Alexander Brailowsky plays Chopin: The Complete RCA Album Collection

Mr. Brailowsky has a sheer instinct for the secrets of the piano, declared the distinguished New York Times music critic Olin Downes in his review of the Ukrainian-American pianist s 1925 Carnegie Hall recital. He recreates his music with all the freshness of feeling and imagined beauty that it must have had for him when first the eyes fell on the printed page. Sony Classical is pleased to announce the first CD release of Alexander Brailowsky s complete RCA Victor recordings, many of them never before available in the digital medium. Born in 1896 in Kiev, Brailowsky studied at the conservatory in his native city, which was then part of the Russian empire. In 1911, he went to Vienna to become a pupil of the legendary Theodor Leschetizky, who taught many of the 20th century s outstanding pianists, including Artur Schnabel. During World War I Brailowsky also studied with Busoni in Switzerland and in 1919 he made his debut in Paris. Five years later came his first appearance in New York where he settled, then making regular coast-to-coast tours of North America while continuing to visit Europe. There was one composer with whom Alexander Brailowsky was associated throughout his career and has remained associated through recordings since his death in 1976: Frédéric Chopin. Brailowsky was the first pianist to present Chopin s entire 169 solo works as a cycle, performing this feat before capacity audiences in New York, Brussels, Zurich, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Paris. At the end of his 1938 Chopin series in New York, one reviewer noted that there are few enough pianists who have the prodigious memory, the physical strength, the comprehensive technique required for such an undertaking; there are far fewer who have plus all these the requisite musicianship. Mr. Brailowsky is one of these latter few. On the 150th anniversary of Chopin s birth in 1960, he again played the complete works in New York and Brussels. Not surprisingly, Sony Classical s new comprehensive reissue of Brailowsky s RCA albums largely comprises music by Chopin. Both piano concertos are included No. 1 with William Steinberg conducting the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra in 1949 and No. 2 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1954. High Fidelity later wrote of these two performances: Brailowsky s energetically contoured, sharply etched clarity represents an emerging modernity of outlook that points to present-day Chopin players. The set also features Brailowsky s two traversals of the Waltzes (from 1942 and 1950) as well as his complete recordings of the Études (1948), Préludes (1951) and Nocturnes (1956 57), plus Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 (1954) and the Écossaises and Berceuse (1958). Of Brailowsky s Nocturnes recording, Gramophone s reviewer wrote: He could sing beautifully at the keyboard. His nocturnes as a whole have a touching humanity and simplicity ... The mono RCA sound is quite velvety. This 8-CD box with 7 CDs remastered from the original analog discs and tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology - also contains Brailowsky s 1949 recording of the Symphonic Etudes by Robert Schumann.