Walter Geiseking Vol 1 EMI Wood Box Set 10 LPs Debussy Ravel Grieg MINT Vinyl

$

69

late 1970s EMI Discoteca Classica Records 3C 153-52331/40  

(TEN LP BOX SET, pressed in ITALY!) 

vintage mono recordings of 

"DEBUSSY/RAVEL/GRIEG" (Vol 1) 

piano works performed by legendary pianist WALTER GIESEKING!!

This hard to find 30+ year old ITALIAN PRESSING EMI mono TEN LP BOX SET, from a wonderful NYC/Manhattan classical LP collection, is

NEAR MINT! The handsome, wood front box (with pyrography) shows some wear, with two booklets & plastic-lined LP sleeves, Vinyl is NM- to mostly NEAR MINT, appears to be unplayed 

No pianist has ever equaled Gieseking in the outer nonchalance but inner concentration of his Debussy, in his feel for colour and texture. His legendary pedal technique worked in faultless alliance with his arms and fingers, heart and mind, so that he could vary the colour, the light and the shade, the chiaroscuro, to a degree unknown to other pianists. Gieseking was also sufficiently pragmatic to realise that few composers marked their scores more meticulously than Debussy. By obeying Debussy at ground level, so to speak, Gieseking was free to respond to even the most subjective and elusive terms with an ease entirely his own. For him twin directions such as très égal and comme une buée irisée (from Cloches à travers les feuilles) were complementary and intimately connected.

Not surprisingly, Gieseking’s aristocratic strength and refinement provoked envy. But an overeager pointing at this or that momentary lapse, or belittling references by a formidably robust French lady pianist to playing more très joli than accurate or acute, are little more than what Shakespeare, through Titania, called the ‘forgeries of jealousy’. The French have never fully forgiven Gieseking his celebrity. Deeply sensitive and personal, virtuoso in the truest sense, Gieseking’s performances are quite without preening mannerisms or idiosyncrasy and are, from this point of view alone, instantly recognisable. An ideal medium, Gieseking could conjure Debussy’s pristine world of childhood and the potent immediacy of fantasy. In the extreme ecstasy and concentration of his playing, Paradise Lost became Paradise Regained.

A MUST HEAR!