Described by the New York Times in 1944 as “One of the most remarkably gifted of the younger generation of American keyboard artists,” Leon Fleisher was born in San Francisco in 1928. In 1944, at age 16, he played the Brahms first Piano Concerto as soloist with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Monteux. In 1952 he won the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels. He played the Brahms and Beethoven Piano Concertos often and recorded them with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1964, he noticed that two fingers of his right hand were beginning to involuntarily curl up. He tried every therapy that existed then, but his solo career was effectively ended. He continued to teach, and conduct and in 1967 began to perform works for the left hand. In 1995 he succeeded to regain the use if his right hand and began performing and recording with two-hands. Leon Fleisher passed away in 2020 at age 92. DOREMI is proud to offer here a hitherto unreleased live recording of 16 years old Leon Fleisher playing Brahms Piano concerto No, 1 with the New York Philharmonic, with Pierre Monteux conducting.

A New Yorker review about Rudolf Serkin from 2017 states: “his performances… reflect his sense of titanic struggle to realize the ideas and emotions that he found in the words that he played. He bypassed the surface sheen of ingratiating sounds to render the beauty of that struggle; his piano tone is itself the sound of struggle filled with the meeting of metal and wood and evoking spiritual exaltation through physical and intellectual exertion.” Rudolf Serkin was born in 1903 in Bohemia. His musical gifts emerged early. and he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. His European career extended throughout the 20s and 30s. He first played in the United States in 1933, and three years later appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, eventually performing with them over 100 times. Rudolf Serkin became one of the most admired pianists of the 20th century. He performed and recorded extensively with the top international orchestras and conductors.

The Sigi Weissenberg Recordings 1949-1955

Tatiana Nikolayeva was one of the most illustrious and respected pianists of the 20th century. Born in Bezhitz, Russia in 1924, she began to play the piano at age three. She soon became a student of Alexander Goldenweiser (1875–1961), the leading piano pedagogue in Russia. From 1947 she toured extensively in the USSR. Her recognition outside of the USSR was boosted as she became the 1st prize winner of the 1950 Leipzig Bach competition. There she met Shostakovich who served on the Jury. They became friends and associates. Shostakovich considered her the ideal interpreter of his piano works and wrote for her the 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87 which she premiered in 1952. Nikolayeva frequently toured Europe, America, and Japan. She had an unusually large repertory including most of the keyboard works of Bach and Beethoven. She was also a highly esteemed composer with several symphonies, chamber music and a piano concerto to her credit. In 1959 she began teaching at the Moscow conservatory, becoming a professor in 1965. She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at a concert she gave in San Francisco on November 13, 1993. Tatiana Nikolayeva, the great pianist, composer and teacher died on November 22, 1993. This album features Tatiana performing the Bach Piano Concertos, works for which she was widely known.

Sviatoslav Richter is considered one of the greatest pianists of all time. This 23rd volume of the Richter Archives series on DOREMI presents a recital held in Warsaw in 1982 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Karol Szymanowski's birth.

Historic live performances, never released in any form, from one of the greatest and most popular classical pianists of all time.

Tracklist: MEDTNER: Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 21 • Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 38, No. 1 • 10 Romances and Songs from Opp. 13, 32, 36 & 52

First time on CD! Featuring Richter’s debut with the Boston Symphony, here is volume 19 of the prestigious DOREMI series featuring one of the most admired pianists of all time at the height of his power.

SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87 & • Tatiana Nikolayeva (pn) • DOREMI 7991-3 (2 CDs: 143:55)


& TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in b?, op. 23 • Tatiana Nikolayeva (pn); Kurt Masur, cond; Leipzig Gewandhaus O • (DVD: 40:34)


Tatiana Nikolayeva’s importance to the development of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues has never been subject to dispute. It was her performance as a contestant at the International Bach Competition in East Germany in 1950, where Shostakovich was among the judges, that initially inspired the composition. According to the writer Lyubov Rudneva, who witnessed the pile-on of apparatchiks when Shostakovich first performed the finished work before the Committee for the Arts, Nikolayeva was one of the very few to speak about it positively: “Having listened to this work several times, on each hearing it produced a deeper and deeper impression. The work was striking for its variety and multifaceted qualities, and also for the unusual sense of unity it conveyed.” She received its dedication, gave its first performance, discussed it repeatedly with Shostakovich, and recorded it three times—in Moscow in 1962 and 1987, and finally, three years later, in London.


That final set (Hyperion 66441/4) has the best sound, but arguably the weakest performance: not as expressive as the other sets, and the most technically challenged. The 1987 set has been my default recommendation to friends seeking Nikolayeva’s Preludes and Fugues on CD, simply because the earliest reading, originally released on a Melodiya LP, was not available. Fortunately, that situation has just changed.


Where to start? The 1987 version is more vivid than the 1990 one, but that of 1962 is elemental. There is a sense of “taking stage” that never fails, from the pastoral, feather-light Prelude in D Major, to the somber, carefully controlled colors of the Fugue in F?-Minor, to the implacable majesty of the Prelude in D Minor. Each piece has its own emotional weight, and there isn’t a moment of routine, of skating on the surface, in the playing of any of them.


This recorded version is also the pianist’s most technically assured. Whether this factor led Nikolayeva to take more chances in 1962 than she did later, it is true there’s an exuberance that was missing 25 years on. The Fugue in D?-Major is recklessly fast but extremely clear in its voicings, conveying a drunken vivacity that recalls the joy Shostakovich got out of madcap silent-film cartoons and comedies. The B?-Prelude is quite as fast as Scherbakov (168 bpm) but more sharply accented, typically so in the passage where the bass suddenly scampers away from its barcarolle-like tonic-dominant pair of chords. The Fugue in E Major’s galloping aggressiveness provides yet a third example; and the octaves of the G-Major Prelude, which would give some trouble in the 1987 recording, offer fewer problems here.


As for the final Fugue in D Minor, the first section combines brooding intensity, slow pacing (roughly 78 bpm), and a subtle, almost romantic ebb and flow to the pulse. The second section rises to a powerful conclusion every bit worthy of the series.


However, I find as much frustration in this rerelease due to its audio quality, as I take pleasure in Nikolayeva’s brilliant vision of the work. The source for this recording—either the original LP, or a copy of it—has been filtered at some point to remove nearly all of the treble. Now, Melodiya exports of the period in question employed barrel-scraped vinyl, layering a tar of grit over the sound of most of its LPs—as I can attest from several in my own collection—but there’s also some musical signal in there, too. If you remove the grit through a blanket filter, you also get rid of some of the sound of the instrument. Given a choice, I’d rather have that treble, fierce crackle and all, to filter as I wish.


Doremi has provided a third disc with this set, a DVD of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto that includes Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Recorded live in 1990, Nikolayeva was in excellent technical shape, and Masur’s very moderate tempos helped. Her performance reveals a great deal of flexibility in phrasing, along with plenty of color; far more than the orchestra, in fact. The camera, which spends a lot of time behind and to the right of the pianist, and sometimes moves in for close-ups of her hands, furnishes an excellent opportunity to watch how Nikolayeva balances with her forearms—upper arms close to her body—and “rolls from the wrists.” It’s also instructive to watch how her small hands manage the octaves for the most part without problem. The sound is good, the video likely a direct digital dub of an analog original: very clear, except in distant shots of the hall where fuzzy imaging is apparent.


The DVD is a bonus that’s great to have, but it’s the 1962 Preludes and Fugues that are truly self-recommending in this album. Despite the sound, they should be heard by anybody who wants a dramatic yet detailed version of this work, and one that explores the coloristic resources of the piano.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal


Most piano collectors are aware of Tatiana Nikolayeva's 1987 Melodiya and 1990 Hyperion cycles devoted to Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, together with a recently released video presentation. However, her 1962 Melodiya cycle never has been reissued until now, and it comprises what promises to be Doremi's first in a series of historic releases featuring Nikolayeva.

Doremi's transfers appear to have been effected from mint copies of the original vinyl pressings, and heavily filtered at that, judging from the altogether brighter patina I still glean from an old, wobbly non-professional cassette dub made from scratchy LPs. In any event, this was the cycle's first complete recorded version, and the only one to be supervised by the composer (he recorded several of these works himself, for both Melodiya and French EMI). It easily surpasses Nikolayeva's later efforts technically and interpretively.

For example, the pianist's later versions of the G major Fugue find her slowing down at times to accommodate her hands, whereas the 1962 reading is brisker, steadier, and suppler on every level. The occasional protruding accents that wrinkle the D major Prelude's delicate chordal lines in 1987 and 1990 are nowhere to be found in 1962, while the E-flat minor Fugue reveals a consistently calm lilt that contrasts to the later versions' occasional sagging. Although each of Nikolayeva's A-flat Fugues slows down from its original tempo, the fault is less obtrusive in 1962.

This release includes a bonus DVD featuring Nikolayeva, Kurt Masur, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in a live 1990 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. While the interpretation is mostly slow, sober, and not terribly exciting, Nikolayeva compensates by way of beautiful dynamic nuances and tonal shadings.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

One of the most respected violinists of the 20th century! This set contains many items not previously available on CD, and some that have never been released at all. - Allegro

Featured Artists:
Oscar Shumsky: violin/Maureen Forrester: alto/Lois Marshall: soprano/Nadia Reisenberg piano/James Melton: tenor/Mario Bernardi: piano/Primrose String Quartet.

The 3 CD set also features arrangements of unspecified arias from Cantatas No. 120 & 132 by Bach and unspecified songs by Rachmaninov.

Martha Argerich is one of the most respected and popular classical artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. This fourth volume in DOREMI's series devoted to the pianist includes previously unreleased tracks from over 50 years ago, with most items coming from the 1965 Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

Volume 3 in the Legendary Treasures series further expands Martha Argerich’s discography with two important works: five unreleased radio, live and studio recordings, mainly solo works, stand alongside one of the earliest versions of Argerich’s signature work with orchestra. Surprisingly Argerich’s Schumann Toccata has never been released on disc. Her clarity, lightness and speed on this recording may well be compared to the famous recordings by Barere, Cziffra and Horowitz.

Recorded between 1957 and 1965.

Martha Argerich is universally recognized as one of the preeminent pianists of all time. This disc includes broadcasts from 1957 and 1960, before she won the Chopin International Competition, and most are being released on CD for the first time.

Martha Argerich is universally recognized as one of the preeminent pianists of all time. This CD includes broadcasts from 1960, before she won the Chopin International Competition and became world famous. All of the recordings are released on CD for the first time here.

The eminent Martha Argerich is one of the most loved and admired classical pianists of all time. She quickly gained worldwide reputation for her exciting performances. This release is the fifth in DOREMI’s special series of rare archival broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Argerich from early in her spectacular career which spanned more than five decades. This release features Mozart’s Concerto No. 20, recorded on June 16, 1966, and Bach’s Toccata in C minor, Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major, and Chopin’s 3 Mazurkas, recorded in Milan on March 14, 1966.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Juilliard String Quartet. Soloist: Leonard Bernstein.