In November 2020, Supraphon released the largest ever anniversary compilation (11 CDs + DVD) of Ivan Moravec's recordings. The box-set received wonderful reviews in Gramophone and Pizzicato.
The Gramophone review
„That wonderful Czech pianist Ivan Moravec would have celebrated his 90th
birthday this past November (he died in 2015 at the age of 84). Moravec cited
Michelangeli as a significant influence (he’d been briefly taught by him), and
throughout the length and breadth of Supraphon’s representative and
generally fine-sounding 11-CD tribute – which additionally includes a DVD of
concertos by Prokofiev, Mozart and Ravel plus solo Beethoven and a
documentary – you sense the great Italian looking watchfully over
Moravec’s shoulder, urging what is most obviously manifest in his playing,
namely a maximum refinement of tone, immaculate articulation, subtle rubato,
sculpted phrase-shaping, carefully graded dynamics and a refusal to indulge in
musically inappropriate virtuoso display. A trio of Mozart concertos (K449,
488 and 503) under Josef Vlach is fairly typical, K488’s central movement a
rapt Adagio rather than the optional, more flowing Andante (ie Horowitz and
Giulini, DG), the finale of K503 awash with colour (the same work is also
featured on the DVD). Chopin Preludes and Mazurkas allow us gnomic glimpses into
the inner sanctum of Moravec’s rich musical imagination, whereas Ballades and
Scherzos provide a comprehensive overview of Chopin’s muse on a grander
scale, and his Beethoven – various sonatas and the Third and Fourth
Concertos – is deeply expressive, the opening of the Fourth (under
Turnovský) malleable, dreamlike, almost impressionistic. Moravec’s Debussy
conveys a wealth of varied moods with maximum finesse. Ravel, Franck, Brahms,
Schumann, Smetana and Janáček are greeted with nourishing levels of
perception, Brahms’s First Concerto recorded in Dallas under Eduardo Mata
lightening both the mood and texture of a work that can sometimes sound
overbearing. A truly fabulous set, then, one that will edify, stimulate and
satisfy.“
Rob Cowan
The Pizzicato review
„Chopin’s music becomes the greatest art under Moravec’s fingers.
Leos Janacek’s idiosyncratic works are presented here in absolute reference
recordings, as are César Franck’s Prélude, choral et fugue and
Debussy’s Images, Estampes, Children’s Corner or Préludes, works that it
is hard to play better, more beautifully or more clearly. In any case, there is
a lot to discover or rediscover in this box. For the Beethoven, Debussy and
Chopin recordings alone, this Moravec box, produced in excellent sound quality,
belongs on every CD shelf.“
Alain Steffen
Read the full review here:
https://www.pizzicato.lu/…van-moravec/