This enthralling recital by the young American pianist George Li, silver medallist at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, marks his recording debut and launches a new relationship with Warner Classics. Captured at a live performance in the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg, it presents a dramatically conceived programme of works by Haydn, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Liszt: a descent into deep darkness; re-emergence into the light, and a concluding, boisterous celebration.

Maurizio Pollini, "the pre-eminent Chopinist of his generation" (Fanfare), continues his revelatory and chronological re-exploration of the Polish master's late works. This album contains the pianist's latest thoughts on Opp. 55-58 (1843/4), including the B minor Sonata and Berceuse.

Described by the Gramophone Magazine as ‘virtuoso of power and poetry’, Eldar Nebolsin is considered one of the most versatile and interesting musicians of his generation.

Firma Melodiya continues the series of compact discs dedicated to December Evenings Festival that takes place at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. This album, like the previous one, is dedicated to the 1985 festival World of Romanticism and includes recordings featuring Sviatoslav Richter. The atmosphere of December Evenings, an event initiated by the great pianist, differed from usual philharmonic concerts. The spirit of music as an inseparable part of "fusion of arts" the romanticists dreamt of was invisibly felt in each number; a sensitive listener can catch it in these, perhaps technically imperfect, concert recordings from thirty years ago. The works by Schubert, Schumann and Chopin were performed by Sviatoslav Richter in ensemble with his outstanding contemporaries, violinist and David Oistrakh's student Oleg Kogan who passed away prematurely, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellist Natalia Gutman and clarinettist Anatoly Kamyshov.

For while it would be idle to pretend that this 70-year-old virtuoso, struck down at the height of his career with psoriatic arthritis, still commands the velocity and reflex of his earlier years, his later Chopin and Liszt are a tribute to a devotion and commitment gloriously enriched by experience. The First Impromptu is piquantly voiced and phrased while the C sharp minor Etude, Op. 25 No. 7, could hardly be more hauntingly confided, more ‘blue’ or inturned. How you miss the repeat in the C sharp minor Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 3 (not Op. 15, as the jewel-case claims), given such cloudy introspection and if there are moments when you recall how Rubinstein – forever Chopin’s most aristocratic spokesman – can convey a world of feeling in a scarcely perceptible gesture, Janis’s brooding intensity represents a wholly personal, only occasionally overbearing, alternative; an entirely different point of view. Time and again he tells us that there are higher goods than surface polish or slickness and in the valedictory F minor Mazurka, Op. 68 No. 4 he conveys a dark night of the soul indeed, an emotion almost too desolating for public utterance… Janis is no less remarkable in Liszt, whether in the brief but intriguing Sans mesure (a first performance and recording), in a Sonetto 104 del Petrarca as tear-laden as any on record and in a final Liebestod of an exhausting ardour and focus.

Traveling to Poland in 1829, Chopin gave his first concert in public just a short time before completing his Concerto in F Minor. He presented this concerto in concert for the first time on February 7, 1830 in front of a small group of special guests: "Experts greatly appreciate this new piece comprised of so many new ideas; it is perhaps counted among the most beautiful of recent works. ” The Concerto in F Minor was not published until 1836, thus becoming known as the “second concerto” compared with the “first” Concerto in E Minor, which he wrote and edited in 1833. October 11, 1830, before leaving for Vienna, Chopin gave a farewell concert at the National Theater in Varsovie during which he performed Concerto in E Minor and The Polish Fantasy.

Vladimir Horowitz (who had a Polish grandmother and was fond of pointing out that he was "half as much a Pole as Chopin"), recorded more of Chopin's music than that of any other composer. Horowitz made four (approved) recordings of the Chopin's Ballade in G-Minor. Truth be told, he was never entirely successful in the work, finding difficulty in balancing the episodic and structural elements. The versions here, from the 1965 return concert and 1968 television recital, are the most successful technically and musically.

Kissin is among the master-pianists of our time. What magnificence and assertion he finds in the B minor Sonata's opening, what menace in the following uprush of chromatic scales, his deliberate pedal haze capturing one of Chopin's most truly modernist moments. He may relish lefthand counter-melody in the return of the second subject and elsewhere, yet such detail is offered within the context of the whole. A momentary failure of concentration in the Scherzo comes as reassuring evidence of human fallibility but elsewhere one can only marvel at a manner so trenchant, musicianly and resolutely unsentimental.

In 1994-95, Philips released a 20+ disc box set titled Richter - The Authorized Recordings. Each volume was divided up by various composers, and recordings ranged from 1963 - 1992. This album is a 3 disc set that contains works by Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin exclusively. The recordings range from 1966 to 1992, most of which are from recitals in the late 80s. At this point Richter’s career was certainly closer to its end and the reigning virtuoso he was the 50s and 60s was clearly on decline as is common with most aging pianists.

This is a fine specimen of what duo-playing can and should be. My pleasure in this record is in no small measure down to my enthusiasm for these particular works, among the most attractive and significant products of early romanticism. Chopin's cello sonata seems to me an even better work than his piano sonatas. None other than Tovey gives it high marks for construction, even forgetting for once to include his near-invariable reference to Beethoven as the benchmark in all such matters. Chopin had written for the cello in his early years, and the opus 3 introduction-and-polonaise is included here, but the sonata has a sheer self-assurance about that sounds as if he had been composing for it all his life.

This CD is so commanding in its musicality that one can hardly imagine being able to sit still for the live recital itself, given in Carnegie Hall in Feb. 1993. Kissin had already made the debut of a lifetime, also recorded by RCA, but this Chopin recital and its compansion from the same event exhibit a towering mastery. The famous showpieces–the F minor Fantasy, Grande Valse Brillante, F-sharp minor Polonaise, Scherzo #2–eclipse all rivals unless you go back to Rachmaninov, and the audience knew it. Their applause is a roar of ecstatic approval.

This recital by British pianist Stephen Hough is precisely what the title suggests: a collection of "Night Music" for piano. The program features some very familiar pieces including the most famous night piece of all (even if it wasn't originally intended as such), Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27/2 ("Moonlight"). Robert Schumann's Carnaval, Op. 9, refers to a night activity, a masked ball, rather than being an evocation of the night itself, and Hough's reading of these portraits are distinctly on the reflective side. In fact, taken individually, Hough's performances may be too restrained for some listeners, but the cumulative effect has the kind of spell he intends.

This disc contains performances from Argerich at her most volatile and inspirational. The Preludes and the Scherzo dates from the 1970s and the remainder of the disc date from the 1960s. The whole program has been remastered and the sound thus achieved is no cause for concern. The performances themselves are from a time when Argerich was still in her youth and they give no quarter in terms of being emotionally super-charged. In the hands of lesser pianists some may describe these types of interpretations as impetuous but that suggests a lack of previous thought. In this case these performances, which are certainly emotionally driven and at white heat, betray no such casualness. Instead the impression gained is that of intense emotionalism intensely controlled.

There has never been a more exciting pianist that Martha Argerich. Throughout her career, any appearance by her guarantees sellout crowds and an evening of memorable, not to say insane, music making. She has always drastically limited her repertoire about a dozen concertos, a few more solo and chamber works and will not perform or record solo recitals at all any more. But every single thing that she has recorded is a prime recommendation, plain and simple. She's one of the very few artists whose recordings one should collect just because of whom she is: unique and incomparable. These two concertos perfectly illustrate her gifts as an interpreter. Your ears will be glued to your speakers.

Another example of superb programming, Piotr Anderszewski's Chopin recital on Virgin is brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed. Concentrating on the compoer's late works, Anderszewski's program starts with two sets of Mazurkas played with supple sensitivity and sympathetic poetry, builds through the last two Ballades played with dramatic intensity and terrific technique, climaxes in the last two Polonaises played with heroic grandeur and tremendous virtuosity, and closes with the tender and intimate Mazurka in F minor as an encore. Anderszewski's technique is imperious, his tone is sensual, his performances are emotional, and his interpretations are magisterial. Individually, each performance is strong and vital. Taken all together, the whole disc is more than the sum of its parts. Virgin's sound is warm but a bit close and sometimes a little too immediate.