Notes and Editorial Reviews
Live recordings, newly restored and remastered, good sound quality & great live performances dating from 1951 to 2010
In 2012, the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition, inaugurated in 1937 on the initiative of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. That very first competition, devoted to the violin and won by David Oistrakh, was followed in 1938 by the first competition for the piano, which was one by another, equally prestigious, Russian: Emil Gilels! After an interruption caused by the Second World War, the Competition returned, taking the name of its patron: from now on, it would be known as the Queen Elisabeth Competition. The first piano
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competition, in 1952, was won by an American whose name would go down in history: Leon Fleisher. Now a veritable institution, the Competition has for three quarters of a century been one of the most prestigious of its kind and one of the most demanding for its participants. The quality of its international jury, brought together year after year to judge talented young musicians from every corner of the world, is one of its most important assets. Following the success of the box set devoted to the violin, which was released in 2012, muso has delved in the treasure trove of the Queen Elisabeth Competition’s archives once again and put together a deluxe box set of 5 CDs, containing 12 of the most celebrated piano concertos in the repertoire as performed by outstanding laureates, including 9 First Laureates. Almost 60 years separate the performances of Leon Fleisher (1952) in Brahms’s First Concerto and Denis Kozhukhin (2010) in his Second; for the first time on CD, we can now enjoy that incredible evening in 1983 when a young Frenchman, Pierre-Alain Volondat, just 20 years of age, triumphed in Liszt’s Second Concerto, making his mark on the history of the Competition. Prominent in this selection, too, are those laureates who won a succession of the Competition’s First Prizes against the background of the Cold War: the Russians Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Afanassiev, and Andrei Nikolsky and the Americans Malcolm Frager and Jeffrey Swann. This set also allows us to rediscover personalities who made a sensational impact on both audiences and juries: Cécile Ousset in 1956 and the emerging talents of Frank Braley in 1991, the German pianist Wolfgang Manz in 1983, and, more recently, Anna Vinnitskaya. Presented in a luxury book-disc that has been produced in the best possible technical conditions on the basis of archives spanning more than half a century, this box set plunges you into the electric atmosphere of the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts (Centre for Fine Arts) on those unforgettable final evenings.
National Orchestra of Belgium Royal Flemish Philharmonic
Franz André, René Defossez, Edo de Waart, Georges Octors, Gilbert Varga, Ronald Zollman [conductors]c
Leon Fleisher, Denis Kozhukhin, Pierre-Alain Volondat, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Afanassiev, Andrei Nikolsky, Malcolm Frager, Jeffrey Swann, Cécile Ousset, Frank Braley, Wolfgang Manz, Anna Vinnitskaya
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Works on This Recording
1.
Concerto for Piano no 1 in E flat major, S 124 by Franz Liszt
Performer:
Vladimir Ashkenazy (Piano)
Conductor:
Franz André
Period: Romantic
Written: 1849/1856; Weimar, Germany
Date of Recording: 06/01/1956
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 16 Minutes 25 Secs.
2.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in A major, S 125 by Franz Liszt
Performer:
Pierre-Alain Volondat (Piano)
Conductor:
Georgea Octors
Period: Romantic
Written: 1839/1861; Weimar, Germany
Date of Recording: 05/27/1983
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 20 Minutes 43 Secs.
3.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in C minor, Op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninov
Performer:
Wolfgang Manz (Piano)
Conductor:
Georgea Octors
Period: Romantic
Written: Russia
Date of Recording: 05/24/1983
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 33 Minutes 54 Secs.
4.
Concerto for Piano no 3 in D minor, Op. 30 by Sergei Rachmaninov
Performer:
Andrei Nikolsky (Piano)
Conductor:
Georgea Octors
Period: Romantic
Written: 1909; Russia
Date of Recording: 05/28/1987
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 42 Minutes 10 Secs.
5.
Concerto for Piano no 1 in D minor, Op. 15 by Johannes Brahms
Performer:
Leon Fleisher (Piano)
Conductor:
Franz André
Period: Romantic
Written: 1854-1858; Germany
Date of Recording: 05/26/1952
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 45 Minutes 25 Secs.
6.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in B flat major, Op. 83 by Johannes Brahms
Performer:
Denis Kozhukhin (Piano)
Conductor:
Edo De Waart
Period: Romantic
Written: 1878-1881; Austria
Date of Recording: 06/14/2010
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 50 Minutes 29 Secs.
7.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in G minor, Op. 16 by Sergei Prokofiev
Performer:
Anna Vinnitskaya (Piano)
Conductor:
Gilbert Varga
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1913/1923; USSR
Date of Recording: 05/30/2007
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 31 Minutes 21 Secs.
8.
Concerto for Piano no 1 in D flat major, Op. 10 by Sergei Prokofiev
Performer:
Malcolm Frager (Piano)
Conductor:
Franz André
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1911-1912; Russia
Date of Recording: 06/01/1960
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 14 Minutes 7 Secs.
9.
Concerto for Piano no 1 in E minor, B 53/Op. 11 by Frédéric Chopin
Performer:
Jeffrey Swann (Piano)
Conductor:
Rene Defossez
Period: Romantic
Written: 1830; Poland
Date of Recording: 06/02/1972
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 39 Minutes 2 Secs.
10.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in F minor, B 43/Op. 21 by Frédéric Chopin
Performer:
Cécile Ousset (Piano)
Conductor:
Franz André
Period: Romantic
Written: 1829-1830; Poland
Date of Recording: 06/01/1956
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 27 Minutes 22 Secs.
11.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 by Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Performer:
Valery Afanassiev (Piano)
Conductor:
Rene Defossez
Period: Romantic
Written: 1874; Russia
Date of Recording: 06/01/1972
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 36 Minutes 5 Secs.
12.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 by Ludwig v. Beethoven
Performer:
Frank Braley (Piano)
Conductor:
Ronald Zollman
Period: Classical
Written: 1805-1806
Date of Recording: 05/31/1991
Venue: Brussels Centre for Fine Arts
Length: 33 Minutes 6 Secs.
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