Composer: Claude Achille Debussy, Leopold Godowsky, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jean Philippe Rameau, Maurice Ravel, Robert Schumann, Bedřich Smetana
Performer: Emil Gilels
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8111350
Release: 2008
Size: 203 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Rameau: Suite in E minor from Pièces de clavecin (1724, revised 1731)
01. X. La Villageoise (Rondeau)
02. V. Le Rappel des oiseaux
Godowsky: Renaissance, Book 2
03. XII. Gigue in E Major (Loeillet)
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K457
04. I. Molto allegro
05. II. Adagio
06. III. Allegro assai
07. Schumann: Toccata in C major, Op. 7
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 12
08. No. 7, Traumes Wirren
Schumann: Spanisches Liederspiel, Op. 74
09. No. 10, Der Kontrabandiste (Arr. C. Tausig)
Mendelssohn: 3 Fantasies (or Caprices) Op. 16
10. No. 2, Scherzo. Presto
Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, Book 3, Op. 38
11. No. 18 in A-Flat Major, Op. 38, No. 6, “Duetto”
Smetana: České tance (Czech Dances) for piano, Book 1
12. No. 2, Polka in A Minor
13. No. 3, Polka in F Major
Debussy: Suite Bergamasque
14. III. Clair de lune
15. Debussy: Nocturnes, No. 2. Fêtes (Arr. L. Borwick for piano)
Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
16. I. Prelude
17. III. Forlane
18. VI. Toccata
Emil Gilels was one of the greatest Russian pianists of the twentieth century, born in Odessa in 1916.
The recordings on this first disc of his early recordings, made in the USSR, come from the first stage of Gilels’s career and include his first known recordings from1935.
Leopold Godowsky’s arrangement of the Gigue by Jean-Baptiste Loeillet immediately shows the immense power the nineteen-year old Gilels had at the keyboard. His playing, especially in his youth, was fiery, volatile and exciting, and even late in his career it still retained grandeur and sweep of a great master in the Russian tradition.
“Gilels had a sense of grandeur tempered by discipline and respect for the text….strong and massive without being harsh…. A fine pianist.” BBC Music Magazine
“Here was a real artist, and a real communicator.” BBC Music Magazine