Classical Music

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Schumann: Introduction and Al

The Turkish pianist Idil Biret was one of the greatest child prodigies of the 20th century. Her recital at the Boston Conservatory demonstrated that she is no less prodigious today. She played a long and demanding program with the power, concentration. 747313127276 NXS8571272.2 14654756 .00 14.99 .20 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 09/29/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/1/8/9/6/1556981.jpg 1 1 N SCHUMANN / STRAUSS / FRAGER / SKD / KEMPE STAATSKAPELLE DRESDEN EDITION 28 881488805352 PROL8053.2 14655517 .00 24.99 .48 PROFIL - G HAENSSLER COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 09/29/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/4/0/7/1557046.jpg 3 2 N KONTOMANOU,ELISABETH / ALLEN,GERI SECRET OF THE WIND Despite an obvious rapport, singer Elisabeth Kontomanou and pianist Geri Allen were not old friends when they met in France to lay down these tracks Kontomanou is based in Stockholm, while Allen is still in the states, a centerpiece of the University of Michigan's jazz faculty. The two met for the first time for a duet tribute to Billie Holiday in March 2011, at Montreal's annual Jazz en Rafale Festival. Geri Allen has long been considered the greatest jazz pianist since the 1980s, her work focused on furthering the legacy of Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk while retaining the gospel fervor of the blues. This program mixes traditional with new undertaking full-scale reimagining of iconic R&B themes like the opener, Marvin Gaye's God Is Love, and Curtis Mayfield's time-honored classic People Get Ready. 3760195730157 ONOT15.2 16491045 .00 20.99 .12 OUTNOTE RECORDS COMPACT DISCS POP JAZZ 05/08/2012 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/3/8/1/1971836.jpg 147 1 N RUDNER / WURTTEMBERGISCHE PHILHARMONIE REUTLINGEN FESTLICHES WEIHNACHTSKONZERT 4010276024705 PROL98635.2 16093973 .00 20.99 .22 PROFIL - G HAENSSLER COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHRISTMAS / CHANUKKAH 10/25/2011 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/3/0/8/0/1900803.jpg 10 1 N BEETHOVEN / BIRET / BILSO COMPLETE PNO CTOS Love of Beethoven' works threads through Biret' life like a red ribbon. Her studio recordings and live concerts show this in an unequivocal language... Next to the Piano Concertos, the Triple Concerto and the Choral Fantasy she has also recorded and perfo.

“A supreme mastery of tempi, sonorities, polyphony and of course technique permits Biret to embrace all the moods of the great Beethoven and gives her playing a symphonic depth rarely heard until now.”
— Le Nouvel Observateur (France) / H-L de la Grange

“The performances here truly represent a lifetime of musical thinking and are essential for serious Beethovenians.”
— All Music Guide (USA) / James Mannheim

“Love of Beethoven’s works threads through Biret’s life like a red ribbon. Her studio recordings and live concerts show this in an unequivocal language…Next to the Piano Concertos, the Triple Concerto and the Choral Fantasy she has also recorded and performed on stage all the Piano Sonatas and Symphony Transcriptions becoming perhaps the only artist to reach this level of completeness…This knowledge of Beethoven one hears in every nuance in Idil Biret’s playing.”
— Piano News (Germany) / Carsten Dürer

“From the outset of the 1st Symphony one feels that Idil 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 her big line, and yet is thankfully sparing in her use of fortissimos…The piano tone is sumptuous. Biret’s gentle and almost sensuous sonorities are really captivating…This is a remarkable achievement.”
— Gramophone (UK) / J. Methuen-Campbell

“Biret’s concertos are quite classical in approach. Her articulation is crisp and wonderfully clear, rhythm is firmly controlled, and extremes are avoided. As a result the playing is never pushed, either by excessive speed or wide dynamics. The moderate tempos allow lots of detail to come through, and we find once again the elegance and beauty of Beethoven.The Bilkent Symphony, in Antoni Wit’s hands, plays musically, with a fine sense of style.”
— American Record Guide / Paul L Althouse

“Idil Biret not only recorded all nine of the Beethoven symphonies in less than a year but, in a superhuman feat which astounded all those who know about music, she also publicly performed all of them in four recitals at the Montpellier festival in France. To learn and also memorise scores of such length and difficulty in such a short time is a mind-bogglingachievement.”
— Fonoforum (Germany) / Peter Cossé

Love of Beethoven' works threads through Biret' life like a red ribbon. Her studio recordings and live concerts show this in an unequivocal language... Next to the Piano Concertos, the Triple Concerto and the Choral Fantasy she has also recorded and perfo. 747313306930 IBRA8503069.2 16093249 .00 25.99 .69 IDIL BIRET ARCHIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 10/25/2011 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/8/6/5/0/1900568.jpg 3 3 N BEETHOVEN / BIRET COMPLETE PNO Love of Beethoven' works threads through Biret' life like a red ribbon. Her studio recordings and live concerts show this in an unequivocal language... Next to the Piano Concertos, the Triple Concerto and the Choral Fantasy she has also recorded and perfo.

Nearly a quarter century separates the two recordings of the Turkish pianist, who with the Paganini Etudes demonstrates what a brilliant virtuoso she was, and with the Liszt Sonata-recorded in 2010-shows that she still is.

“The Turkish pianist Idil Biret celebrated her 75th birthday in November 2016. To approach and honor this milestone, her own label (IBA), distributed by the now-venerable Naxos, has been releasing a series of comprehensive sets traversing her entire career. The word “comprehensive” is not used lightly; in this set alone, the ninth in the series, we hear performances from her earliest radio broadcasts in 1949 to July of 2016, allowing Biret’s changing approaches to these composers’ works full documentation and exploration; it’s quite a journey, and I have heard no other pianist that has made the complex but still intuitively simple interpretive decisions Biret has made. With these enduring compositions as multisided sculptures to be reexamined, the set constitutes a voyage through the developing art of a child prodigy. It goes a long way toward answering questions about where the preternaturally gifted interpreter goes when convention and career opportunity become subservient to artistic pursuit. May it be an example to those embarking on a similar journey.” (Prof. Marc Medwin)

Especially with Beethoven Idil Biret proved herself a great artist with breathtaking depth of expression and dramatic performing power... The big applause was fully deserved. KURIER "Biret grasps the size of Beethoven' style.

After making her first solo piano LP recording in 1959 at the age of seventeen, Idil Biret had to wait nearly three decades before recording with an orchestra in a studio. In 1988 she recorded in London the 2nd and 4th Piano Concertos of Saint-Saens with the legendary Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by James Loughran. The Philharmonia Orchestra was established after WWII and employed extensively by another legend of music, the great producer Walter Legge, to make recordings for EMI/HMV. It was led by some of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century, such as Furtwangler, Toscanini, Richard Strauss, and Karajan. Many great pianists had recorded with this orchestra. During the next twenty-five years Biret made recordings of over sixty works for piano and orchestra in studio and at concerts under the baton of eminent conductors including Jean Fournet, Emil Tabakov, and Toshi Shimada. All of these have been released on Naxos and IBA under Naxos catalogue numbers. Additionally, live recordings of other piano concertos from Biret's concertos from 1954 onwards with eminent orchestras are available as well. All of the aforementioned are included in this enormous release.

On 22 November 1963 at Idil Biret's US debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf she played Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto. The concert was scheduled for 2.00pm. The tragic death of President Kennedy was announced during the concert. Despite the electrified atmosphere which can be sensed in the recording, the audience, many in tears, then heard a stunning performance of the concerto which was broadcast live to the nation from Boston and rebroadcast the next day from New York - "There was a buoyant quality to Idil Biret's playing, a great warmth of tone was in no way dispelled by her technical skill... she gave us power without a bang, emotion without a sentimental tear. There is no question that Miss Biret is one of the most extraordinary musicians and many of her listeners testified to her artistry by giving her a standing ovation."

“We are in the presence of one of the greatest virtuosos of our time. I do not see in her generation any other pianist who possesses an equal mastery of the keyboard, in the service of such a mature mind so rich in imagination.”
— Marc Pincherle Nouvelles Litteraires, France 1959

“No doubt remained as soon as the piano began to reverberate: on the stage was a first class musician and a maestro. A complete freedom went hand in hand with Idil Biret’s interpretations. One has the feeling that she plays as easily as she breathes. With an extraordinary plasticity, she moulds each musical phrase like wax with her fingers. But, the freedom in Miss Biret’s interpretation is not accidental. Her attitude towards the works she is playing is the result of meditation. The art of Idil Biret gives joy and emotion.”
– D. Blagoy SOVIETSKAIA KULTURA – USSR 1960

“All the works [on this LP] require a pianist of true class, because each of them presents challenges demanding something quite different from traditional technique. It has to be said that the young Idil Biret exceeds all expectations. This Turkish artist appeared in Brussels (1959) at the tender age of eighteen. Her virtuosity is astonishing, encompassing clarity, rhythmical rigour, precision and strength or delicacy, as required. She can play at great speed and maintain runs of impeccable luminosity. Her flexible touch conjures a thousand surprising effects; some notes and chords explode like whip-cracks, while others caress the keys, and there is an extraordinary purity to her polyphonic playing. In the hands of an artist of such superior qualities, the very particular characteristics of both Bartók’s and Prokofiev’s piano writing are brought out to the full. Taking into account her passionate vitality and lively musical intelligence as well, I believe her talent offers more than enough to be met not simply with satisfaction but with genuine enthusiasm.”
– Jacques Stehman, LA REVUE DES DISQUES (Belgium) 1962

“This is the most successful direct-to-disc piano recording I have heard. Having an artist as sensitive and accomplished as Idil Biret at the keyboard is an enormous help. Her fluency seems limitless and her ability to control, even at the softest dynamics, is all too rare these days…Hers is a bona fide virtuoso rendition.”
– HIGH FIDELITY – USA 1977

The Turkish pianist Idil Biret was one of the greatest child prodigies of the 20th century. Her recital at the Boston Conservatory demonstrated that she is no less prodigious today. She played a long and demanding program with the power, concentration. 747313127177 NXS8571271.2 14507984 .00 14.99 .21 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 06/30/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/2/8/2/5/1525282.jpg 4 1 N FAURE / RAVEL / HERSANT / MOZART / TRIO CERES TRIO CERES 812864018226 OEHM730.2 14554551 .00 14.99 .23 OEHMS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 06/30/2009 03/02/2026 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/9/2/5/1525296.jpg 92 1 N DUN / AUDI / WORKMAN / CASTLE / RICHARDSON / LUNDY MARCO POLO Charles Workman, Sarah Castle, Stephen Richardson, and Nancy Allen Lundy star in this production of the Tan Dun opera with the composer conducting the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Cappella Amsterdam. 809478070290 BOPU7029BR 14508608 .00 42.99 .25 BBC / OPUS ARTE BLU-RAY CLASSICAL OPERA / OPERETTA / ORATORIO 06/30/2009 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/3/4/3/5/1525343.jpg 66 1 N IRELAND / ROWLANDS PIANO MUSIC 5020926311221 LYR3112.2 13809003 .00 37.99 .45 LYRITA COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 08/12/2008 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/0/1/9/8/3098910.jpg 7 3 N BRAHMS / WEITHAAS / AVENHAUS VIOLIN SONATAS 4260085530595 CAVM8553059.2 13809690 .00 19.99 .25 CAVI-MUSIC COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 08/12/2008 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/b/500/6/5/7/3/1393756.jpg 2 1 N BACH,J.S. / SCHREIER / BSO / SANDERLING GREATEST WORKS 782124842529 BLN184252.2 13834302 .00 18.99 .22 BERLIN CLASSICS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 08/12/2008 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/8/7/7/3/1393778.jpg 2 2 N CRUMB / INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE COMPLETE GEORGE CRUMB EDITION 12 090404926129 BRI9261.2 13950026 .00 18.99 .25 BRIDGE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 09/09/2008 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/66/1276966-2552981.jpg 2 1 N PINK TURTLE POP IN SWING 3448960250320 FRAS503.2 14908286 .00 20.99 .25 FREMEAUX & ASSOC. FR COMPACT DISCS POP JAZZ 01/12/2010 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/1/5/6/9/1389651.jpg 1 1 N KRENEK / KORZHEV PIANO SONATAS NOS. 2 & 4 811691011295 PNX129.2 13853112 .00 18.99 .21 PHOENIX EDITION COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 08/26/2008 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/0/4/4/2/1402440.jpg 14 1 N LIEUWEN / LARSEN / ENHAKE ENSEMBLE / RYAN GULFSTREAM: AMERICAN CHAMBER MUSIC Libby Larsen' Rodeo Queen of Heaven takes it's inspiration from religious iconography given a contemporary twist-a painting of a Madonna with gun-in a rhythmically vivacious tableau. Peter Lieuwen presents an aural portrait of the Gulfstream. 636943969229 NAAC8559692.2 16182592 .00 19.99 .20 NAXOS AMERICAN COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 11/15/2011 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/7/3/2/8/1908237.jpg 3 1 N GREIG COMP ORCH WORKS Grieg: Complete Orchestral Works - This boxed set of Grieg's complete orchestral works is a celebration of the composer's rich and multifaceted aesthetic. Grieg was an idealistic humanist whose music and writings underlined a harmony between humans and nature. The sense of nostalgia and 'postcard lyricism' often associated with him belies the wild energy also present in his music-it's primeval force, pessimistic emotions and tempestuous Romanticism. Thanks to Bjarte Engeset's carefully researched and widely admired performances, Grieg's complex musical universe can here be appreciated in full. 747313801534 NXS508015.2 26374741 .00 56.99 .82 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 05/27/2014 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/c/500/9/3/2/8/1908239.jpg 6 8 Y LISZT / BIRET 12 GRANDES ETUDES S 138: SOLO EDITION 3 Idil Biret' new Liszt album prompts a reappraisal of her extraordinary talent... in her Liszt Sonata... you will hear playing of a formidable power and assurance... There is no mistaking her lightning reflexes in the second of the Paganini Etudes and her vi.

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.

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.

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 current album features showcases her interpretations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Glazunov’s Piano Sonata No. 2, recorded in March 2017, and Balakirev’s Islamey “Oriental Fantasy,” recorded in concert at the Lille Festival 1993.

This newest release from the Naxos Idil Biret archive features the works of Claude Debussy. "For well versed insiders of music, Idil Biret is since years a trusted, respected and beloved artist... The discipline of her powerful grasp and approach of the music has led, especially for works of our century, to a stylistic congruence between the written score and the interpretation...(that) makes us all aware of an outstanding artistic potency of the highest standards of excellence!" (DIE WELT, Germany 1979) "Idil Biret takes the opening movement of Debussy's Children's Corner very briskly and impetuously, but the performance then settles down and is sensitive and well characterized, especially the closing Golliwog's Cakewalk. Good recording and recommendable couplings too." (PENGUIN GUIDE, England 2009) "There is no question whatever that Biret's reading of the Ravel Gaspard de la nuit takes it's place among the most delicately wrought Ravel interpretations by any of the many great pianists renowned for their performances of French piano music." (SOHO WEEKLY NEWS, USA 1977)

This new release is part of the Best Loved series, covering a substantial selection of iconic and entertaining works from the Naxos catalogue. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists. Includes Beethoven’s Für Elise, Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C sharp minor, and works by John Field and Schumann, taken from top recordings such as Idil Biret’s acclaimed Chopin edition, Jeno Jandó’s Schubert Impromptus (8.550260), and Boris Giltburg’s Beethoven Sonatas (8.573400).

Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) was born in the village of Zelazowa Wola in Mazovia, the son of a French father and a Polish mother. This mixed heritage would weave like a double helix through Chopin's career as a composer-pianist. Following studies at Warsaw Conservatory (1826-29) and 've given concerts in Warsaw and Vienna (1829-30), Chopin settled in Paris in 1831. His most famous romantic liaison was with Aurore Dude Vant (aka novelist George Sand), the years 1838- 1847 coinciding with his most productive period. Their relationship ended shortly after, Chopin visited Britain in 1848, where his already precarious health Deteriorated. Almost 3,000 people attended his funeral the following year at the Madelaine in Paris though he Remained a Polish patriot Throughout his short life, he Became a French citizen. Although educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Clementi, and a great admirer of Bach, his music includes works based on both French and Polish models, as well as some innovations. Among the former May be Counted his piano sonatas; Bach's counterpoint found it's way (albeit metamorphosed) into his own multilayered music; his many Viennese Waltzes are more Parisian than; Polonaises and Mazurkas raised his thesis Polish dance forms to Unprecedented Heights or artistic achievement. Similarly, he transformed, the Nocturne, Initially popularized by the Irish-born Russian-based John Field, into a form much more Closely associated with himself. His Ballades, Preludes and Etudes were path-breaking and immensely influential. Two piano concertos, some songs and chamber works aside, he composed Exclusively for the solo piano and preferred to perform at salons privately rather than in public concerts.

HINDEMITH Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Two Harps, op. 49. The Four Temperaments. Piano Music with Orchestra (for Piano Left Hand), op. 29. Kammermusik No. 2 for Piano, Quartet, and Brass, op. 36/1. Piano Concerto • Idil Biret (pn); Toshiyuki Shimada, cond; Yale SO • NAXOS 8.573201-02 (2 CDs: 136:15)


Idil Biret will be no stranger to readers; as one of Naxos’s most reliable house artists, she has recorded vast amounts of the piano repertoire for the label. The works on this two-CD set, however, may not be as familiar as she is. With the exception of The Four Temperaments , which has gained somewhat of a foothold on record and as a concert work—Hindemith was originally commissioned by George Balanchine in 1940 to produce a score for a ballet—the other four works on these discs may be new to all but those who are Hindemith devotees.


The title of the album, The Complete Piano Concertos , stretches the definition a bit of what constitutes a concerto, but Hindemith’s habit of writing for unusual combinations of instruments and setting them in somewhat unorthodox forms can make classifying his works subject to interpretation.


The program opens with the Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Two Harps, commissioned by Elizabeth Coolidge Sprague and composed in 1930. The brass instruments called for in the “Brass” of the work’s title are four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, and tuba. In four movements, the piece is best described as being in Hindemith’s neobaroque style.


The Theme with Four Variations for Piano and Strings, commonly referred to as just The Four Temperaments , though originally intended to be choreographed for a ballet, works well as a concert piece because essentially it can be seen as a four-movement symphony with an introduction. The introduction in this case is the statement of the theme. Four variations (movements) follow, each representing one of the four temperaments or medieval humors—black bile for the melancholic, blood for the sanguine, phlegm for the phlegmatic, and yellow bile for the choleric. The bodily fluids are enough to conjure a scene from the embalming room in a mortuary, but Hindemith’s music is full of life and gorgeous sonorities.


As mentioned above, this is the main work in which Biret and the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s strings run into some significant competition in the numbers game. Two versions that have been long on my shelf are those by Carol Rosenberger with the strings of the Royal Philharmonic on Delos and Howard Shelley with the strings of BBC Philharmonic on Chandos. Biret on the present recording acquits herself well in the solo piano part, but the string players of the Yale orchestra, an ensemble made up of the university’s undergraduate students don’t play with quite the coordination and richness of tone as do their professional counterparts across the Pond.


Hindemith, like Ravel, was commissioned to write a piano work for the left hand by Paul Wittgenstein, the pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War. Quite a few other composers were enlisted in the enterprise as well, including Britten, Kornold, Prokofiev, and Richard Strauss. They all complied, but Wittgenstein ended up not performing all the works he solicited. Hindemith’s contribution was Piano Music with Orchestra (for Piano Left Hand) composed in 1923. It has gained nowhere near the exposure of Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand; in fact, at the moment ArkivMusic lists only one other recording besides this one, a 2008 live performance by Leon Fleisher with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra led by Christoph Eschenbach.


The Hindemith is a captivating score with a perky, jazzy first movement; a catchy, ostinato-driven second movement that periodically lapses into march-like, military fanfares; a haunting third movement in which the piano and a solo English horn (then later a solo flute) engage in a long, slow, lonely dance; and a Finale that once again is in the composer’s best neobaroque style.


The Kammermusik No. 2, for Piano, Quartet, and Brass, is the second in a series of seven Kammermusik works Hindemith promised to deliver to conductor Hermann Scherchen, who took an interest in promoting new music by contemporary composers of the period. It’s a bit difficult to categorize these works, for no two of them are scored for the same combination of instruments, but all of them feature a solo instrument and a varied ensemble of 11 or more players. Because the solo instrument—whether piano, cello, violin, viola, viola d’amore, or organ—is treated as it would be in a concerto, the seven works are loosely classified as chamber concertos, but the number of instruments in the orchestra pushes the definition of “chamber.” To confuse matters further, sandwiched in between the first and third of these seven Kammermusik scores, is a lone stray, if you will, that goes by the title, Kleine Kammermusik , so-called because it is scored for wind quintet with no soloist; yet it’s sometimes lumped together with its larger-scaled Kammermusik cousins.


All together then there are eight of these works, but the only recorded version I’m aware of that includes the whole shebang—and it’s an outstanding one—is the two-disc set by Riccardo Chailly leading members of the Royal Concertgebouw on Decca. If one or more readers are wondering why I’m omitting the equally excellent set by Claudio Abbado with members of the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, it’s because that set, as well as all the others listed, include only the seven Kammermusik entries. Abbado fills out his set leading violist Tabea Zimmermann in an incomparably beautiful performance of Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher . But Chailly’s set, as far as I know, is unique in being the only one to include the lone Kleine Kammermusik score for wind quintet.


Perhaps it’s the other surveys that make more sense, because the Kleine Kammermusik is really a fish out of water that doesn’t go with the seven Kammermusik works. Still, it’s too delightful a piece to be without, and stand-alone recordings of it are mostly included on programs of wind quintet works by a mix of composers, though one, on Sony, does offer an all-Hindemith program of the composer’s other wind works.


Most of the Kammermusik scores fall into Hindemith’s neobaroque style, for which reason they have sometimes been branded the “ Brandenburg s of the 20th century.” I wouldn’t push that analogy too far, though, for it may be apt to the extent that the writing is contrapuntal in nature and that each concerto is scored for a different combination of instruments, but in harmonic, rhythmic, and textural makeup the music is very Modernistic. This is not the type of neobaroque treatment one hears in a work like Stravinsky’s Pulcinella , which really is based on late Baroque and very early Classical models.


Finally, we come to Hindemith’s formally titled Piano Concerto of 1945, premiered by George Szell, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the pianist for whom the piece was written, Jesús Maria Sanromá. Hindemith composed the Concerto while vacationing in Maine and Connecticut. Of the five works on the disc, this is the latest written and, frankly, if you’re not already familiar with the piece, it’s the one that’s likely to take three or four hearings before you warm to it. It’s not that its musical language is any more Modernistic or difficult to comprehend than what has gone before; rather, it’s that the work seems to proceed episodically, with sections following each other that don’t seem, on the surface at least, to relate. Thus, the logic of the score is elusive.


Current competition is slim, and what there is of it is mostly not very current, with a 1948 performance led by Sergiu Celibidache and a First Edition recording by the Louisville Orchestra led by Lawrence Leighton Smith. The most recent version—aside from the one at hand—is by Werner Andreas Albert leading the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra on CPO, and even that one dates back more than a decade.


For Hindemith fans, this new Naxos collection of the composer’s complete works featuring a solo piano in combination with various instrumental ensembles will make an excellent addition to your collection, even if you already have some of these works on other recordings. For Hindemith novices and the curious, at Naxos’s bargain prices, this new two-disc set offers much very attractive and enjoyable music in excellent performances, and it may just inspire you to explore more of Hindemith’s output. Recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

The centerpiece of the Bach collection is a 2015 recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the so- called old testament of piano music, a series of 48 preludes and fugues in all of the piano's possible keys. A look at that monumental collection's recorded history could serve as a compendium of piano performance styles through the last 120 years. Unsurprisingly, Biret conforms to none, and perhaps the best way to describe her interpretations is orchestral. As the historically informed Baroque practitioners prescribe, each prelude and fugue certainly has a distinct character, but those long lines emerge with the definition of strings, brass or winds, lush and strident by turn. Trills are mellow and exquisitely shaped, and a wealth of detail is present but never exaggerated. Biret's Bach is a cliff wall to be scaled, a peak to be reached and an aspiration to be achieved.

During the 200th anniversary of the first performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, in 2024, IBA is releasing a commemorative limited edition on LP, Idil Biret's performance of the symphony as transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt, originally recorded for EMI and published in a box set of 6LPs with all nine symphonies in 1986. The Choral Fantasy for Piano, Orchestra and Chorus, considered a precursor to the 9th Symphony, is also included in the set.

With this LP, IBA is beginning to release a new series of live concert recordings from the immense sound/video archive of Idil Biret from the 1950s to 2020. On the first LP, Schumann's Fantasie Op. 17 from the New York concert at Alice Tully Hall in 1972 and Liszt's Sonata in B minor from the Paris concert at Salle Gaveau in 1978 are included. These two performances of the works were significant milestones in Biret's concert career, opening up to her the stages of the Soviet Union and East Germany.

Idil Biret's first concerto recording

With Pierre Boulez's 2nd Piano Sonata Idil Biret not only makes her American recording debut, but also presents the first U.S. recording of this important contemporary work. Composed in 1948, this sonata occupies a position that exerted a causative influence upon Boulez's subsequent music. It's experimental and ground-breaking nature may be better understood if one regards it as having grown out of a response to Webern's Variations (1936), the companion piece on this album. The rigid, geometric patterns of Webern's work, the classical purity of it's encompassing organization, seems to have served as a base of departure for Boulez's broadened structures that are equally rigid but incomparably more complex. It is this very complexity that conceals the strict framework of the entire composition and projects it as the product of an ardent improvisatory impetus. It demands from it's interpreter a similar approach, along with technical prowess and intellectual control of the highest order. It was only a matter of course that this work, together with influences emanating from other sources (chiefly John Cage), should lead the path not only to open-form and aleatory compositions, including Boulez's own 3rd Piano Sonata, but also, through it's new pianistic language, urge the development of a whole new generation of virtuoso pianists. (Ilhan Mimaroglu, 1973)

This LP is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Ersin Onay, the Dean of the Music Faculty of Bilkent University who organised the Ravel Concertos performances of Idil Biret with maestro Jean Fournet in the 1990s

After listening for a while (to orchestral music on the radio) Idil would detect the main melody and then play it on the piano with one finger. Afterwards, when she reached the age of four, she would play these with two hands and with the correct harmony. Bach preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier, for example, which even the talented musicians took considerable time to study and memorise, were mastered by Idil in only a few days after listening once or twice, after which she would play these without a single wrong note. (Leman Biret, 1988)

Bach published during his lifetime four volumes of keyboard pieces under the title Clavierubung which began with a set of six Partitas, published between 1726 and 1731. The first of the set was the Partita No. 1 in B flat major. The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, was apparently written during Bach's time at Cothen, probably about 1720, and revised in Leipzig about 1730. The six English Suites, the 3rd being included here, have nothing particularly English about them, except their title. They were written perhaps in Weimar in about 1715 or possibly during Bach's period at Cothen. Bach brought together a set of five French Suites, of which the 5th is Biret's favourite, later augmented to six and forming part of the Clavierbuchlein for Anna Magdalena, his second wife. The Italian Concerto in F major was published in 1735 in the second volume of the Clavierubungen, with the original title Concerto nach Italienischen Gusto. It reflects the style of the Venetian solo concertos by Vivaldi.

The Schwetzingen Festival concerts were dedicated to Chopin in 1999 on the 150th anniversary of his death. Four pianists were invited to the event. Three of them, Lilya Zilberstein, Anatole Ugorski and Andrei Gavrilov were 'stars' of Deutsche Grammophon. The fourth was Idil Biret who had not attained 'star' status as it was only available to those with contracts with the so-called "major" record labels. But, she had been the first pianist ever to record the complete works of Chopin for solo piano and with piano and orchestra for Naxos, received a Grand Prix du Disque Frederic Chopin in Warsaw in 1995 for this and was to be decorated with one of the highest orders of Poland by President Kaczynsky in 2007. Idil Biret did something no other pianist could do. Dr. Peter Stieber wrote: "Your own Chopin evening was then the breath-taking testimony of a great artist. We all could experience together how in your hands the wonderful music of Chopin begun truly to blossom."

Idil Biret was introduced very early to the music of Bach. At the age of three she was trying to play from ear the preludes of Bach from the Well Tempered Clavier which her mother played on their upright piano and drawing his picture in her note book. In her memoires, Idil's mother Leman Biret writes: "After listening for a while to orchestral music on the radio Idil would detect the main melody and then play it on the piano with one finger. Afterwards, when she reached the age of four, she would play these on the piano with two hands and with the correct harmony. Bach preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier, for example, which even the talented musicians took considerable time to study and memorise, were mastered by Idil in only a few days after listening once or twice, after which she would play these without a single wrong note. "Then, at the age of four her teacher Mithat Fenmen played for Idil on an 78rpm record by Edwin Fischer the Prelude and Fugue in F minor from the Well Tempered Clavier Book II. She says that Bach's music has been a part of her life ever since that day. In 1946, at the age of five, she played the D Minor Piano Concerto of Bach with a string quartet at the Ankara Radio, a work that would be a staple of her concert programs from then on. "The remarkable evening began with D Minor Piano Concerto of J.S. Bach. The concerto required, from the very first measure, agile, precise dexterity from the pianist. Idil Biret took the challenge with a ravishing pulse which carried one away. How this artist combines the strict discipline of the score with the capacity to build sovereign forms is exemplary. Energetically, she drove the flanking Allegro movements forward and dwelled on the song like beauties of the Adagio with concentrated abandon." Dietrich Wolf DRESDNER NEUESTE NACHRICHTEN (Germany) 1996

The recordings of Prokofiev's Sonatas No. 9, 8 and 4 are derived from radio broadcasts in Germany (1964), Switzerland (1971) and Turkey (1973) and that of the Toccata from a Soviet Union radio broadcast of Biret's first Moscow recital during her sixteen concert tour of the USSR in 1960 at the age of nineteen. The recording of Piano Sonata No. 2, the second recording of Sonata No. 7, both made direct-to-disc in 1977 at the RCA Studio in New York, and the Swiss, German, Turkish and Soviet radio recordings are all unedited single takes.