This release features a previously-unreleased recording of pianist Emil Gilels, captured live in an acclaimed 1964 Seattle recital. With the exception of a single work, this recital has never before been made available to the general public and is now being released for the first time. Released in time to celebrate the pianist’s 100th anniversary, the recital includes works by Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and more.

The violin concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven and Alban Berg are, on the surface, more different from one another than two compositions could ever probably be. Yet both stand as titans within the violin repertoire and broke incredibly significant new ground. Beethoven's lone Violin Concerto was different than anything that came before it and set the tone for virtually every concerto written after it for nearly a century.

Maria João Pires “shapes and colours every phrase, and with immaculate taste, and she makes sure the phrases end as eloquently as they begin,” wrote Gramophone in 1974. “She conveys not just the details but the relevance of every note to the whole … Best of all, she communicates everything she has discovered about the music, and it is worth having.” This Portuguese pupil of Wilhelm Kempff, Pires was one of the artists who defined the Erato label in the 1970s and 1980s. This 5-CD box gathers together the recordings she made over the period from 1976 to 1985 and it reflects the consistent focus of her repertoire, with its special emphasis on Austro-German composers of the Classical and early-Romantic periods. Embracing solo works, piano duets and concertos, it contains works by Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, but also by Bach and Chopin.

Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas span the period from 1797-1812, and the G major work ending the series (which he evidently revised prior to its publication in 1816) came as long after the Kreutzer as the difference in opus numbers suggests – the nine intervening years saw the appearance of Symphonies Nos. 4-8 and much else. Stylistically, this last sonata looks forward to his third period and its lyricism differs markedly from the fire of its predecessor, while the other eight are youthfully confident; it is perhaps significant that only two of the whole series are in a minor key.

Released between 1991 and 2005, the selections in The Warner Recordings encapsulate the period when Pierre-Laurent Aimard was signed to Erato and Teldec, performing mostly 20th-century fare and some music from the 19th century. Aimard is famous for his contributions to the modernist catalog, and his performances of works by Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen are regarded as scrupulously executed and authoritatively interpreted. Aimard also recorded early 20th century pieces by Charles Ives, Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, and Claude Debussy, as well as Romantic masterpieces of Beethoven and Liszt. A pianist's pianist, Aimard is well-rounded in his repertoire and a true master of keyboard technique, yet he has received considerably less fanfare than many of his flashier colleagues. Yet connoisseurs of piano recordings know that Aimard is indispensible, especially for his special feeling for French music, and his recordings are important documents that serious students and newcomers should appreciate.

Hungarian pianist Annie Fischer made her debut at the age of 10 and studied with Ernst von Dohnányi at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Her performance of the Liszt Sonata in B minor won Fischer first prize at the 1933 Liszt International Piano Competition, but her concert career was barely underway when war broke out; Fischer fled to Sweden. Afterwards Fischer returned to Hungary, and although she made her New York debut in 1961, she was only seldom seen in the United States and based her career in continental Europe.

This live Appassionata, from a Moscow recital of 1959, is one of the most thrilling piano performances ever recorded. Sviatoslav Richter fills every moment of the first movement with intense drama, creates the illusion of total repose in the central variations, and then takes off in the finale with an exhibition of musical virtuosity and ever-increasing tension that becomes almost unbearably intense (and unbelievably fast and accurate). The studio Pathétique is quite fine, and the Fantasy (sung in Russian!) well performed by all but still rather quaint in its effect. But don't miss that Appassionata!

As one of the finest pianists of his era and an improviser of genius, Ludwig van Beethoven's preferred vehicle for musical exploration was the piano. With his five piano concertos composed between 1788 and 1809, he not only achieved a brilliant conclusion to the Classical piano concerto, but also established a new model for the Romantic era: a sort of symphony with obbligato piano which was to remain a reference point well into the twentieth century. After the first two concertos, which still closely follow the models of Haydn and Mozart, Concerto No. 3 marks a profound stylistic change. In the piano part, Beethoven pushes the instrument to it's limits, leading commentators to remark that he was writing for the piano of the future.

These recordings were made between 1937 and 1942, and they represent the sum of Mengelberg's commercially released Beethoven for the Telefunken label.

From the mid-1810s until the end of his life, Beethoven constantly tested to the limit the forms he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. His last two cello sonatas bear witness to this structural preoccupation, which was to open up so many new spaces . . . as do the final sets of Bagatelles, as disconcerting as they are innovative! Two genres shrewdly linked by Andreas Staier and Roel Dieltiens in these interpretations, in which eloquence merges with historically informed performance practice.

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, completed about the same time as the Eroica Symphony, has suddenly become popular. One reason for its previous lack of popularity was the fact that three soloists cost three times as much as one normally expensive pianist, violinist or cellist. Another reason is that the work seeks to be a popular success, hence the Rondo alla Polacca with which it concludes. The piano part was intended for Beethoven’s patron and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph von Habsburg, and hence is less technically demanding than the composer’s usual pianistic writing, destined for himself. The standard CD (previously LP) of the work was a spectacular performance and recording made by EMI many years ago with David Oistrakh, Rostropovich and Richter with the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan. It was opulently played with the BPO’s luscious sound, but has little to do with what Beethoven would have heard in 1804. Another choice was the version of Stern, Rose and Serkin (Sony), less lush and not so high-powered as Karajan’s.

Eugene Istomin (1925–2003), one of America’s most respected pianists, was highly esteemed by audiences and colleagues alike for his mindful virtuosity and unusually wide-ranging repertoire. 2015 marks Istomin’s 90th birthday year, a milestone that Sony Classical celebrates with the first-ever release of his complete Columbia Masterworks concerto and solo recordings in a limited original-jacket collection including 10 previously unreleased studio recordings. Many of these performances appear in their first authorized CD editions, including the 19-year-old pianist’s recorded debut in Bach’s D minor Concerto led by Adolf Busch; his youthful concerto collaborations with Pablo Casals; Chopin’s complete Nocturnes; Brahms’s Handel Variations; Schubert’s D major D 850 Sonata, plus the long-out-of-print Rachmaninoff 2nd, Tchaikovsky 1st, Brahms 2nd, and Beethoven 4th and 5th (“Emperor”) Concertos with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Newly remastered from the original analogue tapes, the discs are presented in facsimile sleeves and labels corresponding to the original LP releases. An enclosed booklet offers full discographical information, an essay by Jed Distler, and a photographic retrospective.

He is one of the "superstars" of the piano world. An exceptional teacher – his pupils include stars such as Arcadi Volodos or Claire-Marie Le Guay – Dmitri Bashkirov’s debut with Claves combines a most original programme with orchestra. Face to face; we have: Johann Sebastian Bach’s most famous son; Carl Philip Emanuel; forbearer of the great Romantic composers; and an unusual Ludwig van Beethoven. This particular Concerto op. 61a is indeed very rarely played; copying almost note for note the original score of the Violin Concerto op. 61.

There are two really famous Beethoven violin sonatas, the Kreutzer and the Spring. The Kreutzer Sonata inspired the story by Leo Tolstoy, which in turn became the subject of Janácek's First String Quartet, so if you're into comparative studies in the arts, there's a thesis topic for you! The Spring Sonata was featured in Woody Allen's Love and Death, among other places. And perhaps most intriguingly of all, the scherzo of the late sonata, Op. 96, turns up quite clearly in the third movement of Mahler's Second Symphony.

This set of Beethoven string quartets by the Borodin Quartet reflects a mature perspective on the works. It's not that it lacks energy the Vivaces are vivacious and the Allegros have plenty of brio but it has wisdom and a maturity not generally characteristic of performances by younger quartets. These performances are comparable with the Budapest Quartet's last set of the quartets.