Piano Sonatas Vol. 2

"Glemser has all it takes - the sheer technical prowess, clarity of touch, balance between the hands, perfect phrasing, sensible and sensitive pedalling...The Ten Pieces Prokofiev arranged from his Romeo and Juliet ballet can rarely have sounded so varied and so beguiling." BBC Music Magazine review of the Naxos recording with Bernd Glemser.


Ever since winning the ARD (German television) competition in 1987, Bernd Glemser has figured in most people's list of the top international pianists. The newspapers also quickly became aware of this student of the Russian pianist Vitalij Margulis who, from 1981, achieved the amazing feat of seventeen successive prizes, special prizes and often first prizes in international competitions such as the Cortot, Rubinstein, Tchaikowsky, Callas and Busoni events.

For instance, when Harold C. Schoenberg, the doyen of pianistic criticism, heard Glemser play in Sydney he wrote in the New York Times that he had heard a technical ability of world stature, an aristocratic player who had - in the true spirit of a Glenn Gould - totally exploded the competition.

In Germany too the critics have also been not averse to the use of superlatives to describe Glemser's ability. His debuts concerts in Frankfurt and Munich were described as a sheer sensation and his performance at the Ruhr Piano Festival was termed "Horowitzean".


In 1989 Glemser was appointed professor at the conservatory in Saarbruecken, the youngest person ever to hold such a post.

Since that time, Bernd Glemser has received invitations to perform practically everywhere where there is a concert hall to house him. In 1996 he became the first European artiste to perform live for Chinese radio and television in a broadcast of Tchaikowsky's Piano Concerto No 1. This was followed by a tour of the whole country in 1997. German television followed Glemser on his travels and made a documentary about the whole tour.


Bernd Glemser has a very wide repertoire, extending from the Baroque through to music by contemporary composers. He has a special love for Franz Liszt and other virtuoso "fin-de-siecle" music expressed in exponents such as Scriabin, Busoni and above all Rachmaninov.


Bernd Glemser records exclusively with Naxos. So far he has released the first discs in planned complete editions of the Schumann, Prokofiev and Scriabin sonatas but also the complete piano concertos of Tchaikowsky, Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations and the complete works for piano and orchestra by Rachmaninov. With the renowned Maria Kliegel he has also recorded music for cello and piano by Chopin and Lalo as well as an invigorating disc of dances for the two instruments. These discs have generally all met with generous critical acclaim.