Search - Emil Gilels :: Artists of the Century: The Giant

	Emil Gilels Artists of the Century: The Giant Genre: Classical Gilels is captured in full flight in these Moscow concert performances between 1965 and 1984. The first of the two generously filled discs offers his considerable skills as an interpreter of Mozart and Beethoven. No mincin... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Emil Gilels
Title: Artists of the Century: The Giant
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: RCA
Release Date: 6/6/2000
Album Type: Original recording remastered
Genre: Classical
Styles: Forms & Genres, Fantasies, Sonatas, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Modern, 20th, & 21st Century, Romantic (c.1820-1910), Symphonies
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPC: 743217552329

Synopsis

Amazon.com

Gilels is captured in full flight in these Moscow concert performances between 1965 and 1984. The first of the two generously filled discs offers his considerable skills as an interpreter of Mozart and Beethoven. No mincing around a porcelain, bewigged Mozart here; Gilels's is big, bold playing full of vitality and thrust, even in repose. His Beethoven is just as compelling, the Variations brought off with virtuoso aplomb and the high point reached in his richly introspective Adagio of the Pathétique and a rip-roaring finale of the Moonlight. On disc two, the Moments Musicaux are done with tonal beauty and vast dynamic range. At times, as in the fifth piece of the set, Gilels plays with a ferocity that threatens to overwhelm the music, but his dazzling virtuosity makes such moments forgivable. The Ravel works also get a burly treatment that's thrilling, if unidiomatic. Best are the Liszt and the Scriabin, powerful performances glowing with Romantic heat. An indispensable set. --Dan Davis

CD Reviews

Live is Best

Alan Spool | San Jose, CA USA | 01/03/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I cannot disagree with the previous reviewer more. The sound of the audience is trivial when compared with the living performances found on these 2 CDs. No airbrush here (mistakes are audible) to take the life out of the pianist, as so many studio recordings do. Clearly energized in these concert hall settings, Gilels plays his heart out, and with his talent that is saying much. The recording is also beautifully done. The concert halls are well reproduced on a good system, another way in which the fact that these performances were recorded live enhances the experience. I picked this recording up on a whim, but it is quite probably the best thing I bought in 2000. I heartily recommend it."

Mozart the great

Alan Spool | 09/10/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I heard other recordings of Mozart's k 310-none of them were so powerful and touching as Gilels'performance.Mozart and the other composers seem to be playing through Gilels. Sometimes I was distracted by the coughing and sneezing-some of those people sounded like they should have been in a hospital, not a theatre!-but the music is so great I could still listen spellbound."