- Naxosdirect.ca

Classical spoken here

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Vocal (World)
        World

Sale on select Chandos titles

Sale on select BBC Legends Items

Naxos Classics Clearance Sale

Sale on select Naxos American Classics

Sale on Charles Dickens DVD Box Set

Sale on select box sets

Clearance on Complete Beethoven Edition

Sale on the Jazz Icons Series

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

Home

Classical Music

Instrumental

$0.00

This item is not currently available.

This item is currently out of print.

Link to this Link to this page

The industrial and economic developments of the nineteenth century are reflected also in music, and, above all, in the technical changes in the manufacture...

Read more about this recording

The industrial and economic developments of the nineteenth century

are reflected also in music, and, above all, in the technical changes in the manufacture of the piano, the proliferation of instruments as an essential part of domestic furniture, and the rise of schools of virtuosity in performance, led by players such as Liszt and his contemporaries in Paris in the 1830s. The present anthology offers a conspectus of that tradition, as it continued into the twentieth century.

Edwin Fischer (1886-1960), from a German-Bohemian musical family, was born in Basel, where he studied, before moving to Berlin as a pupil of Martin Krause at the Stern Conservatory, establishing himself as one of the leading pianists of the city. Represented here by a Prelude and Fugue from his 1930s recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, he won a contemporary reputation, both as a pianist and as a conductor, as an interpreter of Bach. At the same time he had an extensive repertoire, including the Romantics as well as music by contemporaries. Illness compelled his retirement from concert performance in 1954. His pupils include Alfred Brendel and Paul Badura-Skoda.

Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948), born Solomon Isaac Freudman in the Polish town of Podgorze, was the son of the violinist and pianist Wolfgang Freudman. He studied in Cracow, before moving to Vienna, where he became a pupil and assistant of Leschetizky, one of the great teachers of his generation. He made

his Vienna debut in 1904 and lived successively in Berlin, Copenhagen, America, Italy and, finally, Australia. He had a particular understanding of Romantic repertoire and left an important edition of Chopin. His recording of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, from which a movement is included, was made in 1926.

Born in Kiev, Vladimir Horowitz (1904-1989) studied there with his mother,

and with Sergey Tarnowsky and Felix Blumenfeld, intending at first to become a composer, but supporting himself by a series of increasingly successful concerts in Russia, then abroad. In 1933 he married Toscanini's daughter, Wanda,

and settled in the United States, gradually extending his periods of temporary retirement. His recording of Tchaikovsky' s Piano Concerto No.1, the work with which he had made his New York debut in 1928, was made in 1941, under the direction of his redoubtable father-in-law, of whom he remained in awe.

The Russian pianist Josef Lhevinne (1874-1944) was born at Orel, near Moscow, the son of a trumpet-player in the Imperial Orchestra. He studied with Safonov at the Moscow Conservatory, where his fellow-pupils included Skryabin and Rachmaninov. He taught in Tiflis and in Moscow, before moving to Berlin, and, after war-time internment, to New York, where he taught at the Juilliard School, with his wife, whose pupils included Van Cliburn and the pianist and conductor James Levine. Lhevinne is represented here by his most popular encore piece, Adolf Schulz-Evler's transcription of the Blue Danube Waltz, recorded in 1928.

Born in London, Dame Myra Hess (1890-1965), a pupil of Tobias Matthay, won deep affection for the war-time lunch hour concerts that she arranged at the National Gallery, when concert halls in London were closed. Her name lives on in the popular transcriptions she made, particularly of Bach's chorale prelude Jesu, joy of man's desiring. Among her pupils are Yonty Solomon and Stephen Kovacevich. She recorded Schumann's Piano Concerto in 1937.

A pupil of Olga Samaroff in Philadelphia and then a student at the Juilliard School in New York, the American pianist William Kapell (1922-1953)

was killed in a plane crash while returning from Australia. His career promised

much and is now remembered in the relatively few recordings he left. He played Rachmaninov's famous Prelude in C sharp minor for recordings by RCA in 1944, but it was a further take in March 1945 that was released and is here included as a sample of his achievement.

The Russian-born pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963) was born in Odessa. He studied there with Dmitry Klimov, moving, when he was fourteen, to Vienna, where he was accepted as a pupil of Leschetizky. Thereafter he settled with his family in England, where he made his concert debut in 1908, the beginning of a busy career, his activity markedly increasing during the war,

when he gave concert after concert in support of Mrs Churchill's Aid to Russia campaign. He was a noted interpreter of the music of his friends Rachmaninov and Medtner. He recorded Grieg's Piano Concerto in 1941 in Manchester, which was at the time considered marginally safer than London.

Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was among those Russian composers who chose exile rather than remain in Russia after the revolution of 1917. By then he had established himself as a conductor, composer and pianist, a former pupil of Ziloti, who had himself studied with Tchaikovsky, Nikolay Rubinstein and Liszt. The exigencies of life in exile obliged Rachmaninov to devote greater attention to performance, above all in the United States, which provided an income, although he had at first settled in France and then in Switzerland. His Piano Concerto No.2 is among the most popular of all Romantic concertos. He gave the first performance in Moscow in 1901. The present recording, from which a movement is taken, was made in April 1929.

Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982) was born in Poland and as a boy benefited from the advice of the violinist Joseph Joachim, a friend of Brahms, before studying with Heinrich Barth in Berlin, where he made his debut in 1900,

the start of a career that lasted some three quarters of a century and took him throughout the world. At first he settled in Paris, but in the 1930s took a break

in order to revise and perfect his technique. He spent the war years in the United States, where he had had significant success, and in 1946 became an American citizen. He retired in 1976. His interpretations of Chopin won him particular praise, and he is represented here by his 1937 recording of the Nocturne in E minor.

Like many other pianists included here, Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969) made his first concert appearances as a child. He studied in his native Leipzig, before taking lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt am Main. In a long career

he is said to have given more than four thousand concerts and made his first recordings in 1907. He recorded Brahms's Piano Concerto No.1 in England in 1932.

Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) was born in the then Austrian town of Lipnik and studied in Vienna with Leschetizky, who encouraged him in the exploration of less conventional repertoire. In 1900 he settled in Berlin, where he married the contralto Lieder singer Therese Behr, a significant influence on his early career. He moved to the United States in 1939. It was in the 1930s that he agreed to record all the Beethoven sonatas, which he had played in Berlin in 1927 to mark the centenary of the composer's death, and the concertos. He recorded Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4 with Malcolm Sargent and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in London in 1934.

The Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903-1991), taught the piano by his mother, gave his first concert in 1908. A scholarship allowed study in Berlin with Martin Krause, who described him as the most talented pianist since Liszt. In Berlin in the 1930s he gave a series of concerts that included all the keyboard works of Bach and in later years performed all Beethoven's numbered sonatas. He settled in the United States in 1940, resuming his international career after the war. After experiencing some difficulties in his Mozart interpretations,

he finally recorded all the piano sonatas, and the Sonata in G major, K.283 belongs to the recordings made in New York in 1941.

Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) might claim pianistic descent from Chopin, through his teacher Emil Descombes, one of the that composer's last pupils. He also studied with Louis Diemer at the Paris Conservatoire, where he taught for some years, and in his earlier career appeared as a conductor and a champion of Wagner. His trio, with Thibaud and Casals, became one of the most important of the time, widely known through recordings. His solo recordings, of which there were many, were a significant part of his career, which suffered for a time after his war-time work under the Vichy government. His recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 under Barbirolli, was made in London in 1935.

The son of the Dutch-born violinist Henri Petri, a pupil of Joachim, Egon Petri (1881-1962) was born in Hanover, moving with his father to Leipzig and then

to Dresden, where he completed his education and joined the Royal Orchestra,

of which is father was leader, as a violinist. It was through the encouragement

of Busoni that he moved to Berlin, studying the piano with him subsequently also in Weimar and Dresden. The connection with Busoni was of some importance in his early career. He taught in Manchester, Basel and Berlin and settled in Poland, before moving to America in 1938. He recorded Brahms's Rhapsody in B minor in New York in 1940.

Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953) had already made a controversial reputation for himself in Russia, when the new Communist authorities allowed him to travel abroad in 1918. He moved first to the United States and then to France, eventually returning to Russia in 1936 in time for the Great Purge and, in 1948, the official condemnation of his music. While primarily a composer, he had studied the piano as a somewhat recalcitrant pupil of Anna Esipova, former wife and pupil of Leschetizky, and was well equipped for a career as a pianist, although he used his abilities primarily as a means of promoting his own music. His Piano Concerto No.3 was completed in 1921 and first performed, with the composer as soloist, in Chicago in that year, winning acclaim there, in New York and in performances that followed in Europe. He recorded the work in 1932 at the Abbey Road studios in London.

Keith Anderson

Disc 1

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, BWV 846 - 869

Your name:
Your email:
Friend's Name:
Friend's Email:
Write a personalized message:

Your name:
Rating:
Title:
Review: