Firma Melodiya presents recordings of J.S. Bach's works performed by Emil Gilels.
This disc continues the series of recordings made by the great pianist of this country. However, these recordings suggest a different view on Gilels's performing art.
Emil Gilels entered the music life of the USSR as a virtuoso in the best, romantic sense of the word. His inspired artistry always produced a magnetic effect on the audience. He conquered the world with his performances of Beethoven's sonatas, Mozart's works in Salzburg, and interpretations of Tchaikovsky's and Rachmaninoff's concertos. It was difficult to assume that a well-established stereotype of romantic pianist hid an inspired and profound interpreter of Bach's music.
Johann Sebastian Bach never was a foundation of Gilels's repertoire. Rather, those were individual pieces, but that was exactly what made them, among different music, so unexpected at his concerts. Nevertheless, he kept revisiting some of them time and again. This disc features recordings made in 1948 to 1968.
The late romantic transcriptions by Alexander Siloti and Ferruccio Busoni, originating from the traditions of Franz Liszt's performances of Bach's music, are equalized with classic orderliness of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and limpid and rarified sound of the First Partita. An energetic motion of the C major concerto for two claviers (played by Gilels together with Yakov Zak) transmits the 'lion's grip' of Beethoven piano.
Not claiming to be authentic and at the same time not falling into excessive romanticism, Emil Gilels shapes his own unique vision of the great cantor's music world.
