Rudolf Firkusny Edition (12CD Box Set)

From a landmark Janáček album to a previously unpublished Schubert/Mozart recording, this collection presents the Deutsche Grammophon, British and American Decca, and Westminster legacy of legendary Czech pianist Rudolf Firkušný (1912–1994), acclaimed by Stereo Review as ‘the outstanding champion of Czech piano music on the international circuit’.

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30 years after his death (on 19 July 1994), there are still works in the piano repertoire that have become indelibly associated with the artistry of Rudolf Firkušný: most of all, the piano works of Leoš Janáček, whom Firkušný knew as a young student in Prague. The pianist went on to make his US debut in 1941, when he played not a repertoire warhorse but the neglected Piano Concerto by Dvořák, under Sir Thomas Beecham. Firkušný made six recordings of the Concerto across the course of a long career; the Westminster version newly remastered here was made in 1963 and conducted by Lázsló Somogyi, and has often since been placed at the head of the work’s discography along with the version recorded Sviatoslav Richter and Carlos Kleiber.

Firkušný’s 1960 version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition also attracted favourable comparison with Richter for its plain-spoken virtuosity. It seemed to listeners at the time that the pianist’s patrician technique and finely-wrought musicality had been rounded out by a new passion to his playing in what became the middle of his career. Although record labels tended to pigeonhole Firkušný in Czech repertoire, his sympathies were wide, as the span of this set suggests. His 1973 recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto on Decca (with the New Philharmonia under Uri Segal) has been forgotten, though reviewers at the time thought it was finer than the more familiar Capitol recording with William Steinberg.

TRACK LIST

CD 1
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition
RAVEL Jeux d’eau; Alborada del gracioso; La Vallée des cloches

CD 2
BRAHMS Cello Sonatas
Pierre Fournier

CD 3
JANÁČEK Tema con variazioni; On the Overgrown Path; Reminiscence 

CD 4
JANÁČEK Piano Sonata ‘1.X.1905’; In the Mists; Concertino; Capriccio
Rafael Kubelík

CD 5
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5
Uri Segal
FIRST INTERNATIONAL RELEASE ON CD

CD 6
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas Nos. 14, 8 & 21
FIRST INTERNATIONAL RELEASE ON CD

CD 7
DVOŘÁK Piano Concerto
László Somogyi    

CD 8
FRANCK Violin Sonata
MOZART Violin Sonata, K. 481
Erica Morini

CD 9
MOZART Violin Sonata, K. 296
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 3
Erica Morini

CD 10
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas Nos. 5 & 7
Erica Morini

CD 11
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 8
BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 3
Erica Morini

CD 12
MOZART Duport Variations, K. 573
SCHUBERT Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D.960
PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED RECORDINGS

ARTIST
Rudolf Firkusny, piano