Icon: Walter Gieseking / Poet Of The Keyboard
Label: EMI Catalog: 65081MB Format: CD Walter Gieseking / 8 CD setMozart / Beethoven / Schumann / Franck / Grieg / Debussy / Ravel Born 5 November 1895 in Lyon, Gieseking's parents were Germans living in France at the time. Although having taken up the piano at the age of four he did not begin formal studies until the age of 11, when he went to Hanover to be taught by Karl Leimer. He served as a regimental bandsman in World War I and, after demobilisation, took up music as a career as accompanist and opera coach. As a recitalist he included much new music in his programmes, advocating the works of Schoenberg, Busoni, Szymanowski, Hindemith and Pfitzner. Gieseking's first London concert took place in 1923 with some success and his US début followed in 1926 with a performance of Hindemith's Piano Concerto. Gieseking spent the years of World War II in Germany and also occasionally performed in German-occupied France. After the war he stood accused of being a Nazi-collaborator but was soon cleared of any pro-Nazi activities and continued his career as an international soloist. Gieseking was in the process of recording all the Beethoven sonatas at EMI's Abbey Road Studios when he died during the night of 26 October 1956. Although Gieseking's repertoire was extremely wide, taking in the works of many of his contemporaries, today he is remembered as an unsurpassed interpreter of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Ravel, and it is the music of these composers that is mainly featured in this 8-CD set. |