Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft

This is an outstanding issue, not only for some wonderful pianism and illuminating musicianship, but also for the superb presentation. In a handsome box, DG presents the nine LPs that Sviatoslav Richter recorded for this company between 1956 and 1962 as a solo artist and a concerto collaborator. The recordings are presented in chronological order of release and replicated as they were first issued, each CD (an exact mirror of the respective LP) presented in a sleeve that reproduces the original artwork (front and back). Lovely! The booklet, annotated by Jeremy Siepmann, gives plenty of desirable data that the collector will delight in . . . Richter was a visceral and velvety interpreter of Schumann; there is much here that is exquisite and searching . . . A super set, then, capped by excellent re-mastering that doesnżt attempt to take too much hiss away and thus avoids the contamination and detritus that usually ensues when transfer engineers only have ears to clean everything to buggery!

If any one group of piano recordings could be cited as the most widely influential of the 20th century, then the nine LPs Richter made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1957 to 1965 would probably have to be it . . . His complexity, as a man and as an artist . . . we had gleaned from his recordings -- very largely those reissued in this treasurable set. Here we have what many still regard as "the" performance of Schumann's Toccata, and accounts of the F major Novelette and the wonderful G major Introduction and Allegro which helped to shape a new generations' concept of what Schumann was all about. The present performances of Prokofiev's fifth concerto and Rachmaninov's second . . . have been regarded by many as definitive for half a century . . . the range of his sympathies was enormous. His Debussy was in a class of its own (Estampes here is one of the great miracles of modern pianism, its tonal palette and rhythmic perfection almost defying belief), and he was one of the first great virtuosos seriously to champion Haydn . . .