Gilels: Virtuoso With Noblesse

This statement was made by someone who really knew what he was talking about: American conductor Eugene Ormandy had experienced a whole series of top-class pianists on stage. The leading German critic Joachim Kaiser was also full of praise for the "Titan of the Russian piano school". in a tribute made on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the pianist's death, Kaiser stated: "An intellectual superiority, and motoric and dramatic modernity have been added to Gilels' charm, vitality, health and his pianistic 'paw', making him Russia's leading pianist." the recordings made between 1951 and 1958 prove the artist not only to be an excellent performer of the works of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov but also present him as a sensitive chamber musician alongside Mstislav Rostropovich and Leonid Kogan.