Rudolf Firkusny - Rudolf Firkusny Edition (12CD Box Set) (2024)

From a landmark Janacek album to a previously unreleased Schubert/Mozart recording, this collection presents the Deutsche Grammophon, British and American Decca and Westminster Legacy of Rudolf Firkusny (1912-1994), hailed by Stereo Review as "the outstanding champion of Czech piano music on the international circuit. .

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Thirty years after his death (on July 19, 1994), there are still works in the piano repertoire that have been indelibly associated with the artistry of Rudolf Firkusny: especially the piano works of Leos Janacek, whom Firkusny knew as a young student in Prague. The pianist made his US debut in 1941 when he played not a repertoire war horse, but the neglected piano concerto of Dvorak under Sir Thomas Beecham. Firkusny made six recordings of the concerto over the course of a long career; the newly remastered Westminster version was produced in 1963 and directed by Lazslo Somogyi and has since often been placed at the forefront of the work's discography along with the recorded version Sviatoslav Richter and Carlos Kleiber.

Firkusny's 1960 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition also drew a favorable comparison with Richter for his plainly spoken virtuosity. At that time, it seemed to listeners that the pianist's patrician technique and finely forged musicality were rounded off by a new passion for his playing in the middle of his career. Although plate labels tended toward the pigeon hole Firkusny in the Czech repertoire, his sympathies were great, as the span of this set suggests. His 1973 recording of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto on Decca (with the New Philharmonia under Uri Segal) was forgotten, although reviewers at the time thought it was finer than the more well-known Capitol recording with William Steinberg.

A 1974 album of sonatas highlights his Beethovenian credentials, although he had already established them on Decca in a partnership with violinist Erica Morini who produced four albums. This eloquence set shows the truth of Tully Potter's judgment: "Of all the remarkable Czech pianists of the twentieth century, Firkusny was certainly the greatest."

Perhaps most valuable is the recording of previously unreleased recordings of Mozart's Dupont Variations and Schubert's Last Piano Sonata in B-Flat D.960. These were manufactured in January 1963 for the American branch Decca but then kept for unknown reasons. They present Firkusny at the peak of his powers, his phrasing typically natural and unobtrusive. An essay by Jed Distler interviews Firkusny's life and career as part of the albums newly remastered in this Original Jackets collection.