ORFEO International – Reviews

Important Releases Briefly Introduced

May 2007

Wilhelm Kempff

The Broadcasting House in Cologne was also the venue for a series of recordings that
Wilhelm Kempff
Foto: Irene Bauer-KempffWilhelm Kempff made of some of the great showpieces in his vast repertory in 1956 and 1960. All attest to the clear and meticulous playing to which his listeners were accustomed. These familiar works are supplemented by another piece that he was never again to record in front of a studio microphone and that is released here for the first time: Schubert’s Fantasia in C major for violin and piano D 934, captivatingly played by Kempff and the pianist Hedi Gigler, their performance as beautifully flowing as any song.
Wilhelm Kempff
Foto: Irene Bauer-KempffWith Schumann’s C major Fantasie, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C minor op. 111 (a work dedicated to Archduke Rudolph) and Brahms’s Six Piano Pieces op. 118, Kempff meets the listener on familiar ground, bringing to his performances his typically high interpretative standards, while Chopin’s Impromptus op. 29, 36 and 51, the Fantaisie-Impromptu op. post. 66, the Waltz op. 64 no. 2 and the Berceuse op. 57 are all delightful examples of Kempff’s unaffected approach to the Polish composer’s music.