The Unreleased Recitals at The Concertgebouw 1975 - 1976 - 1978 - 1979

Emil Gilels

The Unreleased Recitals at The Concertgebouw 1975 - 1976 - 1978 - 1979 - 1980

Price: € 43.95
Format: CD
Label: Fondamenta
UPC: 0190758348827
Catnr: FON 1803032
Release date: 04 May 2018
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Label
Fondamenta

UPC
0190758348827

Catalogue number
FON 1803032

Release date
04 May 2018

"They threatened to escape the music memory, the recordings made by the Russian master pianist Emil Gilels in the Amsterdam concert hall: the Concertgebouw. His game is intelligent, enthusiastic and compelling, and this grandeur is thundering like a thunderbolt in clear skies."

De Volkskrant, 20-12-2018

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

« In June 2017, I was due to perform in Moscow when I met Kirill Gilels, the grandson of the famous pianist Emil Gilels. He listened to what our Phoenix Mastering restoration process, based partly on Devialet technologies, can achieve, and made the decision to entrust us with the results of several years of research: he gave us a list of dates and places of the previously unreleased recordings of his grandfather.

In Berlin, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, we came across a treasure trove, stunning in terms of both the quality and consistency of Emil Gilels’s playing. We were fully aware that he was one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

It was in Amsterdam where at last, thanks to the unstinting efforts of Piet Tullenaar, we succeeded in extracting five recordings of performances Gilels had given between 1975 and 1980 at the Concertgebouw – recordings that had fallen into oblivion.

We were allotted a studio where we listened to the tapes one by one. Sitting there were Piet Tullenaar, Michel Navarra and myself. We did not utter a word, so overcome were we by the beauty of what we heard. (F. D’Oria-Nicolas) »

=Here is, in a few words, the feverish atmosphere that surrounded the genesis of this totally new box set dedicated to Emil Gilels (1916 - 1985). Considered one of the most important pianists of the twentieth century, he was a pupil of H. Neuhaus. He wins the current Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels and takes on an international stature. In 1955, he was the first artist to be welcomed in the United States since the war : if the public, somewhat circumspect of Carnegie Hall, in New York, accompanies his entry on stage of a troubled silence, it is under a thunder of uninterrupted applause that he will refuse to leave the stage!

His record work is important (more than 55 ref are still available), so finding unreleased recordings is an event.

Gilels was particularly fond of Holland, and gave the best in these recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. It is in his favorite repertoire - Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, Schumann, etc - that we find this legendary pianist, in this box of recordings from 1975 to 1980.

Emil Gilels was een van de grootste pianisten van de 20e eeuw. Een aantal van zijn uitvoeringen werd gevonden in 2017, van verrassend goede kwaliteit. Deze opnames zijn nu samengebracht op één album.

In juni 2017 ontmoette Frederic D'Oria-Nicolas de kleinzoon van Emil Gilels, Kirill Gilels. Na het horen van de mogelijkheden van een restauratieproces voor muziek, besloot Kirill een lijst van data en plaatsen van nog niet uitgebrachte opnames van concerten van zijn grootvader te delen. D’Oria-Nicolas zocht vervolgens in Berlijn, Moskou en Sint Petersburg en vond daar een schatkist aan opnames die kwaliteit van zowel uitvoering als opname uitblonken. In Amsterdam stuitte hij, met hulp van Piet Tullenaar, uiteindelijk op vijf opnames die volledig overgenomen en gerestaureerd konden worden. Dit waren vergeten opnames van concerten die tussen 1975 en 1980 in het Concertgebouw waren uitgevoerd.

Deze opnames zijn verzameld in deze nieuwe 5 CD-box. De Oekraïense pianist hield veel van Nederland, en zette dan ook zijn beste beentje voor tijdens deze uitvoeringen in het Concertgebouw. Hij voert zijn favoriete repertoire uit: Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, Schumann en nog vele anderen, op deze opnames.

Im Juni 2017 sollte ich in Moskau auftreten, als ich Kirill Gilels - den Enkel des berühmten Pianisten Emil Gilels - kennenlernte. Er hörte sich an, was unser Phoenix Mastering Restaurationsprozess leisten kann und traf die Entscheidung, uns die Ergebnisse mehrjähriger Forschungsarbeiten anzuvertrauen: Er gab uns eine Liste mit Daten und Orten der bisher unveröffentlichten Aufnahmen seines Großvaters.
In Berlin, Moskau und Sankt Petersburg stießen wir auf eine Fundgrube, die sowohl hinsichtlich der Qualität als auch der Beständigkeit von Emil Gilels' Spiel beeindruckt. Wir wussten, dass er einer der größten Musiker des 20. Jahrhunderts war.
Es war Amsterdam, wo es uns dank der unermüdlichen Bemühungen von Piet Tullenaar endlich gelungen ist, fünf Aufnahmen von Aufführungen zu extrahieren, die Gilels zwischen 1975 und 1980 im Concertgebouw gegeben hatte - Aufnahmen, die in Vergessenheit geraten waren.
Uns wurde ein Studio zugeteilt, in dem wir uns die Bänder nacheinander anhörten. Dort saßen Piet Tullenaar, Michel Navarra und ich. Wir haben kein Wort gesagt, wir waren von der Schönheit des Gehörten überwältigt. (F. D'Oria-Nikolaus) "
Hier nun, in wenigen Worten die Entstehungsgeschichte dieser völlig neuen Box, die Emil Gilels (1916 - 1985) gewidmet ist. Er galt als einer der bedeutendsten Pianisten des 20. Jahrhunderts und war Schüler von H. Neuhaus. Er gewinnt den aktuellen Königin-Elisabeth-Wettbewerb in Brüssel und erlangt internationales Ansehen. 1955 war er der erste Künstler, der seit dem Krieg in den Vereinigten Staaten willkommen geheißen wurde. Seine Plattenarbeit ist wichtig (mehr als 55 Referenzen sind noch verfügbar), so dass es ein Ereignis ist, unveröffentlichte Aufnahmen zu finden.
Gilels war besonders angetan von Holland und gab bei diesen Konzerten im Concertgebouw das Beste. In seinem Lieblingsrepertoire - Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, Schumann, etc. - finden wir diesen legendären Pianisten in dieser Box mit Aufnahmen von 1975 bis 1980.

Artist(s)

Emil Gilels (piano)

Emil Gilels was born on October 19, 1916 in Odessa. His parents were not musicians, but their modest flat in the poor area of the well-known Moldavanka neighbourhood housed a piano. Times were difficult, yet particular attention was given to musically gifted children. At the early age of two, Emil tried out the keys of the instrument at home, listening carefully to the sounds it produced. It soon became obvious that the boy had perfect pitch; it extended to notes that were not necessarily made by instruments. When he was five years old, he was taken to Yakov Tkach, a famous piano teacher in Odessa. The young boy completed the first stage of his studies with exceptional facility. There was no need...

It soon became obvious that the boy had perfect pitch; it extended to notes that were not necessarily made by instruments. When he was five years old, he was taken to Yakov Tkach, a famous piano teacher in Odessa.

The young boy completed the first stage of his studies with exceptional facility. There was no need to position his hands, so naturally did they move over the keyboard. His extraordinary ear and memory enabled him to absorb all the rudiments of music and of its grammar with great speed, and after only a few months he was playing sonatinas by Clementi and Mozart. By the age of eleven, he had mastered etudes by Chopin and Liszt. He was also strongly drawn to the theatre, began composing a little and loved to imagine himself as a conductor.

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Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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Franz Liszt

If you would open any biography of Franz Liszt, you would probably mostly read about his disquiet life as a piano virtuoso, his passionate love life, and the return to his catholic roots at the end of his life. Although all of this might be true, it only scratches the surface of his comprehensive musical personality. Liszt was a pianist, conductor, teacher and organiser, but above all he was a composer of a voluminous, capricious body of work. Even though his piano works formed his core business, he gave rise to the symphonic poem, got rid of the organ's stuffy appearance, and reinvigorated the oratorio. Moreover, with his piano transciptions of Bach's organ works and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, he was an...

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Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.
Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in C are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.
In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favour of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which, before her marriage, formed a substantial part of her father's fortune.
Schumann suffered from a mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to a mental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.

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Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose actual name is Joannes Chrysotomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, violinist and conductor from the classical period, born in Salzburg. Mozart was a child prodigy. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart is considered to be one of the most influential composers of all of music's history. Within the classical tradition, he was able to develop new musical concepts which left an everlasting impression on all the composers that came after him. Together with Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven he is part of the First Viennese School. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. From 1763 he traveled with his family through all of Europe for three years and from 1769 he traveled to Italy and France with his father Leopold after which he took residence in Paris. On July 3rd, 1778, his mother passed away and after a short stay in Munich with the Weber family, his father urged him to return to Salzburg, where he was once again hired by the Bishop. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist. He began playing the piano at the age of five, but received his first lessons only at the age of eleven. He could not play from sight, but studied the score and played the compositions by heart afterwards. He was also a gifted improviser.
During the rest of his live Scriabin made a living as a composer and concert pianist.He established contracts with publishers and also had a patron in his former student Margarita Morozova for some time. In addition, he annually won a money prize in the context of the Glinka-prize for new compositions that was set up by Beljajev.
Scriabin primarily wrote for solo piano and orchestra. His music progressively evolved over the course of his life, although the evolution was very rapid and especially brief when compared to most composers. His earliest piano pieces resemble those of Frédéric Chopin. The works from his middle and late period use very unusual harmonies and textures.
From 1904 till 1910 Scriabin lived in western Europe, primarily in Switzerland, but also in northern Italy, Paris and Brussels. After his return to Russia he found himself in the middle of a circle of admirers who were attracted to his exalted and mystic ideas. During the last years of his life he worked on a grandiose manifestation, a Gesamtkunstwerk, Mysterium, in which all arts and all people would have been united. He left only sketches of the prelude to this piece (L'action préalable) and large amounts of text.

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Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin is one of the greatest composers of the Romantic piano tradition. He was a master in making the small form great. His ballades, mazurkas, polonaises, preludes, etudes and nocturnes all belong to the most popular standard works for piano ever written. As a child prodigy, Chopin grew up in a middle class family, who lived among the literati of Warsaw. When in 1830 the November Uprising broke out in Poland, the twenty year old Chopin stayed in Vienna. He became an exile and never returned to his mother country. He eventually settled in Paris. He avoided public concerts, but he did like performing in small settings, such as salons and at home for his friends. This way, Chopin built a reputation as an exceptional pianist, teacher and composer.
Chopin brought a unique synthesis between the Viennese bravado and the French/English lyric style. Even though his pieces often are technically very demanding, the focus was always on creating a lyric expression and poetic atmosphere. He invented the instrumental ballade, and brought salongenres to a higher level with his many innovations and refinements.

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Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev was born in the countryside of Ukraine. He studied from 1903 at the conservatory of St Petersburg, under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Anatoli Liadov among others. He was educated as a composer, pianist and conductor. Initially, he made a name for himself as a pianist. In 1918, he left the Soviet Union for the USA, but wasn't able to succeed, and he decided to move to Paris in 1920. His concert tours brought him back to the Soviet Union in 1927, who lured him back for good in 1936. Prokofiev died in march 1953, on the same day as Joseph Stalin.
Prokofiev is considered as one of the greatest Russian composers of the twentieth century, even though he wasn't a great innovator. He generally applied the strict classical forms and structures to his works and focused on a classical tonality, with a few exceptions of expressive dissonants and incidental bitonality. Yet, he is only explicitly neoclassicistic in his popular 'Classical Symphony', his first symphony composed in 1917. Many of his works show his humour, while his later works presented his darker, more serious side. One of his best known works is the musical fairytale Peter and the Wolf, which is popular among children all over the world.

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Press

They threatened to escape the music memory, the recordings made by the Russian master pianist Emil Gilels in the Amsterdam concert hall: the Concertgebouw. His game is intelligent, enthusiastic and compelling, and this grandeur is thundering like a thunderbolt in clear skies.
De Volkskrant, 20-12-2018

Recently discovered recordings of five Amsterdam recitals by the phenomenal master pianist Emil Gilels - diverse repertoire 5 CDs long superior, intelligent and colorful.
NRC Handelsblad, 22-11-2018

Most stunned and enchanting to this day is Gilels' somnambulistic stylistic sense and dramatic power in Mozart.
Crescendo, 05-10-2018

Gilels at his best!
Fono Forum, 03-9-2018

...One can only be pleased that these live recordings are now available. Because with these interpretations you have not only grandiose Gilels playing in front of you, but reference recordings of several works, which many should listen to.
Piano News, 01-9-2018

Cum Laude... Unforgettable recordings from an exceptional pianist.
Luister, 20-7-2018

Listen to his Beethoven interpretations (one of his hearths): technically flawless, lively, a playtime that reveals great insight into the notes, and when a melodious melody passes by is refined, colorful, and extremely sensitive.
Luister, 20-7-2018

A condensate of his pianistic world view.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11-6-2018

Five CDs, you can enjoy the breathtaking playing of Emil Gilels.
Mania, 08-6-2018

An epochal set, because you won't meet the ripe one, later Gilels nowhere more lively, almost casually than here.
RBB-Kulturradio, 04-6-2018

Gilels in optima forma, never making a mistake, playing compellingly, with noble perfection and great overview.
Trouw, 25-5-2018

Stunning good recordings of Emil Gilels (1916-1985) in the Concertgebouw (*****)
De Volkskrant, 24-5-2018

While listening to these recordings that belong to the best I know of Gilels, I regret that I have never heard him in person.
Opus Klassiek, 30-4-2018

Fireworks in which his pearling game sounds like something from the past. Who else can do this?
Het Parool, 27-4-2018

The golden tone of this profundity resounds during live recordings of the five recitals that "the little giant" played in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw between 1975 and 1980.
NRC, 25-4-2018

These recordings tell the fascinating story of an incredibly honest interpreter who could move mountains if he exceeded his self-imposed boundaries.
De Nieuwe Muze, 04-4-2018