Beethoven/ C.P.E. Bach / J.S. Bach - Emil Gilels Edition

Stereotypes can be helpful when, for example, an artist is superficially classified as "young and wild" or "mature and wise". Stereotypes can however be terribly misleading on account of their superficiality. The word actually originates from the field of printing and means a solid metallic plate, cast from a mold. When the word first came into use, all printing was two-dimensional. The third dimension of depth, the world "behind" a given point, cannot be imparted by a stereotype. The first portion of this edition probably contains all the pre-war recordings made by the exceptional pianist between 1935 and 1941. Positively legendary status was attained by the recording of the devilishly difficult Fantasy on themes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Le Nozze di Figaro, a piece that Franz Liszt began and Ferruccio Busoni completed. Gilels also mastered a wealth of other virtuosic works including the Prelude in G minor and Etude-tableau in C minor by Sergei Rachmaninov. In fact, the great pianist and composer later saw Gilels as his only true successor. The rest of this edition does not follow the chronology of the artist's career and instead, for the most part, place the works in the order in which they were composed.