Beyond being the 90th anniversary of his birth in 2006, there seemed no other reason for Deutsche Grammophon to release so many splendid collections of recordings by Emil Gilels, the Soviet titan of the keyboard. It's reason enough. Following a two-disc set of Gilels' early recordings and a nine-disc set of his Beethoven sonatas, DG released this two-disc set of Gilels' Mozart recordings and it is a wonderful addition. The first disc here contains a live recording of a 1970 solo recital in the Mozarteum Salzburg, while the ...
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Beyond being the 90th anniversary of his birth in 2006, there seemed no other reason for Deutsche Grammophon to release so many splendid collections of recordings by Emil Gilels, the Soviet titan of the keyboard. It's reason enough. Following a two-disc set of Gilels' early recordings and a nine-disc set of his Beethoven sonatas, DG released this two-disc set of Gilels' Mozart recordings and it is a wonderful addition. The first disc here contains a live recording of a 1970 solo recital in the Mozarteum Salzburg, while the second features a combination of 1973 recordings of the B flat major Concerto with Karl Böhm and the double Concerto in E flat major with his daughter Elena. Gilels' solo recital is stunning. The elegant phrasing and supple power of his B flat major Sonata are supremely graceful. Even better are the expressive depths of his D minor Fantasia. But best of all is the lyrical tragedy of his A minor Sonata. Amazingly, Gilels' concerto recordings are in some ways better yet. With Böhm and...
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