Alicia de Larrocha Complete Decca Recordings [41 CD]
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Alicia de Larrocha Complete Decca Recordings [41 CD]
Decca presents this 41CD set which heralds a significant program of digital releases alongside a strong social campaign by Decca for the revered Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha. Thanks to a new collaboration with the Estate, Decca have secured editorial control of her streaming and official social platforms. More on this shortly, but her daughter and biographer are both confirmed as spokespersons.
If you wanted to encounter a ‘Who’s Who’ of New York City-based keyboard titans gathered in one place in the 1970s, you only had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital. At her concerts you might encounter the likes of Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz. Such was the level of reverence by fellow pianists for her musicianship and sheer technical brilliance.
ALICIA DE LARROCHA Greatly respected by her peers, not least Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz, if you wanted to witness a Who’s Who of New York City-based keyboard luminaries gathered in one place, you simply had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital.. Slight of frame, de Larrocha’s physical stature belied her considerable accomplishments, not least in key corners of the French repertoire and the Russian Romantics where she positively flourished and we marvel at the pianist’s tiny hands effortlessly traversing huge leaps on the keyboard and summoning colossal sonorities that never splinter. Born in Barcelona on May 23, 1923. Alicia de Larrocha came from a musical family. Both her mother and her aunt were disciples of the composer and pianist Enrique Granados. Alicia began lessons at the age of three with Granados’ student and teaching assistant, Frank Marshall who insisted that his gifted student gain a solid foundation in Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, which, in turn, helped to inform what would become her standard-setting interpretations of Spanish music. She explained in a 1973 Gramophone interview “if you can't play Bach correctly, you can't play Spanish music.†Her first American recitals in 1954 and 1955 coincided with her first major label recordings, made in New York for American Decca, all reissued as part of the present collection. Though she broached the recording process reluctantly, she nonetheless recorded a large discography and it was her association with British Decca between 1970 and 1988 that was to be her longest and most fruitful major label relationship.