A musician as loved as he was admired, the pianist Nicholas Angelich died in Paris in April 2022 at the age of 51. Angelich was a modest, thoughtful man who brought tremendous integrity, depth and insight to the most demanding repertoire. His association with Warner Classics lasted some 20 years, and the label pays tribute to him with this 7CD collection of previously unreleased recordings of solo, chamber and concerto repertoire. Made either in the concert hall or for radio broadcast between 1999 and 2016, they range wide, including works by Bach, Bart�k, Beethoven Berg, Brahms, Franck, Haydn, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Zemlinsky. Appearing with Angelich are Martha Argerich, Quatuor Eb�ne, Myung-Whun Chung and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, and Tugan Sokhiev and the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse.

Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."

Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer's own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

The collaborative efforts, the mutual emulation and inspiration of Sir Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome have spanned 18 years, led to one of the world's greatest and most versatile virtuoso ensembles and to acclaimed live and studio recordings showcasing an eclectic selection of symphonic and choral music. Their repertoire features already legendary performances of Verdi's Requiem and Quattro pezzi sacri. In addition, their recording of Bruckner's 8th Symphony features here for the very first time! This box brings together all the recordings that the British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano (b.1959) made with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the years from 2005 to 2022 for Warner Classics.

Toscanini took up Ravel's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition very soon after it became generally available, and it remained in his repertoire until the end of his career. He clearly relished the work's virtuosity and colour, rather more, I think, than its evocative, dramatic qualities. His performance is very brilliant, quite extrovert in fact, but a little lacking in strong characterization. Even such a characterful piece as ''The Hut on Fowl's Legs'' is given a very straight, four-square emphatic reading, and only ''Catacombe'' conveys a vivid sense of atmosphere. I think a better recording would have conveyed a more favourable impression, but the sound is pinched and shallow.

Toscanini's interpretation of the Enigma Variations remains as controversial to traditional Elgarians as when he first conducted the work in London during 1930 (it had been in his repertoire since 1905). It was imaginative of RCA to partner the Mussorgsky Pictures with Elgar's ''friends pictured within''. Though the Elgar recording predates the Mussorgsky by over a year it is greatly superior, and has plenty of depth and sonority. I found the performance very satisfying. By and large it seems perfectly idiomatic to me, it is beautifully played, and has many imaginative and affectionate touches. Only three variations struck me as outside the norm. ''H. D. S-P.'' and ''Troyte'' move at a comparatively sedate tempo, which spoils their vigorous effectiveness. I was interested to find that Toscanini takes both movements at a conventionally faster tempo in his 1935 live performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (EMI, 2/88). In both performances his way with ''W. N.'' is a bit too brisk and lacking in warmth and humour. Otherwise there would seem little to offend traditionalists. Highly recommended.

-- Gramophone [2/1992]

Kissin, one of the most well known and best selling pianist performs one of the piano's most popular works, Mussorgsky's Picture at an Exhibition.

Old Russian folk melodies; the traits of human life (joy, love, illness, poverty, death, religion); a high aesthetic-musical realism as a compositional commitment. These are the ingredients in Musorgsky's Lieder, already appreciated by Liszt and Debussy, and now available in this box set.

Modest Mussorgsky’s music drama Boris Godunov was premiered in front of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia, the same location where this 2014 performance takes place. Conceived by Plamen Kartaloff, director of the Sofia Opera, this production took place 90 years after the building’s consecreation, and was dedicated to the centennial anniversary of the birth of Boris Christoff and the 85th anniversary of the birth of Nicolai Ghiaurov, two vocalists who became famous for their performances as Boris. For this performance, the role of Boris is sung by Martin Tsonev.

Picture Format: 16:9
Sound Format: PCM 2.0
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)

RACHMANINOFF Aleko: Suite 1. HOVHANESS Floating World—Ukiyo. MUSSORGSKY Khovanshchina: Introduction • Andre Kostelanetz, cond; 1 Simon Estes, bs; “His O” • SONY 88999 (34:11)


Andre Kostelanetz (1901–80) was involved with Rachmaninoff’s music from his teenage years, when he was a rehearsal pianist and vocal coach at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. Rachmaninoff, a generation older, was the leading composer of that era before he left Russia in 1917; his The Miserly Knight had its Mariinsky premiere in 1912, a few years before Kostelanetz’s arrival. When Kostelanetz also escaped from Russia, in 1922, he brought a knowledge and love of Rachmaninoff’s music with him to New York, where he was to lead many of his compatriot’s works, in their original form and in lush arrangements for popular tastes. Although written decades earlier, Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina had its Mariinsky premiere in 1911.


Rachmaninoff’s first opera, written at age 19, reflects many influences, Borodin and Mussorgsky perhaps even more than Tchaikovsky. Aleko has its exciting moments and its dreary ones; as is the case with Stravinsky’s Firebird , the suite captures the wheat while eliminating the chaff. Placing the overture last produces a dramatic comedown, as it dies away gently, but this is in keeping with many of the composer’s own gentle, tricky codas. Hovhaness was one of Kostelanetz’s favorite contemporary American composers; Floating World—Ukiyo , subtitled a ballade for orchestra, was written for and dedicated to the conductor. Its colorful, lush orchestration and exotic, pseudo-Japanese harmonies take Rachmaninoff a generation further. It is exciting music to hear once, and this performance is a stunner.


“Andre Kostelanetz and his Orchestra” was contracted for each recording session; neither the booklet nor Columbia recording logs for April 2 and 4, 1968, name the players, but they were probably members of the New York Philharmonic, as Kostelanetz led both Aleko (with Estes) and Floating World in Philharmonic Promenade Concerts that spring. Kostelanetz would often specify individuals he wanted, according to the music at hand—Mitch Miller on English horn was a favorite. The Aleko performance is wild and lush, as best suits Rachmaninoff, and the analog stereo recording is gorgeous but gimmicky, as string sections are electronically pumped up and tamped down across a wide soundstage. In one of his finest performances, Simon Estes sounds like a true Russian bass in a song that encompasses the entire bass-baritone range. Despite the pop-oriented sound, the results are wonderful. The recording of the Hovhanness is potent yet clean; the unconventional nature of the orchestration obscures any electronic manipulations. The Khovanshchina Prelude, another Promenade Concert specialty, is played with instrumental brilliance but without much character, missing the early-dawn mystery of the piece—the sun shines brightly from the opening measures. The 1967 stereo sound has every instrument up too close, leaving no room for subtlety.


This is a reissue of a Columbia stereo LP; the front cover is identical to that of the LP, including “MS 7126” instead of the CD number; its claim of “First Recordings” applied in 1968. A Sony representative told me that “Collectors don’t like bonus tracks; they want their CDs to be identical to the original release.” Which is a poor excuse for a 34-minute CD. Such timings were common for Kostelanetz’s pop albums, but not for classical ones. Most CD reissues of his pop records (on the Collectables label) put two LPs on a single CD and then add bonus tracks. Nevertheless, this CD is enthusiastically recommended for the Rachmaninoff.


FANFARE: James H. North

How this terrific 1991 release escaped my piano CD radar I'll never know, yet I'm grateful to Arkivmusic.com's on-demand reprint program for bringing it to my attention. The unrelenting octaves, unforgiving leaps, and sundry stamina-testing challenges that Stravinsky heaps upon pianists in his Three Movements from Petrouchka do not faze Yefim Bronfman's stentorian technique at all. Moreover, his splendid ear for tone color and sonority often evoke the original "accordion-like" orchestrations, especially in the Shrovetide Fair's chordal climaxes.

In an era where many recent recordings of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition are overrun with interpretive graffiti and textual revisions (if it's good enough for Horowitz, it's good enough for [fill-in-the-blank]), Bronfman's vividly characterized yet breathtakingly honest pianism is a balm, together with his perfectly judged tempos and tempo relationships.

Bronfman's performance of Tchaikovsky's Dumka is not just a makeweight, but rather stands as one of this undervalued composition's most distinctive recorded versions. The central virtuosic flourishes exude power and poise, while the lyrical sections stand out for Bronfman's suave fingerwork and heartfelt, singing tone. True, the recorded sound is slightly dry, but you hear everything Bronfman does just the same. Highly recommended.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Of Gods and Demons

Classical Minimalism

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Songs and Dances of D

Evgeny Samoyloff writes: “Mussorgsky’s From Memories of Childhood cycle was never completed by the composer; in fact, he wrote only the first two pieces: ‘The Nurse and I’ and ‘The First Punishment’. An earlier cycle-to-be, entitled Children’s Games and featuring ‘Corners’ as its opening piece, was similarly never completed. I have taken the liberty of selecting what I believe to be the best of Mussorgsky’s miniature pieces – those that appear most complete – and of joining them to the primary cycle of Childhood Memories. I was guided by the music’s imagery and by its ‘childhood’ essence (as if seen through the eyes of a child), and I have endeavored to compile the set following the principles of contrast and artistic integrity, as well as those of tonal and architectural balance. This is how this cycle of eight pieces came into being, and I hope that it has a right to exist and to achieve widespread appeal.”

Classical Music

Classical Music

MUSSORGSKY: NIGHT ON BARE MOUN

Classical Music

Boris Godunov

Based on a story by Gogol, Modest Mussorgsky's unfinished Sorochintsi Fair is a comic opera in which amorous encounters intermingle with a devil's curse. Potentially a compelling and original drama, Salammbo was Mussorgsky's first attempt at an opera. Both works are world premiere recordings of chamber versions arranged by Fabrice Bollon, using only original material as their basis.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

A short article can hardly hope to do justice to the memory of Boris Christoff, the famous Bulgarian bass born in Plovdiv on May 18th 1914 who died in Rome on June 28th 1993. One could write endlessly about his career which began almost by chance after he graduated in law, or about his relationship with his teacher, the great baritone Riccardo Stracciari, or about his clashes with directors (for example in the 1948 version of Boris Godunov directed by Peter Broook) or colleagues (the 1956 Medea in Riome with Maria Callas). One could give a detailed description of his concept of art, of opera, of music and of life itself. But, alas space is short. Let us concentrate then, on this production of Khovatchina, recorded live at the Foro Italico on August 3rd 1958 in Rome during the then magnificent RAI seasons. It should be noted at once that this recording fills a most serious gap and brings us one of the key roles Christoff was to perform during his career. It is incomprehensible why he was made to record the complete edition of Mussorgsky's melodies - a monument to Christoff's art - two versions of Boris Godunov (in 1952 with Issay Dobrowen and ten years later with André Cluytens) but never his colorful interpretation of Dossifej. Khovanshchina was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. When the composer died in 1881, the opera remained unfinished and unperformed. The work deals with Russian history, particularly the rebellion of Prince Ivan Khovansky, the Old Believers, and the Muscovite Streltsy against the regent Sofia Alekseyevna and the young Tsars Peter the Great and Ivan V.