In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings. The transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven's Symphonies, originally recorded for EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of Beethoven were released by IBA and also made available in a box set. All the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York which include works by Boulez, Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky were also released. Among the recent new releases are Liszt's Etudes and the piano transcription of Berlioz's Harold en Italie, Schumann's Carnaval, Fantasie and other works, all five Piano Concertos of Hindemith and, in the Archive Edition, the early LPs made in France for Pretoria (Schumann, Brahms), Vega (Bartok, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven) and Decca (Rachmaninov). IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings.

The transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven's Symphonies, originally recorded for EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of Beethoven were released by IBA and also made available in a box set. All the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York which include works by Boulez, Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky were also released. Among the recent new releases are Liszt's Etudes and the piano transcription of Berlioz's Harold en Italie, Schumann's Carnaval, Fantasie and other works, all five Piano Concertos of Hindemith and, in the Archive Edition, the early LPs made in France for Pretoria (Schumann, Brahms), Vega (Bartok, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven) and Decca (Rachmaninov). IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.

This release features three distinct, scintillating performances of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, plus his early Sérénade grotesque.

REVIEWS:

...the inclusion of three decades’ versions of Gaspard de la nuit allows for some fascinating listening. The third piece in the suite, Scarbo, sounds largely the same in all the recordings and runs about the same amount of time, from 9:11 to 9:25. The nightmarish characteristics of the devilish dwarf are made clear throughout but are never overstated: there is a subtlety to Ravel’s portrayal that Biret captures very well.

-- Infodad

Though born in Turkey, Biret’s musical education was in France, where, as a child prodigy, she became the favourite pupil of the legendary mentor, Nadia Boulenger, her Ravel performances in the concert hall becoming a benchmark of good taste. If we turn the clock back to 1965, when she was twenty-four, and living in Paris, we find Decca, having bought out the French label, Vega—with whom Biret had a contract—offering her studio time to make two discs. The sessions were to include, Gaspard de la nuit, one of the first works she placed in her concert repertoire, and was intended for release on one LP. Sadly the test pressing showed the quality of the sound had fallen short of her expectations, and it was agreed not to publish it, the acetate masters being left with Biret. In recent times, those working in the new technological world expressed the possibility of restoring it to a quality that could prove acceptable to her. That included Mark-Obert Thorn, who has been responsible for a whole raft of restored discs from the 1960’s, many appearing on the Naxos Historic Label. It had to be as a ‘best endeavour’ release, though it does allow us to hear her youthful picture of water in the opening Ondine, where she closely follows the indications in the printed score. Ten years later, and now in New York, it seems to flow more naturally from her fingers, but it is the second, and pivotal picture of Le gibet, the difference is most noticeable. It is the picture of the dead body swinging from the gallows, that her first account has it metronomic evenness, while much slower in 1975, Biret is more intent on capturing the gruesome scene, which she chillingly achieved. Now we reach the beautiful sound of 1984, and in this final instalment we can add together all of the many virtues she has brought to the work in sound worthy of her performance.

-- David's Review Corner

When Idil Biret went to France in 1949 she generated as much excitement as she had earlier done in Turkey. In the fall of that year the French Radio RTF made an interview with Idil and recorded her performing works by Bach, Couperin, Beethoven and Debussy. Later, in February 1953 the RTF made a second series of recordings with Idil following her performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Wilhelm Kempff. Both of these are preserved in Idil Biret’s archive and are available in this set. These were her first recordings. She would go on to make professional recordings of nearly every major composer in her recording career that has lasted more than half a century and is still going strong. All of these studio recordings, including some that were never before released commercially, are included in this edition.

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REVIEW:

Biret grasps the size of Beethoven’s style. The polyphony is laid out in a relaxed way with little indulgence in point making. She keeps the big line and yet is thankfully sparing in her use of fortissimos. The piano is sumptuous. Biret’s gentle and almost sensuous sonorities are really captivating.

– Gramophone

Idil Biret’s chamber music performances are relatively rare. Most importantly, she played Beethoven’s violin Sonatas Nos. 5, 7 and 9 with Yehudi Menuhin at the Istanbul Festival in July 1973. In 1975, she played all the five Beethoven cello sonatas with Maurice Gendron. With the London String Quartet, in 1980, Biret played the Schumann and Brahms Piano Quintets at the Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, later at the Istanbul Festival and then recorded the Brahms Quintet as well as the Mahler Piano Quartet with the LSQ. In 2011, she played in concerts and recorded Berlioz’s Harold in Italy in Liszt’s piano transcription and Brahms’ 2nd Viola Sonata with Rusen Gu¨nes. In 2014, she played in concerts and recorded the Schumann Piano Quintet with the Borusan Quartet of Turkey. The same year, she recorded the two cello sonatas of Brahms with Roderic von Bennigsen. Finally, in 2019, Biret played and recorded Mendelssohn’s 1st Piano Trio and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with Irina Nikotina and Julya Krepak. These are some of the memorable chamber music performances of her career.

Idil Biret’s nineteen volume Beethoven Edition consisting of the thirty two sonatas, five concertos, the Choral Fantasy and the piano transcriptions of the nine symphonies (by Franz Liszt) was recorded in fifty two days during a long period which spread over of twenty three years. In the spring of 1985 when Jacques Leiser, then Idil Biret’s agent in the USA, introduced Biret to Michel Devos, an independent producer in Belgium, she could not have imagined that this would lead to a recording odyssey lasting over twenty years. When Devos suggested an LP with the Liszt transcriptions of two Beethoven symphonies, Idil, who had earlier recorded other Liszt transcriptions, agreed immediately. When these recordings were found to be of exceptionally high quality by EMI, Idil Biret was asked to record all the nine symphonies which gained universal acclaim. When she performed the nine symphonies in four concerts during one week at the Montpellier Festival in France in July 1986, this was announced as “The Event of the Festival.” After an interval of eight years, in the midst of a busy period of recording the works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov for Naxos in Heidelberg, Biret went back to Brussels in 1994 to record three sonatas of Beethoven to test how these would sound in the same location where the symphonies were recorded. The decision was then made in 2001 to record all the remaining sonatas and to release them together with the nine symphonies. With one or two sessions a year where a number of sonatas were recorded in each, the work was completed in 2008. All the works of Beethoven for piano and orchestra including the Choral Fantasy were also recorded in January/February of 2008 with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit, the music director of the Warsaw Philharmonic.

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings. The transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven's Symphonies, originally recorded for EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of Beethoven were released by IBA and also made available in a box set. All the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York which include works by Boulez, Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky were also released. The present album features Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Pathetique, Moonlight, Waldstein, and Appassionata. IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.