Great Pianists of the 20th Century

Great Pianists of the 20th Century  was a 200-CD box set released by Philips Records in 1999 and sponsored by Steinway & Sons.

The box set comprises 100 volumes featuring 72 pianists of the 20th century, each volume with two CDs and a booklet about the life and work of the featured pianist. The set contains a variety of composers from different eras, from Baroque to Contemporary classical. The material was the result of a collaborative association between Philips (who had access to the Polygram Records back catalogue) and a number of other labels, notably EMI Classics, as no single label possessed a representative set of recordings for every pianist considered to be significant. Material from Warner Classics and Sony Classics was also used.

The majority of the pianists feature on one set only, with sixteen appearing on a second set (set number 8, dedicated to Wilhelm Backhaus, is titled "Wilhelm Backhaus I", which suggests that a second set was planned at some point but never published, and the set dedicated to Daniel Barenboim is correctly numbered as number 9). Seven artists (Arrau, Brendel, Gilels, Horowitz, Kempff, Richter and Rubinstein) are featured across three sets. The nature and size of the project meant that popular works (such as Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and other solo pieces) appear several times.

Perceptive pianophiles have pointed out various errors in the set, including misattributed recordings and use of unauthorized takes. For example, the Paderewski volume contains a performance of Liszt’s "La Leggierezza" which was actually recorded by Benno Moiseiwitsch – also included in the latter’s volume. Further, the liner notes claim the cadenza of the piece was by Moiseiwitsch, while it was actually by Theodor Leschetizky. The first of two Cortot volumes was withdrawn when it was discovered that a previously rejected performance of Schumann’s Kreisleriana was issued by mistake. The volume was reissued with the correct take. The series has also been criticized for the lack of remastering of historic recordings, notably in the Hofmann reissue which degraded the transfers originally issued by Ward Marston.

The German edition of the set (and possibly others) includes a bonus CD with Clara Haskil (Sonderausgabe zur Edition) &mdash;raising to 5 the total number of CDs with her. This bonus CD contains her interpretation of some of Scarlatti's piano sonatas from her 1947 Westminster LP, and is the first printing on CD of these recordings, according to the CD cover (Erstveröffentlichung auf CD).

List of volumes
Each volume contains two CDs.


 * 1) Géza Anda
 * 2) Martha Argerich
 * 3) Martha Argerich II
 * 4) Claudio Arrau
 * 5) Claudio Arrau II
 * 6) Claudio Arrau III
 * 7) Vladimir Ashkenazy
 * 8) Wilhelm Backhaus
 * 9) Daniel Barenboim
 * 10) Jorge Bolet
 * 11) Jorge Bolet II
 * 12) Alfred Brendel
 * 13) Alfred Brendel II
 * 14) Alfred Brendel III
 * 15) Lyubov Bruk & Mark Taimanov
 * 16) Robert Casadesus
 * 17) Shura Cherkassky
 * 18) Shura Cherkassky II
 * 19) Van Cliburn
 * 20) Alfred Cortot
 * 21) Alfred Cortot II
 * 22) Clifford Curzon
 * 23) Gyorgy Cziffra
 * 24) Christoph Eschenbach
 * 25) Edwin Fischer
 * 26) Edwin Fischer II
 * 27) Leon Fleisher
 * 28) Samson Francois
 * 29) Nelson Freire
 * 30) Ignaz Friedman
 * 31) Andrei Gavrilov
 * 32) Walter Gieseking
 * 33) Walter Gieseking II
 * 34) Emil Gilels
 * 35) Emil Gilels II
 * 36) Emil Gilels III
 * 37) Grigory Ginsburg
 * 38) Leopold Godowsky
 * 39) Glenn Gould
 * 40) Friedrich Gulda
 * 41) Friedrich Gulda II
 * 42) Ingrid Haebler
 * 43) Clara Haskil
 * 44) Clara Haskil II
 * 45) Myra Hess
 * 46) Josef Hofmann
 * 47) Vladimir Horowitz
 * 48) Vladimir Horowitz II
 * 49) Vladimir Horowitz III
 * 50) Byron Janis
 * 51) Byron Janis II
 * 52) William Kapell
 * 53) Julius Katchen
 * 54) Julius Katchen II
 * 55) Wilhelm Kempff
 * 56) Wilhelm Kempff II
 * 57) Wilhelm Kempff III
 * 58) Evgeny Kissin
 * 59) Zoltán Kocsis
 * 60) Stephen Kovacevich
 * 61) Stephen Kovacevich II
 * 62) Alicia de Larrocha
 * 63) Alicia de Larrocha II
 * 64) Josef & Rosina Lhévinne
 * 65) Dinu Lipatti
 * 66) Radu Lupu
 * 67) Nikita Magaloff
 * 68) Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
 * 69) Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli II
 * 70) Benno Moiseiwitsch
 * 71) Ivan Moravec
 * 72) John Ogdon
 * 73) John Ogdon II
 * 74) Ignacy Jan Paderewski
 * 75) Murray Perahia
 * 76) Maria João Pires
 * 77) Mikhail Pletnev
 * 78) Maurizio Pollini
 * 79) Maurizio Pollini II
 * 80) André Previn
 * 81) Sergei Rachmaninoff
 * 82) Sviatoslav Richter
 * 83) Sviatoslav Richter II
 * 84) Sviatoslav Richter III
 * 85) Arthur Rubinstein
 * 86) Arthur Rubinstein II
 * 87) Arthur Rubinstein III
 * 88) András Schiff
 * 89) Artur Schnabel
 * 90) Rudolf Serkin
 * 91) Vladimir Sofronitsky
 * 92) Solomon
 * 93) Rosalyn Tureck
 * 94) Rosalyn Tureck II
 * 95) Mitsuko Uchida
 * 96) André Watts
 * 97) Alexis Weissenberg
 * 98) Earl Wild
 * 99) Maria Yudina
 * 100) Krystian Zimerman

General sources

 * Gutmann, Peter (1999, 2005). "Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century" at the Classical Notes website.
 * Manildi, Donald; Malik, Farhan (2012). A Buyer's Guide to Historic Piano Recordings Reissued on Compact Discs. International Piano Archives at Maryland, University of Maryland, University Libraries website.