Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Allegro con brio
2. Largo
3. Rondo, Allegro scherzando

Disc 2:

1. Allegro non troppo
2. Allegro appassionato
3. Andante
4. Allegretto grazioso

Disc 3:

1. Allegro
2. Siciliano
3. Allegro
4. Allegro
5. Alla Siciliano
6. Allegro
7. Allegro moderato
8. Andante con moto
9. Rondo, Vivace

Disc 4:

1. Allegro
2. Adagio, ma non tanto, e dolce
3. Allabreve
4. Largo, Allegro moderato
5. Larghetto
6. Rondo, Allegretto
7. Allegro maestoso
8. Andante espressivo
9. Scherzo & Trio, Alegro energico
10. Intermezzo, Andante molto
11. Finale, Allegro moderato ma rubato

Disc 5:

1. Allegro
2. Larghetto
3. Allegro ma non tanto
4. Ricercare a 6
5. Allegro
6. Andante
7. Presto
8. Moderato
9. Allegro
10. Larghetto
11. Presto

Disc 6:

1. Allegro
2. Romance
3. Rondo (Allegro assai)
4. Molto allegro
5. Andante
6. Menuetto & Trio, Allegretto
7. Allegro assai

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #352398 in Music
• Released on: 2006-01-01
• Number of discs: 6
• Format: Box set

Amazon.com
Live performances from Edwin Fischer's final decade of concerts feature him as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. Fischer's rare interpretive insights can best be heard in his exalted slow movement of Brahms's Sonata No. 3, earning appreciative applause from the knowledgeable audience. The set includes inevitable finger slips and wrong notes, inconsequential byproducts of his striving for artistic integrity. More important, his unerring sense of tempo conveys the heart of the music. Slow movements are soulful but liquid. Drama is always present, allied to a gorgeous tone. His reputation for seriousness doesn't prevent a romp through the Rondo of Beethoven's Concerto No. 1 or the beautifully phrased, long-breathed lyricism of the Romance movement of Mozart's 20th Concerto. Appropriately, since Fischer was an outstanding Bach interpreter, there's a lot of Bach here, including a Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 unannounced anywhere on the box, track listings, or notes. Much of the Bach on this set will sound dated and heavy to modern ears, but it's compelling nonetheless. Those who know Fischer's lofty Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with Furtwängler (Testament) will be surprised to hear this nearly contemporaneous, swifter, and less symphonic live version with Hans Munch. It's a highlight of a set with few duds. At six discs for the price of four, and nicely packaged in a space-saving box with good notes and variable sound (mostly vintage broadcast quality), the set is a valuable tribute to a great artist. --Dan Davis

From International Record Review - subscribe now
In paying tribute to Edwin Fischer, Denis Matthews recalled the ironic observation of a colleague that, despite the fact that they were both regarded as consummate exponents of the core German repertory, neither Fischer nor Schnabel would have made it through the scale and arpeggio examinations of any self-respecting conservatoire. Such a remark was, of course, not intended to be disparaging, but to reinforce the self-evident truth that digital accuracy and fast reflexes may well make a virtuoso, yet still leave a performer high and dry when faced with the deceptive simplicity of, say, a Mozart slow movement. 'To blame Fischer because he occasionally played a wrong note or two is to blame him for possessing qualities of heart and mind that asked far more of his fingers than the purely physical demands of the pyrotechnician.' Fischer's performance ethic was founded on the need to purge any trace of self-aggrandisement or superficial mannerism in the face of his art. Equally, he was wary of the Pharisaical literalism of the purists: 'There are those who prefer to read rather than hear a score, but in such a bacteria-free atmosphere, nothing can live!' Such sterility was wholly contrary to his belief in interpretation as a form of spiritual quest. Although there was a degree of freedom in his playing that in other hands could be viewed as indulgence, Fischer saw himself essentially as a go-between rather than a medium, allowing the music, in the words of Alfred Brendel, who worked with him, 'to emerge of its own accord'. Thus the balance he sought between pure intellect and humanity was a natural outgrowth of his thinking on the relationship between the printed score and its realization in sound: 'Only art experienced within, in which the personality plays a creative role, can have validity.'As Ronald Smith recalled – Smith, along with Denis Matthews, recorded the Bach BWV1063 with Fischer – 'the whole idea of a definitive performance would have been quite alien to Fischer' and so there are often considerable differences between his commercial and studio recordings and performances of the same works captured under concert conditions. An instance of this, as Farhan Malik points out in his typically thorough and informative note, occurs in the Bach Concerto in E, BWV1053, where the middle movement is markedly slower in the present performance than in a recently released studio recording dating from five years later. Likewise, in the A major Concerto the tempos he adopts, as well as a degree of general restraint, seem to reflect an underlying sobriety that has taken the place of the joie de vivre and ebullience of his 1936 studio version. Similarly, the opening of the Brahms B flat Concerto in this version is noticeably less sublimely drawn out than in the famous 1942 Furtwangler account, yet the performance as a whole is hardly less leonine and, indeed, especially in the last movement, there are fewer of the technical problems that bedevil the earlier version. Also, despite the legendary rapport and unity of purpose that existed between Fischer and Furtwangler, the breadth and lyricism of Fischer's handling of the slow movement is supremely expressive in the present performance.Equally, although Fischer could often find the clinical atmosphere of the studio totally inhibiting, there can be no denying that the live version of the Brahms F minor Sonata presented here exposes his vulnerability under pressure, in this case a disastrous memory lapse in the third movement, which, having lost the thread after the Trio, he then brings to a desperate, if inventive, conclusion of his own. From this point he never fully regains his composure, beginning the Intermezzo almost without a break and nervously dashing through the last movement. Yet the lyrical intensity of his Andante – Arrau described this as 'the most sublime love-music after Tristan' – is on an altogether different plane from his studio recording a year later and evidences the kind of impassioned poetic utterance of which he was capable, the spontaneous applause at the end of the movement as inevitable as it proved disconcerting.It is valuable, too, to have the opportunity to hear Fischer in repertoire that he did not record commercially, such as the Brahms Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 21 No. 1, which receives not only an accurate performance but one that unfolds with such a natural communicative eloquence that one wonders why he seems only to have programmed it for one season. Likewise, the Beethoven Fantasia, Op. 77, finds him on wonderful form, highlighting the improvisatory contrasts of the writing tellingly yet without exaggerated gesture. It is, perhaps, in the Beethoven First Concerto, as soloist, conductor and supplier of cadenza, that some of the most impressive music-making is to be found, displaying his inter-disciplinary mastery at its most accomplished. His control of colour and phrasing at the keyboard is reflected with remarkable unanimity in the orchestral playing, the effect being that of chamber music on a grand scale. This aspect of Fischer's art is central to an understanding of his importance, the self-effacement it embodies a reflection of his total dedication to a higher ideal. As Andre Tubeuf observed: 'Fidelity to the letter is something within the capabilities of the most humble student. Fischer's fidelity … is that of the master, who has long ceased to be a student, but forever remains a servant'. Charles Hopkins

Customer Reviews

Touch of class, touch of genius!
The global transcendence of Edwin Fischer as artist, pianist and composer has always been blurred of this side of the Atlantic. The reason why may be explain three fortuitous circumstances; after the WW2 the genre of virtuosi performers gained ground exponentially speaking ; the emigrating soloists were overestimated due heroic reasons and there was a new generation of avid listeners disposed to enjoy the music from a new approach with a clear sign of irreverence (a la Gould, for instance).

On the other hand the impressive amount of conductors who emigrated to North America translated by far, the major attention of these new audiences, proud to have an ensemble conducted by Toscanini, Reiner, Koussevitzky, Stokowski, Ormandy, Mitropoulos or Walter.

And being Fischer a man of low profile, his last appearances were in Salzburg and other places of the old continent. Somehow, he embodied ed a vanished approach of playing the piano, and all his contributions to diffuse Bach and Mozart's piano music were relegated to a second level.

But fortunately for him and for us, Paul Badura Skoda was his spiritual inheritor and thanks to him we were able to get some invaluable recordings during the Fifties.

Fischer will be reminded far beyond his own historical age, because his personality, kindness and charm as human being and interpreter. He is part of the elite of the great poets of the piano. So, don't miss this or any other album which takes his name.