In Praise of Emil Gilels

I had forgotten what a superb pianist Emil Gilels was, especially in Beethoven and Brahms. A “star” of the period 1950-84, he was a modest virtuoso who kept a relatively low profile, recorded during his later years mainly for Deutsche Grammophon and, as far as I know, toured infrequently outside Russia. In Moscow he made some superb recordings with Kogan and Rostropovich. Dragged round innumerable charity shops by one of my granddaughters a few days ago, I chanced on Volume 1 of his recording of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. Five CDs. OK, the first CD was missing, so I only had four. But at 50p (around 60 centimes) for the four, I was not complaining. Gilel's playing is just so right. On the four CDs I received, he plays the sonatas 4-15 missing out number 9, for some reason. The recordings were made over the period 1974-84. One just sits back and listens, and admires the pianism.