Description

The Decca legacy of WILHELM KEMPFF, one of the last century’s greatest keyboard poets.

Wilhelm Kempff is known, with good reason, as a Beethoven interpreter of sublime simplicity, with several cycles of the concertos and sonatas to his credit, all of them recorded for DG. However, he began recording as early as 1918 and made records for Polydor before the war, as well as for Decca during the 1950s. While his DG recordings have rarely been out of the catalogue, his legacy on other labels has never been so comprehensively documented as it is on this newly remastered set from Eloquence.

In the booklet essay for the box, Alfred Brendel explains how he particularly esteems Kempff’s Decca recordings, for the piano sound captured at the company’s studios in West Hampstead in London, and also how he prizes the pianist’s recordings of Liszt above all: ‘truly legendary’. He recalls seeing Kempff play Schubert’s Sonatas D. 845, which Decca also captured, as an inspiration for his own subsequent dedication to the composer’s piano sonatas. A pair of Mozart concertos, KV 219 and KV 450, finds Kempff’s phrasing at its most limpid and apparently effortless. His Decca discography concluded in fine style in 1958 with sessions which yielded three LP albums of Chopin.

Several of these recordings have previously appeared in previous sets dedicated to Kempff but this is the first complete survey of his Decca legacy. Combined with the rare pre-war recordings, new remasterings and detailed editorial support (including a discographical essay by Michael Gray and one by the late Michael Steinberg), this set of Wilhelm Kempff will attract the attention of all pianophiles. ‘When he is at his best, he plays more beautifully than any of us.’ (Alfred Brendel)

CD 1
J.S. Bach; Handel; Couperin; Rameau; Beethoven; Brahms

CD 2
J.S. BACH Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903; Chorale-Preludes (arr. Kempff)

CD 3
MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 9 & 15
Karl Mnchinger

CD 4
SCHUBERT Piano Sonatas Nos. 16 & 21

CD 5
SCHUMANN Papillons; Arabeske; Piano Concerto
Josef Krips

CD 6
CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 2; Impromptus; Berceuse; Barcarolle; Nocturne Op. 9 No. 3; Scherzo No. 3

CD 7
CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3; Ballade No. 3; Andante spianato et Grande polonaise brillante; Fantaisie; Polonaise-Fantaisie

CD 8
LISZT Annes de plerinage (excerpts); Deux Lgendes

CD 9
LISZT Piano Concerto Nos. 1 & 2
Anatole Fistoulari

CD 10
BRAHMS Rhapsodies, Op. 79; Intermezzi, Op. 117; Klavierstcke, Op. 118

CD 11
BRAHMS Ballades, Op. 10; Klavierstcke, Op. 76; Rhapsodies, Op. 79; Intermezzi, Op. 117

CD 12
BRAHMS Fantasias, Op. 116; Klavierstcke, Op. 119

CD 13
BEETHOVEN Cello Sonata, Op. 5 No. 1
Pablo Casals
Cello Sonata, Op. 69
Paul Grmmer
Violin Sonata Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’
Georg Kulenkampff