Emil Gilels Plays Beethoven (Box Set) [BOX SET]

Ludwig van Beethoven (Composer), Kurt Masur (Conductor), USSR Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Emil Gilels (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Emil Gilels
• Orchestra: USSR Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Kurt Masur
• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Audio CD (October 26, 2004)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 6
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Brilliant Classics
• ASIN: B000667FVA
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #161,152 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an absolute master, December 12, 2006

By	R. Grantab (Providence, RI, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For me to write a review on Gilels is almost ridiculous, since he was one of the best pianists of the century. For me, Richter and Gilels are the best pianists I've ever heard.

This set is made up of live recordings - which as the title suggests - taken from old Russian archives. As such, the sound is sometimes not that great, but I'll take these recordings over any digital recording, even Brendel's, which I own and love. The contercos are masterfully played, I especially like Gilels in the 3rd concerto. He plays the cadenza better than anyone I've ever heard, Richter included.

Gilels' style is perfectly suited to the powerhouse sonatas, the hammerklavier and appassionata. The hammerklavier is obviously amazing, but the appassionata alone is worth the price of the whole set. I've never heard such power in the first and third movements, he plays the fortissimo passages so heavily that I wonder how the piano can withstand such an onslaught. This is exactly how I imagine Beethoven would have wanted it in this sonata, after all, his own pianos couldn't take the punishment he dished out. The third movement is completely wild, as aggressive as you'll ever hear, but you never think that it's over done, I think it suites the mood of the music perfectly. Once he hammers the final chords of the final movement, you're out of breath, completely amazed at what you've just heard. There are some smudged passages near the end and some wrong notes here and there (he was human after all... sort of) but with the tempo he takes, and playing as loudly as he is at the end, it's impossible to be perfect in a live recording. That being said, I have an old Russian lp of Richter playing a live appassionata in Moscow in 1960, where he adopts the same tempo as Gilels at the end of the third movement and plays the hell out of it and it's a lot cleaner than Gilels. But overall, I think this recording of the appassionata is my favorite, slightly edging out Richter's live recording. I also have studio recordings of the appassionata with Arrau, Brendel, Backhaus, Fischer, and Horowitz, none of them measure up to Gilels either.

Only one gripe: in the third movement of the appassionata, Gilels doesn't play the repeat in the first subject. And since his playing is so good, it's a shame that the third movement is about three minutes shorter than it should be.

This set would be a treasure at any price, let alone the modest price being asked for it here. Don't be fooled by the fact that this is on the Brilliant Classics label, even though the recordings haven't been remastered, it's a document of the kind of incredible piano playing that I'm afraid we'll most likely never see again.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sensation of the Great, March 28, 2006

By	Ignacio Lopez Paniagua (Madrid, Spain) - See all my reviews

The set is wonderful, yet I will remark two movements: the third of the Moonlight Sonata and also the third of the 23 Appasionata. The problem with third movements is virtuosismo and lack of music. In general. But:

Gilels is a master, perhaps because the master speaks through his fingers. The third of the No. 14 is seldom understood, and usually played mechanically or with meaningless ritardandos, crescendos, etc. You can listen to Barenboim or any other and that particular movement will always fail. However, Gilels plays a unity, a sense...

Again, for the same reason, the 23 excels. All the sonata; however, the third movement is mad. Interpretation is abstract to the highest degree and virtuosismo really finds itself at the service of music (I can assure that Gilel's virtusismo is outstanding; I have not seen anything like it -no Pollini, Solomon, etc...).

Unfortunately the recording, due to its age (or who knows) perhaps has not the brightness necessary to enjoy the mere sound, especially the pianissimos. It is worth having in any case, beyond any doubt. Since I bought it I have never listened to other Moonlights or Appasionatas (the first of the Moonlight is brilliant!). I have remarked the two third movements above, because they exemplify the understanding of the music. Interpretation is brilliant throughout. If you buy the blue 10 cd-set, you will see this again in Chopin's Nocturne 48... but that is another matter. Have a look at the "Emil Gilels" DVD edited by via.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Supplement to Gilels's Studio Recordings, July 28, 2008

By	Johannes Climacus "Listening for Enjoyment" (Beverly, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Brilliant has done us all a great favor by unearthing historic broadcast performances (and other material) from the radio archives of the former Soviet Union. Already available are superb Richter, Shafran and Oistrakh anthologies. Now we have two volumes dedicated to Gilels, unquestionably one of the great "keyboard lions" of the Twentieth Century.

The volume under consideration here, devoted entirely to Beethoven, is particularly valuable, insofar as the recordings are all relatively recent (1961-1984), the sonics are almost uniformly good (given the vagaries of live broadcast material), and the performances constitute an illuminating gloss on Gilels's studio recordings of this same repertoire--a Beethoven sonata cycle for DG left incomplete by the pianist's death, a concerto cycle with Szell and the Clevland Symphony for EMI, and earlier EMI traversals of concertos 4 & 5 with Ludwig and the Philharmonia. Whereas in the studio Gilels, even at his most insightful, could be too deliberate, in live performance he is altogether freer, more spontaneous, while missing none of the majesty he always evoked in Beethoven.

The concertos are a case in point. Taken down in 1976 from a cycle of live performances with the USSR State Symphony under Kurt Masur, these renditions convey a graciousness and poise not found, on the whole, in the more tight-fisted versions under Szell (the conductor may have been the culprit--a poor match, in any case). Yet the pianist is also disposed to take more interpretive and technical risks than in the studio; some pay off, others don't; but the creative tensions of these live occasions prove riveting regardless of occasional misfires. Masur and his USSR forces are clearly in their element as well; there is nothing routine or merely 'accompanimental' about the orchestral contribution. Szell and Ludwig get more refined playing from their respective orchestras in Gilels's studio versions, but Masur is more enlivening than either. The one exception for this listener would be Concerto #4, where, in an effort to emphasize the warmth and elegance of Beethoven's writing, the conductor inclines too much toward mellowness (the finale, in particular, tends to hang fire).

The sonata performances are simply tremendous. The "Hammerklavier", in particular, though somewhat more loose-jointed than Gilels's celebrated DG account, goes more directly to the heart of the matter. It is less Olympian, more humane, and also far more exciting. Much the same could be said of the other sonatas in this anthology. In live performance Gilels's Beethoven tends toward the incendiary, even if that virtually guarantees some technical slips (which Gilels has a way of cleverly concealing--I have rarely heard a pianist so effective at "damage control"!). Some listeners may find such occasional finger faults and dropped notes irritating on repetition; that caveat aside, however, this box contains some of the most brilliant performances you are likely to hear of these evergreen masterpieces.

Who then should purchase this set? Economy-minded neophytes should probably look elsewhere for "standard recommendations" in this repertoire (I would suggest Kempff or Ashkenazy for the sonatas and Fleisher-Szell or Kempff-van Kempen for the concertos). For those who already know this music inside out, and who may already cherish Gilels's studio versions of these works, this box is an essential supplement made all the more attractive by being surprisingly well recorded (for Russian archive material), decently presented, and very inexpensive. Strongly recommended.