Shura Cherkassky - The Complete HMV Recordings (1956-1958) [2009]

• Title: The Complete HMV Recordings
  
• Year Of Release: 1956-1958 [2009]
  
• Label: First Hand Records [FHR04]
  
• Genre: Classical
  
• Quality: FLAC (*tracks, scans)
  
• Total Time: 01:58:51
  
• Total Size: 657 mb (+3%rec.)
  
• WebSite: Album Preview
  

Shura Cherkassky’s piano playing was tantalising in a way that set him apart from his contemporaries. He was his own man and approached the piano with an individuality that was spontaneous and charismatic. His all-embracing approach to the repertoire, though, drew the suspicion of self-professed ‘serious’ music lovers, who refused to recognise that his interpretations of the great masterworks of the repertoire were just as effective and valid as that of his more heavyweight contemporaries — and that frequently he played them better. As a concerto player, when working with a sufficiently alert and experienced conductor, he had no peer. For him the essence of music lay in the beauty of melody. Believing the harmony provided by the accompaniment should enrich the melody and not detract from it, he gave a clear delineation of the music so that the listener had no difficulty in recognising its components. This clarity in his playing was the result of his rigorous approach to preparing for a performance. Although he was often spoken of as one of the last representatives of the Golden Age of Pianism, in many ways this was misleading, since his style of playing was essentially his own and was not in any sense caught in a time warp. True, he had been greatly influenced by his teacher Josef Hofmann, but the two were extraordinarily different in temperament. The film clips that we have of Hofmann playing show a pianist of great physical relaxation at the keyboard ; this is in direct contrast to Cherkassky’s meticulously controlled approach, with his constant visual checking of the position of his hands.
David Murphy, First hand Records, 2009 (from the booklet)


Tracks:

CD 1:

Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
1 Chaconne (from Partita n° 2 in D minor, for Solo Violin, BWV 1004) 15:00

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
2 Bagatelle n° 1 in G minor, Op. 119 2:13

Franz Schubert
(1797-1828)
3 Impromptu n° 4 in A-Flat major, D. 899 (Op. 90, n° 4) 6:10

Frédéric Chopin
(1810-1849)
4 Mazurka n° 7 in F minor, Op. 7, n° 3 2:21
5 Waltz n° 1 in E-Flat major, Op. 18 "Grande Valse brillante" 4:57
6 Nocturne n° 8 in D-Flat major, Op. 27, n° 2 6:07
7 Ballade n° 2 in F major, Op. 38 6:50

Franz Liszt
(1811-1886)
9 Hugarian Rhapsody n° 13 in A minor, S 244 8:01
10 Valse de l'Opéra "Faust" (Gounod), S 407 9:12


CD 2:

Henry Litolff
(1818-1891)
1 Scherzo (from Concerto Symphonique n° 4, Op. 102) 7:59

Camille Saint-Saëns
(1835-1914)
2 Le Cygne (from Le Carnaval des animaux) 2:49

Anatoly Lyadov
(1855-1914)
3 A Musical Snuffbox, Op. 32 2:21

Serguei Rachmaninov
(1873-1943)
Ten Preludes, Op. 23
4 N° 4 in G minor 3:55
5 N° 2 in B-Flat major 3:27

George Gershwin
(1898-1937)
Three Preludes
6 N° 1 in B-Flat major 1:26
7 N° 2 in C-Sharp minor 3:32
8 N° 3 in E-Flat minor 1:11

Francis Poulenc
(1899-1963)
9 Toccata (from Trois pièces) 2:13

Abram Chasins
(1903-1987)
Three Chinese Pieces
10 N° 1. A Shangai Tragedy, Op. 7, n° 1 5:16
9 N° 2. Flirtation in a Chinese Garden, Op. 5 2:04
12 N° 3. Rush Hour in Hong King 1:20


Appendix

George Gershwin
(1898-1937)
Three Preludes
13 N° 1 in B-Flat major 1:37
14 N° 2 in C-Sharp minor 3:14
15 N° 3 in E-Flat minor 1:14

Frédéric Chopin
(1810-1849)
16 Ballade n° 3 in A-Flat major, Op. 37 7:15

Personnel:

Shura Cherkassky - p
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm Sargent - dir. [Cd. 2, # 1]

Download:

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Classical | Oldies | FLAC / APE

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