Classical Music

At his recital in Schwetzingen in 1962, Wilhelm Kempff confirmed his unique ability to connect exploratory, dreamful piano music in a repertoire with a broad radius and to give it clear gradations in all matters of style. In the process, he did not take this opportunity in Schwetzingen to follow a programmatic routine related to season and career, as is common in the risk-free assortment of works by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert preferred by concert organizers. For the beginning of the series of pieces is likely to surprise even those familiar with Kempff's as a performer of wide-ranging sections of the piano repertoire. Rarely heard miniatures by Jean Philippe Rameau and Francois Couperin, forgotten by most practicing soloists, piano teachers and also the students following in their musical wake, show Kempff to be a musical acrobat and mystic of colors even on French territory.

For many decades the orchestras of the German broadcasting service SWR have worked together with many famous musicians from all over the world, including the outstanding pianists selected for this collection, among them Clara Haskil, Jörg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda, Alicia de Larrocha, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Géza Anda. Furthermore, Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903–1991) is regarded as one of the supreme keyboard masters of the 20th century and must feature in any comparative survey of performances of the central repertoire from Beethoven to Brahms. Annie Fischer (1914–1995), a pupil of Ernst von Dohnányi later went on to make some legendary recordings with Otto Klemperer. Friedrich Gulda (1930–2000) polarized the music scene by embracing the parallel worlds of classical music and jazz in equal measure. He was not only one of the most brilliant pianists of the 20th century with regard to tone and technique, but also one of the wittiest and most musically competent. For decades Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991) was seen as the leading interpreter of German music from Beethoven and Schubert through Schumann and Liszt to Brahms.

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertoire included Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, recording the complete sonatas of both composers. Wilhelm Kempff’s 78-rpm recordings were very much focused on Beethoven, as can be heard on seven previously issued APR discs, but this release presents everything by other composers he set down from the start of electrical recording until the war. Notable among the titles are four of his own Bach transcriptions and, revealing the pianist in an unexpected light, his own virtuosic elaboration of the Schubert/Liszt ‘Hark, Hark! The Lark’ transcription.

REVIEW:

There's something special about these recordings, something quite miraculous. In spite of the relatively primitive technology involved in these early electrical recordings, I had no trouble at all forgetting sonic imperfections, and zeroing in on a great master channeling great composers. The French Suite no. 5 of Bach, recorded in 1935, is the highlight of the disc; it's a masterful interpretation. I was in awe of this from the first time I heard it, since I had the strong feeling that Kempff was communicating his own awe.

-- Music for Several Instruments