Emil Gilels The 100th Anniversary Edition Melodiya MELCD 10 02433 CD 21/50 Recorded in 1950 (3–8) and live on October 3, 1954 (1, 2), February 23, 1957 (9–14). Remastering – E. Barykina Total time: 65.47 18 octobre 2016 Rudolf Barshai, Karl Eliasberg, Konstantin Ivanov, Neeme Järvi, Kirill Kondrashin, Kurt Sanderling, Evgeny Svetlanov Johannes Brahms   1. Romance in F major, Op. 118 No. 5 (3.42) Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy   2. Etude in A minor, Op. 104b No. 3 (1.46) Pyotr Tchaikovsky : Six Pieces, Op. 19   3. I. Rêverie du soir (4.24)   4. II. Scherzo humoristique (3.31)   5. III. Feuillet d’album (1.57)   6. IV. Nocturne (4.00)   7. V. Capriccioso (2.57)   8. VI. Thème original et variations (11.31) Mieczysław Weinberg : Piano Sonata No. 4 in B minor, Op. 56   9. I. Allegro (7.24) 10. II. Allegro (3.18) 11. III. Adagio (6.23) 12. IV. Allegro (7.48 Claude Debussy 13. Arabesque in G major, L. 66 No. 2 (3.40) Isaac Albéniz 14. Rumores de la Caleta (Malagueña) from Recuerdos de Viaje, Op. 71 (3.19)

For the 100th anniversary of Emil Gilels, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, Melodiya presents an anthology of his pianistic legacy.
“Titans of the piano like Gilels are born once in a hundred years,” wrote a Japanese correspondent in 1957; similar comments accompanied the musician’s performances throughout his performing career.
The performance of the young man from the Odessa Conservatory at the 1933 First All-Union Competition in Moscow came as a bombshell: the audience gave him a standing ovation, and unfamiliar people congratulated each other on the emergence of a genius. Five years later, Gilels gained another unconditional victory at the international competition in Brussels. After WWII, in the period of the most strained relations between the Soviet Union and the West, Gilels conquered the public in the United States and Western Europe. The pianist never interrupted his concert life for half a century. Gilels’s art continued to develop through extending the repertoire and enhancing the interpretations of the works he had played many times, and at times the pieces already well known and “worn out” by other pianists received surprise readings from him.
The Melodiya anniversary release covers Gilels’s almost entire life in music from his first studio recording of 1935 (Liszt’s Fantasy on Themes from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, the number with which young Gilels caused a furor at the competition) to the artist’s last performance in Moscow in 1984 with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, one of the most difficult works in piano literature. Most part of the set is dedicated to live broadcasts that captured the pianist’s extensive repertoire – from Scarlatti and Bach to Shostakovich and Stravinsky, including a number of never-before-released interpretations such as Scriabin’s Sonata No. 1, Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Handel’s Chaconne, Borodin’s Scherzo etc.
The art of Gilels as an ensemblist is represented with his collaborations with the greatest Soviet performers such as Leonid Kogan, Mstislav Rostropovich and Rudolf Barshai. The recordings with the pianist’s sister, remarkable violinist Elizaveta Gilels, are worth a special mention. There are genuine rarities among the chamber ensemble recordings – Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet, Alexander Alyabyev’s Trio and César Cui’s Sonata for violin and piano.
Emil Gilels was a chairman of the panel of the Tchaikovsky International Competition for over twenty years and one of the few pianists who had all three piano concertos of the great Russian composer in his repertoire – all of them are featured in this set (two little-known recordings of the First Concerto made in 1948 and 1956 are particularly notable).
Emil Gilels played with the world’s best orchestras, and this release features the prominent Soviet conductors Konstantin Ivanov, Kirill Kondrashin, Rudolf Barshai and Evgeny Svetlanov accompanying the pianist.