From solo pianists to double orchestras
This month’s round-up focuses on keyboard greats, Strauss and Haydn
A grande dame of the piano, Cécile Ousset’s recording career at the keyboard took a number of turns. The Complete Warner Recordings (Warner Classics 9029643624) date from 1982-91 when Ousset, now 86, was at the height of her success. Across 16 discs we are whisked through French solo piano repertoire from Ravel to Satie, but it’s the big-boned Romantic piano concertos that are perhaps the real draw. Ousset’s performances of the likes of Saint-saëns, Liszt and Rachmaninov are spellbinding, the majority featuring a young Simon Rattle and the CBSO.
An earlier keyboard great, Wilhelm Kempff enjoyed years in the studio that have been well documented. The Decca Legacy (Eloquence 4842267), though, is the first complete survey of the pianist’s recordings for the label, and much more besides. As well as the expected Beethoven, the 13-disc collection also boasts highlights including Bach recordings on CD for the first time, inlcuding Choral Preludes arranged by Kempff, and newly remastered pre-war/wartime recordings for Polydor.
Chief conductor of two of the world’s great orchestras, Andris Nelsons brings them together in Strauss Alliance
(DG 486 2040), a seven-disc set that takes in recordings made by the Boston Symphony and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras from 2017-21. In a scintillating anthology of Richard Strauss’s orchestral works, the ensembles perform on three discs apiece, and recorded the Festliches Präludium together in Boston in 2019. Guest artists including cellist Yo-yo Ma, pianist Yuja Wang and organist
Olivier Latry are all part of the mix.
How long does it take to listen to all of Haydn’s string quartets? Twenty-three-and-ahalf hours, if you go for the Festetics String Quartet’s newly collected survey. Haydn – Complete String Quartets (Arcana A207) sees the Hungarian ensemble perform the complete set on period instruments. Recorded from 19932006, it’s a fascinating journey through the composer’s oeuvre, a form he mastered over more than three decades, and by musicians who know this music inside-out.
This is the first full survey of Kempff’s Decca recordings