soames and Genevieve Helsby at Naxos for giving
me the opportunity of writing this book. I would also like to thank my editor Pamela Scrayfield
whose charming and tireless work has been much appreciated. For general suggestions and some
specific information I must thank Donald Manildi, Curator, International Piano Archives (University of
Maryland, USA), Gregor Benko, Ward Marston and Richard Jones. I must also thank Donald Manildi for
his extremely generous offer of the recordings to supplement this book. Many of these recordings
have given me pleasure for a number of years, and continue to do so, and I would like to thank the
artists and, most importantly, the record companies of the time for preserving their work.
Jonathan Summers
London and New York 2006
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CONTENTS
Track List............................................................................................................................ 13
BIOGRAPHIES.................................................................................................................. 29
About the Author..................................................................................................... 862
Credits.............................................................................................................................. 863
11
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Track List
CD 1
1
3:42
Recorded c. 1912 Odéon 76941
Matrix XXB 5374
2
Claudio Arrau
Liszt: ‘Paganini’ Étude No. 6 in A minor
4:24
Recorded 1928 Polydor 95111
Matrix 951bm
3
Wilhelm Backhaus
Brahms: Variations on a theme of Paganini Op. 35
7:42
Recorded 1916 Grammophon 61876
Matrices 980/1 M
4
Simon Barere
Liszt: Étude de concert: Gnomenreigen
2:32
Recorded 30.01.1934 HMV DB 2167
Matrix 2B 5580-1
5
Eugen d’Albert
d’Albert: Scherzo in F sharp Op. 16 No. 2 Una Bourne
Tchaikovsky: Humoresque Op. 10 No. 2
2:22
Recorded 19.03.1925 HMV B 2042
Matrix Bb 5901-2
13
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6
Monique de la Bruchollerie
Chopin: Ballade No. 4 in F minor Op. 52
9:25
Recorded 22.10.1947 HMV DB 6731
Matrices 2EA 12442-2, 2EA 12443-2
7
Ferruccio Busoni
Bach–Busoni: Chorale-Prelude: Rejoice Beloved Christians
1:55
Recorded 27.02.1922 Columbia L 1470
Matrix 76702-3
8
Robert Casadesus
Chopin: Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op. 23
7:35
Recorded 28.06.1928 Columbia 68085-D
Matrices WLX 475-1, WLX 499-1
9
Cécile Chaminade
Chaminade: Air de ballet Op. 30
Recorded 1901 G&T 5552
Matrix 1136-4-IV
10 Shura Cherkassky
Tchaikovsky: October (from The Months Op. 37a)
Recorded 1946 Vox 16024 (in set 165)
Matrix 7102-6
11 Alfred Cortot
Liszt: Étude de concert No. 2 in F minor: La Leggierezza
Recorded 08.01.1919 Victor 74589
Matrix C 22506-1
14
2:51
3:21
4:02
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12
–
Samuel Feinberg
13 Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 2 in G sharp minor Op. 19
Recorded early 1950s Melodya 33CM 03037/8
14 Jacques Février
Ravel: Noctuelles (from Miroirs)
Recorded 11.12.1942 Columbia LFX 633
Matrix CLX 2344-1
15 Edwin Fischer
Bach–Busoni: Chorale-Prelude: Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
Recorded c. 1941 Electrola DB 5688
Matrix 2RA 5053-5
16 Samson François
Ravel: Scarbo (from Gaspard de la nuit)
Recorded 24.09.1947 HMV DB 11195
Matrices 2LA 5006, 2LA 5007
6:53, 3:12
4:13
3:17
8:51
TT 75:24
15
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CD 2
1
Ignaz Friedman
Paganini–Liszt–Busoni: La Campanella
4:06
Recorded 07.09.1926 Columbia L 1804
Matrix WAX 1881-5
2
Ossip Gabrilowitsch
Gabrilowitsch: Caprice Burlesque Op. 3
4:28
Recorded 13.05.1925 Victor unpublished
Matrix C30227-12
3
Walter Gieseking
R. Strauss–Gieseking: Ständchen
2:38
Recorded c. 1928 Odéon O-25228
Matrix H-20785
4
Emil Gilels
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D flat 6:13
Recorded c. 1940 USSR 17053/4
5
Jakob Gimpel
Debussy: Étude No. 7 Pour les degrés chromatiques
2:12
Recorded c. 1946 Vox 16023
Matrix 7020-3
6
16
Grigory Ginzburg
Rozycki–Ginzburg: Waltz (from Casanova)
Recorded late 1940s/early 1950s Melodya 33D 027805/6
4:17
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7
Leopold Godowsky
Schubert–Godowsky: Morgengrüss
4:30
Recorded 11.09.1926 Brunswick 50133
Matrix XE 20092
8
Percy Grainger
Stanford–Grainger: Irish Jig Maguire’s Kick
2:43
Recorded 16.05.1908 HMV 5569
Matrix 8393e
9
Alfred Grünfeld
Wagner–Liszt: Liebestod (from Tristan und Isolde)
Recorded 1909 Gramophone 045522
Matrix 01010v
10 Mark Hambourg
Rutland: Two Sea Shanties
Recorded 17.12.1928 HMV B 2935
Matrix Bb 15457-3
11 Clara Haskil
Pescetti: Sonata in C minor
Recorded 23.01.1934 Polydor 522863
Matrix 5856 BDP
12 Myra Hess
Bach–Hess: Jesu, joy of man’s desiring
Recorded 01.1928 Columbia 2063 M
Matrix W 145543
4:31
2:53
3:38
3:19
17
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13 Josef Hofmann
Liszt: Tarantella (from Venezia e Napoli)
Recorded 02.11.1916 Columbia L 1394
Matrix 48976-2
14 Vladimir Horowitz
Bizet–Horowitz: Variations on themes from Carmen
Recorded 02.04.1928 Victor 1353
Matrix BVE 43411-5
15 Wilhelm Kempff
Bach–Kempff: Siciliano (from Flute Sonata BWV 1031)
Recorded 1931 Polydor 90188
Matrix 2898½ BH
16 Raoul Koczalski
Chopin: Berceuse in D flat Op. 57
Recorded 1938 or 1939 Polydor 67246
Matrix 795 ge8
17 Frederic Lamond
Auber–Liszt: Tarantelle di bravura (from La muette de Portici)
Recorded 05.02 and 12.06.1929 HMV D 1732
Matrices Cc15839-2, Cc15840-3A
18 Yvonne Lefébure
Chopin: Mazurka in A minor Op. 17 No. 4
Recorded 1950 Le Chant du Monde 5009
Matrix 0587-2AP
18
4:41
3:40
2:51
4:17
9:07
3:34
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19 Mischa Levitzki
Levitzki: Arabesque Valsante Op. 6
Recorded 05.05.1938 Victor 2008-B
Matrix BS 023100
3:25
TT 77:11
19
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CD 3
1
Josef Lhévinne
Schumann–Liszt: Frühlingsnacht
2:35
Recorded 07.06.1935 Victor 8766
Matrix CS 92224-1
2
Dinu Lipatti
Bach–Kempff: Siciliano (from Flute Sonata BWV 1031)
3:07
Recorded 06.07.1950 Columbia LF 284
Matrix CZ 2187
3
Robert Lortat
Chopin: Prélude in B flat minor Op. 28 No. 16
1:07
Recorded 1928 Columbia 9570
Matrix WLX360
4
Nikolai Medtner
Medtner: Skazka in A Op. 51 No. 3
3:26
Recorded 08.05.1936 HMV DB 3003
Matrix 2EA 3182-2
5
20
Marcelle Meyer
Ravel: Alborada del gracioso (from Miroirs)
Recorded 1929 Columbia LF 11
Matrices WL 1848, WL 1849
5:31
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6
Aleksander Michałowski
Schubert–Liszt: Soirée de Vienne No. 6
3:29
Recorded 1905 G&T 25606
Matrix 36071
7
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Scarlatti: Sonata in D L. 465, K. 96
5:04
Recorded 1942 Telefunken SKB 3290
Matrix 026793
8
Benno Moiseiwitsch
Liszt: Étude de concert No. 2 in F minor: La Leggierezza
4:05
Recorded 31.03.1941 HMV C 3227
Matrix 2EA 9233-1
9
William Murdoch
Chopin: Ballade No. 3 in A flat Op. 47
Recorded 20.04.1927 Columbia L 1952, Columbia 9367
Matrices AX 2620, AX 2621
Tatyana Nikolayeva
Rachmaninov: Moment Musical in E minor Op. 16 No. 4
10 3:15
Recorded late 1940s/early 1950s Melodya D 499
Matrix 499
11 Guiomar Novaes
Liszt: Étude de concert: Gnomenreigen
Recorded 11.06.1923 Victor 1000
Matrices B 28112-2
6:43
3:04
21
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12 Lev Oborin
Rachmaninov: Étude-tableau in E flat minor Op. 33 No. 4
Recorded 1950s Melodya D2796/7
13 Vladimir de Pachmann
Chopin: Étude in G flat Op. 25 No. 9
Recorded 1907 G&T 5566
Matrix 6001e
14 Ignacy Paderewski
Chopin–Liszt: The Maiden’s Wish
Recorded 01.07.1912 HMV 2-045562, DB 683
Matrix Ho169c
15 Vlado Perlemuter
Liszt: Légende No. 2: St François de Paule marchant sur les flots
Recorded late 1930s or early 1940s Lumen 35020
Matrices YL 1120-1
16 Egon Petri
Schubert–Liszt: Der Erlkönig
Recorded c. 1951 Columbia ML 4436 (LP)
17 Francis Planté
Berlioz–Redon: Sérénade de Méphisto
Recorded 1928 Columbia D 13061
Matrix WL 1220-1
22
1:35
1:02
4:20
8:15
4:38
2:24
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18 Sergei Prokofiev
Prokofiev: Suggestion Diabolique Op. 4 No. 4
Recorded 04.03.1935 HMV DB 5031
Matrix 2LA 338-2
19 Raoul Pugno
Chopin: Nocturne in F sharp Op. 15 No. 2
Recorded 11.1903 G&T 035500
Matrix 2511
20 Sergei Rachmaninov
Rachmaninov: Moment Musical in E flat minor Op. 16 No. 2
Recorded 18.03.1940 Victor 2124 (Set M 722) HMV DA 1771
Matrix BS 048176-1
21 Walter Rehberg
Strauss–Grünfeld: Soirée de Vienne
Recorded c. 1931 Polydor 23745
Matrices B47102R, B47103
2:28
3:32
2:56
5:51
TT 78:36
23
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CD 4
1
Sviatoslav Richter
Liszt: Étude d’exécution transcendante No. 10 in F minor
3:45
Recorded Live 1948 or 1951 in Russia
2
Edouard Risler
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11
5:48
Recorded 1917 Pathé 9535
Matrices 5827, 5828
3
Moriz Rosenthal
Chopin: Nocturne in E flat Op. 9 No. 2
4:12
Recorded 22.05.1936 Victor 14297
Matrix 2EA 3640-4
4
Arthur Rubinstein
Albéniz: Navarra
4:34
Recorded 23.01.1929 HMV DB 1257
Matrix Cc 15536-2A
5
Walter Rummel
Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3 in A flat 3:47
Recorded 1942 Polydor 67936
Matrix 1834½ GS9
6
24
Camille Saint-Saëns
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 22 (extracts from first movement)
Recorded 26.06.1904 G&T 033509
Matrix 3467p
3:53
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7
Jesús María Sanromá
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
8
Vassily Sapellnikov
Tchaikovsky: Humoresque in G Op. 10 No. 2
2:30
Recorded 1924 Vocalion B 3109
Matrix 03429
9
Emil von Sauer
Sauer: Concert Étude No. 6 Espenlaub
Recorded 14.12.1928 Odéon 0-4762
Matrix 36842
10 Pietro Scarpini
Liszt: ‘Paganini’ Étude No. 2 in E flat
Recorded late 1930s; private recording
Franz Xaver Scharwenka
Chopin: Fantaisie-Impromptu Op. 66
Recorded 27.12.1910 Columbia A 5261, Columbia-Rena 254
Matrix 30610-2
11 12 9:20
Recorded 1941 Victor 13831
Artur Schnabel
Beethoven: Rondo a capriccio in G Op. 129 ‘Rage over a lost penny'
Recorded 13.01.1937 HMV DB 3629
Matrix 2EA 4529-1
2:28
3:04
4:10
4:51
25
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13 Leo Sirota
Stravinsky: Danse Russe from Petrushka
Recorded c. 1938 Columbia 5108
Matrix NE 32733
14 Vladimir Sofronitsky
Liszt: Étude de concert: Gnomenreigen
Recorded 25.06.1937 USSR 5695
Matrix 5695
15 Solomon
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 in A minor
Recorded 16.12.1932 Columbia DX 441
Matrix CAX 6628-1
16 Karol Szreter
Chopin–Liszt: The Maiden’s Wish
Recorded early 1920s Vox 06179
Matrix 1456A
17 Magda Tagliaferro
Albéniz: Seguedillas Op. 232 No. 5
Recorded 07.1932 Ultraphone BP 756
Matrix P75906 or P75907
18 Ricardo Viñes
Debussy: Poissons d’or (from Images, Book 2)
Recorded 1930 Columbia LF 41
Matrix WL 2203-3
26
2:39
2:58
4:20
3:04
2:41
3:20
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19 Michael Zadora
Jensen–Zadora: Whispering of a gentle breeze (Murmelndes Lüftchen)
Recorded c. 1930 Polydor 23023
Matrix 1779½BH
20 Carlo Zecchi
Liszt: Étude de concert No. 2 in F minor: La Leggierezza
Recorded 1928 Music Trust 0842
Matrix 0839
3:02
4:18
TT 78:53
TT CDs 1–4 5:10:04
Transfers by Ward Marston
The tracks selected here are offered to give a cross-section of the pianists discussed in the book.
With the available space and copyright restrictions, seventy-six tracks have been included and many
of these are necessarily short. However, a few longer tracks were selected such as those by William
Murdoch, Monique de la Bruchollerie, Frederic Lamond, Jesús María Sanromá, Vlado Perlemuter and
Samuel Feinberg. This is because the recordings either have not been reissued since their original
release on 78rpm discs, or if they were, it was in poor quality transfers. These are not necessarily each
artist’s best recordings, rather a best representation of him or her in a short work. I have deliberately
chosen works such as Liszt’s La Leggierezza and Gnomenreigen by more than one pianist in order for
the listener to compare interpretations. This is particularly interesting with the Bach arrangement by
Wilhelm Kempff, where a comparison of his own recording from 1931 and that of Dinu Lipatti almost
twenty years later shows how different, yet valid, two interpretations can be, even if one is by the
transcriber himself. These four CDs could not have been produced without the untiring help of Ward
Marston and Donald Manildi, Curator, International Piano Archives (University of Maryland, USA).
I would also like to thank Donald Manildi and Ward Marston for the generous loan of the original
discs.
27
Biographies
A
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PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD
b. 1957, Lyons, France
Career
1964 Studies at Lyons Conservatoire
1969 Gains premier prix at Lyons Conservatoire
1969 Studies at Paris Conservatoire
1973 Wins Olivier Messiaen Competition
1976 Wins second prize at Geneva Competition
1977–1995 Pianist with the Ensemble Intercontemporain
1977 Debut in USA
2001 Recital debut at Carnegie Hall
2005 Receives Royal Philharmonic Society Best Instrumentalist Award
2005–2006 Artist in residence at Salle de Concerts Grande-Duchesse Josephine-Charlotte,
Luxemburg
Selected Recordings
Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos — Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt
(Teldec)
Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l’Enfant Jésus (Teldec)
Ives: Songs; Piano Sonata No. 2 ‘Concord, Mass., 1840–1860’ (Warner Classics)
Ligeti: Études (Sony)
The son of parents who were both doctors, Aimard entered the Lyons Conservatoire at the age
of seven gaining a premier prix five years later. From the age of twelve Aimard studied piano with
Yvonne Loriod, chamber music with Geneviève Joy and counterpoint with Jean-Claude Henry at
the Paris Conservatoire. He gained his premier prix in piano in 1972 and in chamber music a year
later. His studies with Messiaen’s wife Loriod prepared him for the Messiaen Competition which he
won. Aimard then completed his piano studies in London with Maria Curcio. His winning of the
30
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Messiaen Competition launched Aimard’s career and since then he has built up a reputation as
one of the greatest pianists of today to be particularly associated with twentieth-century music. He
performed all of Messiaen’s works for piano and made a highly praised recording of the Vingt regards
sur l’Enfant Jésus.
Aimard made his debut in America with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. When only nineteen
he was invited by Pierre Boulez to be the pianist of his Ensemble Intercontemporain, and has
performed many of Boulez’s works. In the mid-1980s Aimard became associated with György Ligeti,
who chose him to record his works for piano as well as dedicating to him some of his notoriously
difficult études. Other twentieth-century composers with whom Aimard has become linked are
Charles Ives, Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág and Luciano Berio. Aimard also
encourages younger composers such as George Benjamin and Marco Stroppa, and has given first
performances of many works including those by Ligeti, Philippe Manoury and Michel Tabachnik.
Although another of Aimard’s interests is in computer music, his repertoire is not exclusively twentieth
century. He has performed all of the Beethoven piano concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra and Bernard Haitink and works for piano and orchestra by Scriabin with Mikhail Pletnev.
Aimard has played with many of the great orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, the New
York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland, the Philadelphia, the Boston Symphony,
the Philharmonia, the London Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw, and the St Petersburg
Philharmonic with such conductors as André Previn, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, and
Pierre Boulez. He participates at many of the international festivals including those at Tanglewood,
Edinburgh, Salzburg, Vienna and Berlin; and teaches at the Paris Conservatoire and the Hochschule
für Musik, Cologne.
Aimard’s main recordings have been made for Teldec/Warner Classics. Recent releases include
a disc of Mozart piano concertos where Aimard also conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
From 2003 comes a set of the complete Beethoven piano concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of
Europe and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. These are fascinating performances in that Aimard seems to be
discovering the works afresh as he plays them, delighting in revealing his discoveries to the listener.
As with many performers of contemporary music, Aimard’s sound is sometimes too clinical, giving a
feeling of studied spontaneity, but on the whole this is an excellent and thought-provoking set. His
2001 recording of Debussy’s études and Images has all Aimard’s qualities of exemplary technique and
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clarity. One is aware that he listens intently to everything he does. Aimard’s Carnegie Hall debut, an
extremely well-planned programme of Berg, Beethoven, Liszt, Debussy and Ligeti, was recorded and
issued by Teldec. Here it is only Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ Sonata which disappoints, where Aimard
sounds emotionally detached and the thunder and fire of Beethoven’s imagination is lacking; but the
rest of the programme contains some excellent playing. Other notable releases of twentieth-century
music include the finest available recording of Ligeti’s Études and Aimard’s superb second recording
of Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’Enfant Jésus, made in 1999. Aimard also appears as an accomplished
accompanist to Susan Graham in a selection of songs by Charles Ives while the remainder of the disc
contains a superb account of Ives’s ‘Concord’ Sonata.
CD 1 • TRACK 1
EUGEN D’ALBERT
b. 1864, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
d. 1932, Riga, Latvia
Career
1876 National Training School, London
1882 Studies with Franz Liszt
1889 Tour of USA
1907 Director of Hochschule für Musik in Berlin
Selected Recordings
d’Albert: Scherzo in F sharp Op. 16 No. 2 (Odéon)
Beethoven: Scherzo from Sonata Op. 31 No. 3 (Deutsche Grammophon)
Schubert: Impromptu in F minor D. 946 (Deutsche Grammophon)
d’Albert’s father, Charles Louis Napoléon (1809–1886), was of French extraction, born in
Hamburg. Upon the death of Charles’s father in 1816, he and his mother moved to England. His
area of interest was ballet and after education in London and Paris he became ballet master
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at the King’s Theatre and Covent Garden, gaining a considerable reputation as a composer
of dance music. After settling in Newcastle he married there in 1863, and his wife gave birth to
Eugène the following year. Eugène’s early musical education was overseen by his father and
at the age of twelve he won a scholarship to the National Training School in London (later to
become the Royal College of Music), where he studied piano with Ernst Pauer and learnt harmony
and composition from Stainer, Prout and Arthur Sullivan. He was a prodigy with a natural talent for
the piano and composition (an overture of his being performed in 1879) and over the following
few years, whilst still a student, he gave many performances including one of the Schumann
Piano Concerto Op. 54 at the age of sixteen, under the baton of Hans Richter. Later that year he
played a piano concerto of his own composition, and having won the prestigious Mendelssohn
Scholarship was able, on Richter’s suggestion, to go to Vienna for further musical education.
Richter recommended that he study with Liszt, so d’Albert travelled to Weimar in 1882 where the
great master named him ‘the young Tausig’, a reference to one of Liszt’s greatest former pupils.
As a young man d’Albert was influenced by all things German. He altered his name from
the French Eugène to the German form Eugen, and when barely out of his teens wrote a rather
ungrateful letter lambasting England and its musical education system, which was published in
more than one newspaper in England. It can be seen for what it is, the words of an immensely
talented youth, already with experience and great success behind him, having studied with the
greatest of all pianists, displaying youthful arrogance toward what must have by then seemed to
him inferior and insular attitudes and abilities. However it is also true that he may have had an
irascible nature: he was married six times, one of his wives being the great Venezuelan pianist
Teresa Carreño. Many reference works refer to d’Albert as a German pianist and state that (at least
until 1914) d’Albert permanently resided in Berlin, spending his summers on Lake Maggiore.
However, according to his daughter, d’Albert only resided in Germany from 1892 to 1895 during
his marriage to Carreño, but kept his British passport until the outbreak of World War I, when he
then took Swiss citizenship. He certainly became known as one of the foremost interpreters of
Beethoven, thus strengthening his identification with Germany; and in 1907 he succeeded Joseph
Joachim as director of the Hochschule in Berlin. He seems to have been averse to teaching but
those who benefited from his advice include Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Edouard Risler,
Ernő Dohnányi and Lubka Kolessa.
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d’Albert’s career was that of a touring virtuoso and composer in the line of Brahms and Wagner.
He made his first tour of America in 1889 with the violinist Pablo Sarasate and on his third visit there
gave the première of his Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February
1905. He also devoted his time to the composition of twenty-one operas (Tiefland is now the only
one that is occasionally performed) whilst his two string quartets, which deserve to be heard, show
the influence of Brahms. He also edited Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier for Cotta in 1906.
One of the greatest of Liszt’s pupils to have recorded, d’Albert has received criticism in the
past for inaccurate playing on the discs he made. It has been said that he could not possibly have
thought that they would be the only representation of him for future generations, and that he was
out of practice, due to all his time being devoted to composition. His discs should not however be
dismissed as there is some fine playing on them. There appear to have been four recording sessions:
one for German Odéon around 1910, two for Deutsche Grammophon around 1916 and 1921, and
a final one for German Vox around 1923. All are therefore acoustic recordings and the sound quality
is poor, another factor contributing to their rejection by some people; however, his complete
commercial recordings, issued by Arbiter in new transfers in 2005 reveal a great deal more than was
previously heard and give a better impression of d’Albert’s talent.
The Odéon recording of his own Scherzo Op. 16 No. 2 is a very fine disc, showing brilliant
technique and dazzling fingerwork. Liszt’s Au bord d’une source in the later Deutsche Grammophon
recording is uneven but still an acceptable performance. The Chopin Polonaise in A flat
Op. 53 is not only abridged but should have been attempted again, as d’Albert is put off by
striking a wrong note leading to a memory lapse, causing an obvious hesitation. Although
known as one of the foremost Beethoven interpreters of his day, it was not until his last
session that he recorded some of the German composer’s works. The Andante favori is given
an undistinguished reading, but the rondo from the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata and the scherzo from
Op. 31 No. 3 are, from what one can discern, committed performances. In the Rage over a
Lost Penny d’Albert becomes inaccurate and loses control. A curiosity is a disc of works by Bax
and Goossens where, in the latter, applause and laughter follows his short work, The Punch
and Judy Show, inciting d’Albert to repeat it. A fiery performance of Schubert’s Impromptu
in F minor D. 946 is another successful disc. A recording exists of a broadcast performance
of the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto Op. 73. The conductor Bruno Walter
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heard d’Albert play this concerto when he was in his prime. ‘I shall never forget the titanic
force of his rendition of Beethoven’s Concerto in E flat major. I am almost tempted to
say he did not play it, he personified it.’ The recording comes from 1930, two years before
d’Albert’s death, many years after Walter heard him, and although valuable as an indication
of his performance of large-scale works, unfortunately by the time it was made d’Albert was
past his prime.
DMITRI ALEXEEV
b. 1947, Moscow, USSR (now Russia)
Career
1969 Wins second prize at Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud Competition, Paris
1970 Wins Enescu Competition, Bucharest
1974 Prizewinner at International Tchaikovsky Competition, Moscow
1975 Wins Leeds International Piano Competition
1976 Debut in USA
1978 Debut in New York
1986 Debut with Berlin Philharmonic and Concertgebouw Orchestras
Selected Recordings
Brahms: Klavierstücke Opp. 117–119 (EMI)
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 18 — Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Fedoseyev
(EMI)
Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2; The Assault on Beautiful Gorky — English Chamber
Orchestra / Jerzy Maksymiuk (EMI/CFP)
Chopin: Complete Waltzes; Complete Préludes (EMI)
Rachmaninov: Préludes Opp. 23 and 32; Morceaux de fantaisie Op. 3; Moments Musicaux Op. 16, etc.
(Virgin Classics)
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This is the beginning of A–Z of Pianists.
The book containing 300 biographies, illustrated with photographs, is available to buy.
For more details, please visit www.naxos.com.