This release is a new installment in the SWR Classics Edition dedicated to Hand Rosbaud. It offers the chance to enjoy two renowned pianists - Nikita Magaloff and Hans Richter-Haaser, with Hans Rosbaud providing authoritative orchestral accompaniment. Gramophone recently remarked that Rosbaud "was one of the unsung heroes of mid-20th-century music, who... gave thoroughly rehearsed and assimilated performances and premieres of the widest possible range of music". In Fanfare, Peter J. Rabinowitz pointed to range of his sympathies, claiming it was "greater than that of just about any of his contemporaries except perhaps Bernstein, Scherchen, and Stokowski. Rosbaud is best remembered, probably, for his Mahler, his Bruckner, his work with the Second Vienna School... and especially his commitment to the post-war avant-garde..."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Halina Czerny-Stefánska, who was born in Kraków in 1922 and died there in 2001, achieved international fame as an interpreter of Chopin. On the 150th anniversary of the Polish composer's birth, the state-owned record company Polskie Nagrania produced a comprehensive collection of his works, featuring a number of her exemplary recordings, which form a major part of this set. One incident makes particularly clear what high esteem Chopin interpreter Czerny-Stefánska had achieved in the world of music: Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 was released in the West as an LP featuring the brilliant, short-lived pianist Dinu Lipatti. Fifteen years passed before it transpired that the artist on this recording was not Lipatti, but Czerny-Stefánska, with the conductor Václav Smetácek. The mistake was admitted and corrected.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Amid the countless small salon forms evoked by fashion in the mid-1800s, the sonata form continued to reign supreme. Chopin’s sonatas are among his best-loved works and the most gorgeously composed sonatas of the time. Up and coming pianist Eugéne Mursky executes all three with style and musicianship to spare.

Gerrit Zitterbart is a highly capable pianist who takes on a great deal. His cleverly assembled Chopin recital [...] leaves nothing to be desired and sets a shining example of musical creativity. Nothing of melodic, harmonic or rhythmical significance has been left out; compositional idiosyncrasies have been presented in a precise and decisive way, contexts sensitively and cleverly outlined. There's not a moment of tedium. (Der Musikmarkt)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music