Search - Emil Gilels :: Emil Gilels

A Brilliant Bargain!!

Andre Gauthier | 11/19/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This set contains 10 CDs of Emil Gilels' recordings from Russia during the late Stalin and early Kruschev era up to the truly chilly Cold War period of 1984 I had heard this great artist every time he came to New York starting in the mid 70s until his death. I also heard him in Europe quite often. He was never less than a giant of the keyboard, yet he was capable of playing Scarlatti sonatas with the likes of Michelangeli and Horowitz. Eight of the Ten discs contain live solo concerts while the other two are devoted to live concerti. It is simply beyond the scope of most pianists at any time in their career to play so much repertoire and play it so well regardless of their age. I recall a Schumann "Carnival" in New York that went from the most subtle tones to the final march which had the lid of the Steinway wagging in the air as though it were about to fall down! And yet the sound was never of pounding, just a huge wall of piano harmony filling the entire hall.



I'll dwell only on the two Concerti that make this a set to own just by their presence. The first is of course the Tchaikovsky first concerto with Kyril Kondrashin conducting. This is one of the finest Tchaikovsky 1sts I've ever heard. It is hard biting and fast, and yet in the slower sections it has a fluidity that nobody and I mean NOBODY else seems to match. The big moments are played at Argerich tempi (or should that be said the other way around) but have a solidity of sound that she never ever achieves in her recordings. He was the posessor of a tidal wave technique that no one came close to at its largest.



The same sort of performance greets the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto. It is on the same CD and is as go for broke as almost anyone I can think of. There will always be other pianists who do this or that section a bit faster or even slower, but no one combines an ultimate sort of musicality with the grandest of Russian techniques. I wonder if Rachmaninoff ever heard Gilels' recordings of his music? Again, this so far out does the over rated playing of Argerich that I see no point in going further with the comparison.



The other concerti are the Liszt First, the Chopin First and the Chopin Andante Spianato with Orchestra. Again the conductor is Kondrashin. I would just be repeating myself going into these pieces one by one.



The solo playing is a collectors dream, ranging from the Liszt Sonata to a set of Prokofiev sonatas and checks in with Schumann, Debussy, Scriabin, late Brahms, von Weber, and a full CD of both Chopin sonatas. (The third is played in 1977, the same time he played it in New York.) The second is from a live 1949 recording.



Adding to all this praise comes a price of less than $5 per CD. I believe I payed between 35 and 40 dollars from a used dealer on Amazon and the box had never been opened. What a deal!"