Beethoven - Complete Piano Concertos & Triple Concerto - Roll/RPO/Shelley

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Beethoven - Complete Piano Concertos & Triple Concerto - Roll/RPO/Shelley

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Beethoven - Complete Piano Concertos & Triple Concerto - Roll/RPO/Shelley
Classical | 3 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 1,2 GB | RS
Recorded: March/Apr./Oct. 1995, C.T.S Studios Wembley/London & Watford Colosseum
Released: 2003 | Label: Membran 221883-371 | TT: 62:13, 68:14, 70:11

Michael Roll - piano | Jean-Jacques Kantorow - violin | Raphael Wallfisch - cello
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra · Howard Shelley

Michael Roll is one of Britain's most distinguished pianists. Born in England, of Viennese parents, he began to play the piano at a very early age, studying with Fanny Waterman. He made his concerto debut with the City of Birmingham Orchestra at the age of ten and his Royal Festival Hall debut at twelve, playing the Schumann Concerto with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting. His success at the first Leeds International Piano Competition in 1963, where he won first prize at the age of 17, led to the start of a career which has taken him all over the world, appearing with such conductors as Barbirolli, Boulez, Giulini, Gergiev, Haitink, Leinsdorf, Masur, Previn, Sanderling and Sawallisch.

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He has toured in Japan with the BBC Symphony, and in Europe with the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and English Chamber Orchestras. He appeared at the first Hong Kong Festival with the London Philharmonic and at the Edinburgh Festival with the London Symphony. His American debut was in 1974 with the Boston Symphony and Sir Colin Davis, appearing in Boston and New York.

In recent seasons Michael Roll has appeared in Europe with some of the major British orchestras, as well as with the Swedish Radio, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie and Kirov Orchestras under the batons of Masur, Gergiev, Svetlanov, DePreist and Kamu.

He has given recitals in London, Edinburgh, New York, Milan, Leipzig, Berlin and Dresden and appeared at leading international festivals such as Aldeburgh, Bath, Edinburgh, Granada, Hong Kong, Vienna, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Promenade concerts. He also holds a Professorship at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. (harrisonturner.co.uk)

[…] this is a special release by any standards. In no way inferior to the splendid accounts of such renowned Beethovenians as Brendel, Pollini, Barenboim and Perahia, these profoundly musicianly and unobtrusively virtuosic readings have all the spontaneity and daring of the best live concerts. […] Roll - woefully under-represented in the catalogue - is masterly from first note to last. (Jeremy Siepmann, BBC Music Magazine)

[Roll's] interpretations are not only very alive but have such unbelieveable presence, such inspiration and are so full of ideas coupled with a wonderful tonal palette. Above all, it is the sheer spontaneity that is so captivating. Michael Roll's finely etched and immensely alive playing always remains very natural, not withstanding sharply graded dynamics and accents and a wonderfully rich ebb and flow of the music. Exemplary too, is the lucidity with which Roll defines the characters of the highly poetic slow movements and the grippingly energetic quick movements. (Pizzicato Classic Highlights, Luxembourg)

[…] In the end, what marks these performances out from their run-of-the-mill rivals is the musicianly accord that exists between Michael Roll and his pianist-conductor Howard Shelley. The performance of the Emperor is strong and grammatical but it is no mere hammer-and-tongs affair; the visionary side of the work is caught in a host of fine shadings and quiet accommodations of rhythm and sound between piano and orchestra. (Gramophone)