All of Rachmaninov’s music - from his earliest student compositions to his final masterpieces – has been collected together for the first time on 32 CDs, in what is definitively the most complete and comprehensive edition of Rachmaninov’s works ever released.

Kurt Sanderling (1912–2011), born in Prussia, fled Germany for the USSR on the invitation of his Jewish relatives living there, to seek artistic and personal refuge from the Nazi regime.

Deep in the heart of the Cold War, there was once a miracle in Moscow – Texas-based classical pianist Van Cliburn, of whom no one had heard, conquered at the First Tchaikovsky Competition, an event set aside to showcase Soviet talent. Cliburn was warned by his own government not to go, given the tense political relationship between the United States and Soviet Union at the time, and once he arrived he was greeted as a party crasher, subject to hostile stares and animosity of the kind he had never dreamed of back in Texas. And it was Cliburn, at the end, which brought down the house, and held the award. Back in America, he was greeted with a ticker tape parade and was the subject of a best-selling biography by Abram Chasins, The Van Cliburn Story, copies of which continue to clog the shelves of American thrift stores five decades hence. Ultimately, though, Cliburn's celebrity lost its luster. Nerves, ultra-picky perfectionism, and mishandling by management led to his early retirement from the concert scene; his greatest latter-day achievement being the force behind the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, America's most prestigious such event.

Even with 15 other versions of Rimsky's masterpiece of orchestral virtuosity to choose from — some in the top flight — this was recognized from the first as one of the most rewarding, thanks largely to Krebbers's exceptionally sweet, gently appealing and bewitching personification of the story - spinning Scheherazade and to Kondrashin's skill in pacing and shaping movements as a whole, relating the diverse tempos and building up tension and dynamics by careful control so as to create climaxes of thrilling intensity and power. the 'shipwreck' finale, in particular, was overwhelming; and this was achieved without resorting to the ultra - fast tempos adopted by some conductors to whip up excitement. The Concertgebouw's crisp, sonorous and sensitive playing (full marks both to the splendid strings and to the wind soloists) was caught with the utmost fidelity; but the Compact Disc's total exclusion even of minimal extraneous background now marks a still further improvement, as can be judged by the dead silence against which Scheherazade's pleadings are heard. The final coda is ravishingly beautiful.

Emil Gilels was renowned for playing Beethoven, like his predecessors Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Backhaus and Rudolf Serkin. He made his name in his native land as promoter of Russian music - that of Rachmaninov, of course (still revered despite his exile in America), Prokofiev, the prodigal son harshly punished on his return to the Soviet Union and Kabalevsky, the epitome of professionalism and popular music. Here you can enjoy a unique triptych, which studiedly sheers away from Svjastoslav Richter’s repertoire.

These three titles inaugurate the Goldenweiser School, the last of the three great teaching traditions to be covered in this comprehensive survey of the many great pianists who worked in Russia in the Soviet era. Along with Goldenweiser himself we start with Nikolayeva and Ginzburg. The bulk of the issues in THE RUSSIAN PIANO TRADITION will be divided into 'schools' which represent the three main teachers of this period - Neuhaus, Goldenweiser and Igumnov, - and their pupils. Today Nikolayeva (1924-1993) is remembered mainly as a Bach player and also as the definitive performer of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes & Fugues, which were inspired by, and written for, her after the composer heard her play Bach in the 1950 Leipzig Bach competition (which she won). However, to limit Nikolayeva's reputation to these two composers would be doing her a great disservice. She had a vast repertoire and her recordings include concertos by Bartok, Medtner, Prokofiev Stravinsky and several Soviet composers - including her own concerto, as she was also a composer! Further, she recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas and much other standard repertoire from the 19th century. This CD presents two recording premieres - the first ever recording of the Tchaikovsky Concert Fantasy Op56 and the first recording of the original version of Tchaikovsky's 2nd Piano Concerto.

Tchaikovsky - almost alone - saw the possibilities of specially-composed music for the classical ballet, which was hugely popular in nineteenth-century Russia. His secret was to work closely with his choreographer and link music and dance routines at the outset: this proved vital to the stage action and the final success of the whole production. Swan Lake was the first, and Nutcracker the last of Tchaikovsky’s three ballet scores. Following the success of Sleeping Beauty came the request for another ballet, which eventually formed a double-bill with his opera Yolanta. Tchaikovsky agreed, unusually, that some of the Nutcracker music could be played at an orchestral concert before the ballet opened in St Petersburg. At the concert, an enthusiastic audience encored almost every number.

A historic version of the patriotic October cantata by Prokofiev plus only the second public performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony on December 20, 1962, using the original text by Yevtushenko, which pays tribute to murdered Jews in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar.