EMI: 2063112

Continuing with its series of major concerto recordings with Evgeny Kissin, EMI Classics will release the pianist’s first ever complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos in September this year. Kissin is partnered in these recordings by one of the master Beethovenians of our time, Sir Colin Davis, leading the London Symphony Orchestra.

Recording the Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle is a momentous experience for any pianist. For generations the concertos have been the touchstone of an artist’s maturity for their stylistic bridge from the classicism of Haydn and Mozart to the first flowering of Romanticism. Although Evgeny Kissin has performed these works numerous times over the years - and even recorded some of them previously - he waited until now to find the best possible musical environment in which to make this very personal statement.

Recording Producer Jay Saks, who has worked closely with Kissin since his 1990 Carnegie Hall’s debut, said of the project: “Recording the five Beethovens with Genya [Kissin] and Sir Colin was just wonderful. [It was] such beautiful playing, so musical and entirely in the character of Beethoven. It’s not strange, not quirky, it’s just astonishingly beautiful, technically proficient, musically extremely thoughtful - and profound. As a producer, I have to remember that I am present at recording sessions […] for professional reasons. It is so easy to just sit and listen and get swept away with what he’s doing. These Beethovens are remarkable.”