The genius of Richter, reducing by the variety of his legato an audience, in a concert hall, where an ominous silence is induced by so many holding their breath, to avoid missing the last largo evolving an irresistible allegro risoluto. A legendary ‘Hammerklavier’.

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PRD DSD 350 065

An non-usual pairing of Tchaikovsky’s two most popular scores by uncontested Russian masters: the resurrection of one Richter’s rare encounters with the most Russian conductor of the 20th century, Yevgeny Mravinsky. Indispensable for whomever wants to hear the references left by the two legendary artists.

PRD DSD 350 069

Juxtaposition of the First and Seconde Grande Sonate for pianoforte of 1825, one a melancholic, intimate effusion that will not smile even in its concluding rondo, voluntarist and threatening; the other, brimming with frothy joy close to a stylized Tyrolienne, then a refined Ländler whose emotional invention heralds Bruckner, followed by a moderato as light as it is timeless in its innocent, inalterable gaiety. A portrait such as only Richter the painter knew how to compose.

PRD DSD 350 067

Svjatoslav Richter created a stir in New York in the fall of 1960 by justifying Romain Rolland’s judgement of the Appassionata, i.e. ‘a flood of fire in a bed of granite’. A true selfportrait of the artist according to the critics, amazed by his violent and tragical vision in contrast with the one of the 18 Sonata, pastoral and sober. He adored this old fashioned suite, without any slow movement, allying the baroque Morart to the Schumanian forest. He amazes in the famous Tempest more an intimate reflexion than a Shakesperian wrathful fury.

PRD DSD 350 066

Richter has been, thanks to his Germanic roots, the utmost interpreter of the tormented and introverted spirit of Schumann. Until 1971 he adopted the short version of Symphonischen Etüden and postumen Variationen (1956) translating the wandering and sharp changes in tones of Fantasie as Faschingsschwank aus Wien, panting, heroic tragic rides more than childish plays or pièces mignonnes.

PRD/DSD 350 070

Second anthology from Manuel de Falla’s masterpieces, in which he invented modern Spanish music and he revived authentic songs, rhythms and dances out of an Andalusia both legendary and still alive. Tribute for immortal performers as Victoria de los Angeles, Ernest Ansermet, Ataulfo Argenta, Alicia de Larrocha…

PRD/DSD 350 090

Richter, unlike his childood friend Guillels, was not an ardent fan of Brahms’repertoire. He treated him as if he were a poet in romantic osmosis with Chopin and Schumann, rather than a timid successor of Beethoven. In 1948 Richter performed only the famous Concerto in B flat, Op. 81.This rare recital makes the young pianist Brahms come across as an intuitive, even prophetic composer rather than merely discursive. ED.

PRD/DSD 350 080

Homage to the Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha (1923-2009) who made known the music of her country. Messiaen, then Boulez considered Iberia ‘a marvel o the piano’, heir to Chopin and Liszt. Blending expressive luxuriance, whole-tone scales of which Debussy was fond, and resorting to ancient modes and oriental harmonies typical of the gypsy repertoire, the inspiration remains naturally flamenco, sometimes close to the Andalusian cante jondo. Arbós’s orchestration of five pieces shows that they lose nothing enlarging with Rosenthál who plays naturally Debussyst colours of the Paris Opera Orchestra, quite simply ideal. Homage, too, to the French pianist Jean-Joël Barbier (1920- 1994), a painter of Spanish and French music pictures.

PRD/DSD 350 075

Might the misunderstanding of Satie the militant avant-gardist be dissipating? Would a handful of brief, sensitive, famous pieces
(Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes…), or others, ill known (Cinq Grimaces, Sarabandes…), of which the burlesque is limited to ‘annotations’, only be tributes to the friend Debussy who sincerely held him in esteem, far from the pom-pom of Parade which is juxtaposed with the humorous 'haikus' of a piano-bar, an improviser both popular and scholarly?

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PRD/DSD 250 299

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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli seems to have discovered the consistent, musical place and weight for every note in two last Beethoven piano concertos and sonatas, in this basic classical field, Applied In the French ‘impressionists’ pieces, the result is the strongest, most colourful, most musical and most poetic Debussy you ever heard from a pianist !

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PRD/DSD 350 098

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