This is how EMI should always produce their big boxes: an essential selection of the great Edwin Fischer's recordings, where highlights are many: the pioneering Bach WTK, two lovely Brandenburg concerti, probably unsurpassed Schubert imprompti and an almost deconstructive Brahms second with Furtwängler with quite a few lapses but wonderful sense of creativity plus the legendary Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. So muss es sein, as Edwin and Wilhelm said in unisono while listening to tapes of the Emperor.
One could have wished more of his Beethoven, as the two sonati here indicate that he is on a par with Schnabel as a Beethovenian. A few additional discs could have been therefore accomodated into this collection. Yet it contains musicianship of the very highest order, unhurried and lovingly played even if pianistically occasionally fussed. Fischer was a musician foremost, composer's companion, pianist only secondly.
Every piano student should listen to Fischer and avoid copying piano technicians in the mood of Horowitz. This is the antithesis of Lang Lang; instead here can heard the long uninterrupted line from Bach via Beethoven to Brahms. For Fischer they all are his contemporaries.
So, this is indispendable. Edwin lives forever and composers through his thoughts of them. And thoughts are what one can hear even if Edwin's fingers are not almost up to his thoughts - but mostly they are.
My review can also be read at Amazon.co.uk by clicking the headline.
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