İdil Biret releases new ‘super’ album

ANKARA

Turkey’s world renowned pianist and State Artist İdil Biret has compiled all of her studio recordings and concerts throughout her 60-year music career into a super album made up of 130 CDs and four DVDs. 

The album includes works from studio recordings and concerts she has given since 1959. The “Super Box” will reach shelves in Turkey and abroad in May.

Speaking to state-run Anadolu Agency, the pianist said she had released her first album in 1957. 

“Recording was a brand new thing for me in the 1950s. There were not many recordings at that time. This is why they were more important. I have produced albums nonstop since then,” said Biret. 

“I am not aware of time. Time passes when playing the piano and I don’t know how it passes since I feel so deeply in the moment. You feel time in the rhythm of music. You realize how many works you can perform in a period of time. Sixty years do not mean much to me. I love making albums and recordings,” she said. 

Biret said she loved all of her works. “Recordings are like photographs. They describe that moment. Your opinion and what you like may change after some time. There is no such thing as an ‘absolute.’ In my first recordings, I performed works by [Johannes] Brahms, [Bela] Bartok, applying all the symphonies of Beethoven’s piano practice. After that, I played grand piano series and continue doing so,” said the pianist. 

She also said she was very fond of making her album that included works by Ertuğrul Oğuz Fırat, and that she would continue performing his works. 

Piano adaptations in album

In the collection, Biret has included many of her works that have won awards abroad. The album includes piano concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Franck, Grieg, Hindemith, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, as well as concertos by Bach, Bartok, Mozart, Prokofiev, Saint-Saens, Adnan Saygun, Schönberg, Shostakovich and some other composers.

All of the solo piano works by Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov, Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, Bach’s 48 preludes and the leading works by Schumann and Liszt are also on the album. 

The album also consists of Louis Hector Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy” and “Symphonie Fantastique,” Franz Schubert’s songs and Richard Wagner’s opera music adaptations by Liszt. 

The other works are Biret’s concerts given with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Yale Symphony Orchestra, Jose Serebrier, James Loughran, Antoni Wit, Jean Fournet, Louis Fremaux, and Toshi Shimada.