Idil Biret Archive (IBA)

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF
(Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française / French Radio and Television
IDIL BIRET SOLO EDITION . 1
Broadcasting) in Paris and made her first recordings. These were works by
Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made
over eighty LPs and CDs (released on ten record labels - Pretoria, Véga, Decca,
Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many
recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included
the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov and the Etudes
of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) will bring together as many of her
recordings as possible; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer
available commercially will be released together with her new recordings. The
transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven’s Symphonies, originally recorded for
EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven will be the first to be released on nineteen CDs. Then, all the Piano
Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs
recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York, including works by Boulez,
Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky will follow. IBA will be distributed
worldwide by Naxos on CD and on all major websites digitally.

FRANZ LISZT
Piano Sonata in B minor
The IBA emblem contains an etching by Albrecht Dürer sent to İdil Biret at Christmas 1959 Grandes Etudes de Paganini
by Nadia Boulanger with the following words:

“To my little Idil. Christmas 1959. May the Angel protect her on the beautiful and dangerous
path she has engaged herself in. With all my heart. N.B ”

8.571282booklet.indd 5-7 9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM

 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Sonata in B minor • Grandes Etudes de Paganini
Born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of Adam Liszt, a steward in the service of Haydn’s former
patrons, the Esterházy Princes, Franz Liszt had early encouragement from members of the Hungarian
nobility, allowing him in 1822 to go to Vienna, for lessons with Czerny and a famous meeting with
Beethoven. From there he moved to Paris, where Cherubini refused him admission to the Conservatoire,
as a foreigner. Nevertheless he was able to impress audiences by his performance, now supported by the
Erard family, piano manufacturers whose wares he was able to advertise in the concert tours on which he
embarked. In 1827 Adam Liszt died, and Franz Liszt was now joined again by his mother in Paris, while
using his time to teach, to read and benefit from the intellectual society with which he came into contact.
His interest in virtuoso performance was renewed when he heard the great violinist Paganini, whose
technical accomplishments he now set out to emulate.
The years that followed brought a series of compositions, including transcriptions of songs and operatic
fantasies, part of the stock-in-trade of a virtuoso. Liszt’s relationship with a married woman, the Comtesse
Marie d’Agoult, led to his departure from Paris for years of travel abroad, first to Switzerland, then back
to Paris, before leaving for Italy, Vienna and Hungary. By 1844 his relationship with his mistress, the
mother of his three children, was at an end, but his concert activities continued until 1847, the year in
which his association began with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Polish heiress, the estranged wife of a
Russian prince. The following year he settled with her in Weimar, the city of Goethe, turning his attention
now to the development of a newer form of orchestral music, the symphonic poem, and, as always, to the
revision and publication of earlier compositions.
It was in 1861, at the age of fifty, that Liszt moved to Rome, following Princess Carolyne, who had settled
there a year earlier. Divorce and annulment seemed to have opened the way to their marriage, but they
now continued to live in separate apartments in the city. Liszt eventually took minor orders and developed
a pattern of life that divided his time between Weimar, where he imparted advice to a younger generation,
Rome, where he was able to pursue his religious interests, and Pest, where he returned now as a national
hero. He died in 1886 in Bayreuth, where his daughter Cosima, widow of Richard Wagner, lived, more
concerned with the continued propagation of her husband’s music.
Liszt’s Sonata in B minor was published in 1854, at a time when he was busy in Weimar with the revision
of his earlier symphonic poems. Unlike these last, the sonata has no literary or extra-musical programme,
but is itself a remarkable summary of Liszt’s own characteristics as a composer and performer. In a much
8.571282 2 8.571282
8.571282booklet.indd 2-4
enlarged structure of sonata form, it includes with its single, continuous movement, a remarkable formal
innovation in itself, a slow movement and a rapid finale.
The sonata opens with a brief introduction, containing the first theme, a descending scale. There follows
a more energetic and dramatic figure, with an accompanying secondary melody, forming the first subject
proper of the sonata. A modulating passage leads to the second subject, in the form of a third theme,
marked Grandioso. A third subject is added, derived from the second element of the second theme. The
development of the sonata is in two parts. At first the three themes are treated in various ways before
giving way to a fourth theme, which serves as a first subject for the slow movement, marked Andante
sostenuto. The subsidiary element of the original second theme now appears as a second subject, the other
themes returning in a middle section, before this part of the sonata comes to an end. As the music fades to
the softest dynamic marking, the development of the whole work resumes with a fugal treatment of part
of the second theme, followed by a recapitulation and a coda in which earlier thematic material returns,
the second and first themes, in that order, bringing the whole sonata to an end, a formal tour de force.
It was in Paris in 1832 that Liszt first heard the famous violinist Nicolò Paganini. It was this occasion
that inspired Liszt to the fulfilment of a new ideal, to become the Paganini of the piano. On the violin
Paganini, who had started his international career only in 1828, achieved technical miracles, and this
offered Liszt a new aim, to be achieved, in the first place, by hard work. In 1838 Liszt wrote his own
Etudes d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, a set of six demanding studies based on Paganini’s
Capricci for solo violin and other works, published in 1840, the year of Paganini’s death and dedicated
to Clara Schumann. The set was clarified and revised for publication in 1851, originally under the title
Grandes études de Paganini transcendantes pour le piano, and then as Grande Etudes de Paganini.
The first study is an arrangement of Paganini’s Capriccio No. 6 in G minor, a study in which the melody
is given a tremolo accompaniment on an adjacent string. Liszt reproduces something of this effect, while
translating the piece into the idiom of the piano, gradually extending its range and figuration as the work
proceeds. The second study is based on Capriccio No. 17 in E flat major and starts with a dramatic
introduction, marked Andante in Liszt’s transcription and variously elaborated. It is followed by the
main body of the study, marked by Liszt Andantino capriccioso, in which the contrast of rapid scales
and emphatic chords in a lower register is retained. A central section, in Liszt’s version Più animato, like
the work on which it is based, makes use of octaves, before the opening, now further elaborated, returns.
The third study is Liszt’s version of Paganini’s famous La Campanella, the finale of the Violin Concerto
in B minor. The fourth study, marked Vivo in the revised piano version, is an arrangement of Paganini’s
Capriccio No. 1, an E major study in arpeggios, with the original direction imitando il flauto retained by
3 4
Liszt. The sixth study offers a version of Paganini’s famous Capriccio No. 24, a theme familiar from its
treatment by other composers, from Brahms to Rachmaninov and Boris Blacher. Liszt transmutes each
of the eleven original variations into virtuoso piano writing, retaining the character of each. The triple
stopping of the eighth variation is transformed into a syncopated version of the theme and the original
left-hand pizzicato of the ninth has the direction Staccato quasi pizzicato. The whole set ends with a
triumphant climax.
Keith Anderson
Idil Biret
Born in Ankara, Idil Biret started to play the piano at the age of three and later studied at the Paris
Conservatoire under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first
prizes. She was a pupil of Alfred Cortot and a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff. She embarked on her
career as a soloist at the age of sixteen, appearing with major orchestras in the principal music centres of
the world in collaboration with conductors of the greatest distinction. To many major festival appearances
may be added membership of juries for international competitions including the Van Cliburn, Queen
Elisabeth of Belgium and Busoni competitions. She has received the Lili Boulanger memorial Award in
Boston, the Harriet Cohen / Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal in London, the Polish Artistic Merit Award and the
Distinguished Service Medals, the Adelaide Ristori Prize in Italy, the French Chevalier de l’Ordre national
du Mérite and the State Artist distinction in Turkey. Her more than eighty records since the 1960s include
the first recordings of Liszt’s transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven for EMI, Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique for Atlantic / Finnadar and for Naxos the complete piano works of Brahms,
Chopin, Rachmaninov, the three Sonatas of Boulez, the Etudes of Ligeti and the complete Firebird piano
transcriptions by Stravinsky, with a Marco Polo disc of the piano compositions and transcriptions of
her mentor Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret has also recorded the 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven. Her Chopin recordings received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin award in Poland
and the Boulez recording the Golden Diapason of the year award in France. In 2007 the Polish President
decorated Biret with the Distinguished Service Order – Cavalry Cross for her contribution to Polish
culture through her recordings and performances of Chopin’s music.
8.571282
9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM
 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Sonata in B minor • Grandes Etudes de Paganini
Born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of Adam Liszt, a steward in the service of Haydn’s former
patrons, the Esterházy Princes, Franz Liszt had early encouragement from members of the Hungarian
nobility, allowing him in 1822 to go to Vienna, for lessons with Czerny and a famous meeting with
Beethoven. From there he moved to Paris, where Cherubini refused him admission to the Conservatoire,
as a foreigner. Nevertheless he was able to impress audiences by his performance, now supported by the
Erard family, piano manufacturers whose wares he was able to advertise in the concert tours on which he
embarked. In 1827 Adam Liszt died, and Franz Liszt was now joined again by his mother in Paris, while
using his time to teach, to read and benefit from the intellectual society with which he came into contact.
His interest in virtuoso performance was renewed when he heard the great violinist Paganini, whose
technical accomplishments he now set out to emulate.
The years that followed brought a series of compositions, including transcriptions of songs and operatic
fantasies, part of the stock-in-trade of a virtuoso. Liszt’s relationship with a married woman, the Comtesse
Marie d’Agoult, led to his departure from Paris for years of travel abroad, first to Switzerland, then back
to Paris, before leaving for Italy, Vienna and Hungary. By 1844 his relationship with his mistress, the
mother of his three children, was at an end, but his concert activities continued until 1847, the year in
which his association began with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Polish heiress, the estranged wife of a
Russian prince. The following year he settled with her in Weimar, the city of Goethe, turning his attention
now to the development of a newer form of orchestral music, the symphonic poem, and, as always, to the
revision and publication of earlier compositions.
It was in 1861, at the age of fifty, that Liszt moved to Rome, following Princess Carolyne, who had settled
there a year earlier. Divorce and annulment seemed to have opened the way to their marriage, but they
now continued to live in separate apartments in the city. Liszt eventually took minor orders and developed
a pattern of life that divided his time between Weimar, where he imparted advice to a younger generation,
Rome, where he was able to pursue his religious interests, and Pest, where he returned now as a national
hero. He died in 1886 in Bayreuth, where his daughter Cosima, widow of Richard Wagner, lived, more
concerned with the continued propagation of her husband’s music.
Liszt’s Sonata in B minor was published in 1854, at a time when he was busy in Weimar with the revision
of his earlier symphonic poems. Unlike these last, the sonata has no literary or extra-musical programme,
but is itself a remarkable summary of Liszt’s own characteristics as a composer and performer. In a much
8.571282 2 8.571282
8.571282booklet.indd 2-4
enlarged structure of sonata form, it includes with its single, continuous movement, a remarkable formal
innovation in itself, a slow movement and a rapid finale.
The sonata opens with a brief introduction, containing the first theme, a descending scale. There follows
a more energetic and dramatic figure, with an accompanying secondary melody, forming the first subject
proper of the sonata. A modulating passage leads to the second subject, in the form of a third theme,
marked Grandioso. A third subject is added, derived from the second element of the second theme. The
development of the sonata is in two parts. At first the three themes are treated in various ways before
giving way to a fourth theme, which serves as a first subject for the slow movement, marked Andante
sostenuto. The subsidiary element of the original second theme now appears as a second subject, the other
themes returning in a middle section, before this part of the sonata comes to an end. As the music fades to
the softest dynamic marking, the development of the whole work resumes with a fugal treatment of part
of the second theme, followed by a recapitulation and a coda in which earlier thematic material returns,
the second and first themes, in that order, bringing the whole sonata to an end, a formal tour de force.
It was in Paris in 1832 that Liszt first heard the famous violinist Nicolò Paganini. It was this occasion
that inspired Liszt to the fulfilment of a new ideal, to become the Paganini of the piano. On the violin
Paganini, who had started his international career only in 1828, achieved technical miracles, and this
offered Liszt a new aim, to be achieved, in the first place, by hard work. In 1838 Liszt wrote his own
Etudes d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, a set of six demanding studies based on Paganini’s
Capricci for solo violin and other works, published in 1840, the year of Paganini’s death and dedicated
to Clara Schumann. The set was clarified and revised for publication in 1851, originally under the title
Grandes études de Paganini transcendantes pour le piano, and then as Grande Etudes de Paganini.
The first study is an arrangement of Paganini’s Capriccio No. 6 in G minor, a study in which the melody
is given a tremolo accompaniment on an adjacent string. Liszt reproduces something of this effect, while
translating the piece into the idiom of the piano, gradually extending its range and figuration as the work
proceeds. The second study is based on Capriccio No. 17 in E flat major and starts with a dramatic
introduction, marked Andante in Liszt’s transcription and variously elaborated. It is followed by the
main body of the study, marked by Liszt Andantino capriccioso, in which the contrast of rapid scales
and emphatic chords in a lower register is retained. A central section, in Liszt’s version Più animato, like
the work on which it is based, makes use of octaves, before the opening, now further elaborated, returns.
The third study is Liszt’s version of Paganini’s famous La Campanella, the finale of the Violin Concerto
in B minor. The fourth study, marked Vivo in the revised piano version, is an arrangement of Paganini’s
Capriccio No. 1, an E major study in arpeggios, with the original direction imitando il flauto retained by
3 4
Liszt. The sixth study offers a version of Paganini’s famous Capriccio No. 24, a theme familiar from its
treatment by other composers, from Brahms to Rachmaninov and Boris Blacher. Liszt transmutes each
of the eleven original variations into virtuoso piano writing, retaining the character of each. The triple
stopping of the eighth variation is transformed into a syncopated version of the theme and the original
left-hand pizzicato of the ninth has the direction Staccato quasi pizzicato. The whole set ends with a
triumphant climax.
Keith Anderson
Idil Biret
Born in Ankara, Idil Biret started to play the piano at the age of three and later studied at the Paris
Conservatoire under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first
prizes. She was a pupil of Alfred Cortot and a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff. She embarked on her
career as a soloist at the age of sixteen, appearing with major orchestras in the principal music centres of
the world in collaboration with conductors of the greatest distinction. To many major festival appearances
may be added membership of juries for international competitions including the Van Cliburn, Queen
Elisabeth of Belgium and Busoni competitions. She has received the Lili Boulanger memorial Award in
Boston, the Harriet Cohen / Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal in London, the Polish Artistic Merit Award and the
Distinguished Service Medals, the Adelaide Ristori Prize in Italy, the French Chevalier de l’Ordre national
du Mérite and the State Artist distinction in Turkey. Her more than eighty records since the 1960s include
the first recordings of Liszt’s transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven for EMI, Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique for Atlantic / Finnadar and for Naxos the complete piano works of Brahms,
Chopin, Rachmaninov, the three Sonatas of Boulez, the Etudes of Ligeti and the complete Firebird piano
transcriptions by Stravinsky, with a Marco Polo disc of the piano compositions and transcriptions of
her mentor Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret has also recorded the 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven. Her Chopin recordings received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin award in Poland
and the Boulez recording the Golden Diapason of the year award in France. In 2007 the Polish President
decorated Biret with the Distinguished Service Order – Cavalry Cross for her contribution to Polish
culture through her recordings and performances of Chopin’s music.
8.571282
9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM
 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Sonata in B minor • Grandes Etudes de Paganini
Born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of Adam Liszt, a steward in the service of Haydn’s former
patrons, the Esterházy Princes, Franz Liszt had early encouragement from members of the Hungarian
nobility, allowing him in 1822 to go to Vienna, for lessons with Czerny and a famous meeting with
Beethoven. From there he moved to Paris, where Cherubini refused him admission to the Conservatoire,
as a foreigner. Nevertheless he was able to impress audiences by his performance, now supported by the
Erard family, piano manufacturers whose wares he was able to advertise in the concert tours on which he
embarked. In 1827 Adam Liszt died, and Franz Liszt was now joined again by his mother in Paris, while
using his time to teach, to read and benefit from the intellectual society with which he came into contact.
His interest in virtuoso performance was renewed when he heard the great violinist Paganini, whose
technical accomplishments he now set out to emulate.
The years that followed brought a series of compositions, including transcriptions of songs and operatic
fantasies, part of the stock-in-trade of a virtuoso. Liszt’s relationship with a married woman, the Comtesse
Marie d’Agoult, led to his departure from Paris for years of travel abroad, first to Switzerland, then back
to Paris, before leaving for Italy, Vienna and Hungary. By 1844 his relationship with his mistress, the
mother of his three children, was at an end, but his concert activities continued until 1847, the year in
which his association began with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Polish heiress, the estranged wife of a
Russian prince. The following year he settled with her in Weimar, the city of Goethe, turning his attention
now to the development of a newer form of orchestral music, the symphonic poem, and, as always, to the
revision and publication of earlier compositions.
It was in 1861, at the age of fifty, that Liszt moved to Rome, following Princess Carolyne, who had settled
there a year earlier. Divorce and annulment seemed to have opened the way to their marriage, but they
now continued to live in separate apartments in the city. Liszt eventually took minor orders and developed
a pattern of life that divided his time between Weimar, where he imparted advice to a younger generation,
Rome, where he was able to pursue his religious interests, and Pest, where he returned now as a national
hero. He died in 1886 in Bayreuth, where his daughter Cosima, widow of Richard Wagner, lived, more
concerned with the continued propagation of her husband’s music.
Liszt’s Sonata in B minor was published in 1854, at a time when he was busy in Weimar with the revision
of his earlier symphonic poems. Unlike these last, the sonata has no literary or extra-musical programme,
but is itself a remarkable summary of Liszt’s own characteristics as a composer and performer. In a much
8.571282 2 8.571282
8.571282booklet.indd 2-4
enlarged structure of sonata form, it includes with its single, continuous movement, a remarkable formal
innovation in itself, a slow movement and a rapid finale.
The sonata opens with a brief introduction, containing the first theme, a descending scale. There follows
a more energetic and dramatic figure, with an accompanying secondary melody, forming the first subject
proper of the sonata. A modulating passage leads to the second subject, in the form of a third theme,
marked Grandioso. A third subject is added, derived from the second element of the second theme. The
development of the sonata is in two parts. At first the three themes are treated in various ways before
giving way to a fourth theme, which serves as a first subject for the slow movement, marked Andante
sostenuto. The subsidiary element of the original second theme now appears as a second subject, the other
themes returning in a middle section, before this part of the sonata comes to an end. As the music fades to
the softest dynamic marking, the development of the whole work resumes with a fugal treatment of part
of the second theme, followed by a recapitulation and a coda in which earlier thematic material returns,
the second and first themes, in that order, bringing the whole sonata to an end, a formal tour de force.
It was in Paris in 1832 that Liszt first heard the famous violinist Nicolò Paganini. It was this occasion
that inspired Liszt to the fulfilment of a new ideal, to become the Paganini of the piano. On the violin
Paganini, who had started his international career only in 1828, achieved technical miracles, and this
offered Liszt a new aim, to be achieved, in the first place, by hard work. In 1838 Liszt wrote his own
Etudes d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, a set of six demanding studies based on Paganini’s
Capricci for solo violin and other works, published in 1840, the year of Paganini’s death and dedicated
to Clara Schumann. The set was clarified and revised for publication in 1851, originally under the title
Grandes études de Paganini transcendantes pour le piano, and then as Grande Etudes de Paganini.
The first study is an arrangement of Paganini’s Capriccio No. 6 in G minor, a study in which the melody
is given a tremolo accompaniment on an adjacent string. Liszt reproduces something of this effect, while
translating the piece into the idiom of the piano, gradually extending its range and figuration as the work
proceeds. The second study is based on Capriccio No. 17 in E flat major and starts with a dramatic
introduction, marked Andante in Liszt’s transcription and variously elaborated. It is followed by the
main body of the study, marked by Liszt Andantino capriccioso, in which the contrast of rapid scales
and emphatic chords in a lower register is retained. A central section, in Liszt’s version Più animato, like
the work on which it is based, makes use of octaves, before the opening, now further elaborated, returns.
The third study is Liszt’s version of Paganini’s famous La Campanella, the finale of the Violin Concerto
in B minor. The fourth study, marked Vivo in the revised piano version, is an arrangement of Paganini’s
Capriccio No. 1, an E major study in arpeggios, with the original direction imitando il flauto retained by
3 4
Liszt. The sixth study offers a version of Paganini’s famous Capriccio No. 24, a theme familiar from its
treatment by other composers, from Brahms to Rachmaninov and Boris Blacher. Liszt transmutes each
of the eleven original variations into virtuoso piano writing, retaining the character of each. The triple
stopping of the eighth variation is transformed into a syncopated version of the theme and the original
left-hand pizzicato of the ninth has the direction Staccato quasi pizzicato. The whole set ends with a
triumphant climax.
Keith Anderson
Idil Biret
Born in Ankara, Idil Biret started to play the piano at the age of three and later studied at the Paris
Conservatoire under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first
prizes. She was a pupil of Alfred Cortot and a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff. She embarked on her
career as a soloist at the age of sixteen, appearing with major orchestras in the principal music centres of
the world in collaboration with conductors of the greatest distinction. To many major festival appearances
may be added membership of juries for international competitions including the Van Cliburn, Queen
Elisabeth of Belgium and Busoni competitions. She has received the Lili Boulanger memorial Award in
Boston, the Harriet Cohen / Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal in London, the Polish Artistic Merit Award and the
Distinguished Service Medals, the Adelaide Ristori Prize in Italy, the French Chevalier de l’Ordre national
du Mérite and the State Artist distinction in Turkey. Her more than eighty records since the 1960s include
the first recordings of Liszt’s transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven for EMI, Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique for Atlantic / Finnadar and for Naxos the complete piano works of Brahms,
Chopin, Rachmaninov, the three Sonatas of Boulez, the Etudes of Ligeti and the complete Firebird piano
transcriptions by Stravinsky, with a Marco Polo disc of the piano compositions and transcriptions of
her mentor Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret has also recorded the 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven. Her Chopin recordings received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin award in Poland
and the Boulez recording the Golden Diapason of the year award in France. In 2007 the Polish President
decorated Biret with the Distinguished Service Order – Cavalry Cross for her contribution to Polish
culture through her recordings and performances of Chopin’s music.
8.571282
9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM
 IDIL BIRET SOLO EDITION . 1
Idil Biret Archive (IBA)
In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF
(Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française / French Radio and Television
Broadcasting) in Paris and made her first recordings. These were works by
Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made
over eighty LPs and CDs (released on ten record labels - Pretoria, Véga, Decca,
Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many
recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included
the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov and the Etudes
of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) will bring together as many of her
recordings as possible; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer
available commercially will be released together with her new recordings. The
transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven’s Symphonies, originally recorded for
EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven will be the first to be released on nineteen CDs. Then, all the Piano
Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs
recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York, including works by Boulez,
Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky will follow. IBA will be distributed
worldwide by Naxos on CD and on all major websites digitally.

FRANZ LISZT
Piano Sonata in B minor
The IBA emblem contains an etching by Albrecht Dürer sent to İdil Biret at Christmas 1959 Grandes Etudes de Paganini
by Nadia Boulanger with the following words:

“To my little Idil. Christmas 1959. May the Angel protect her on the beautiful and dangerous
path she has engaged herself in. With all my heart. N.B ”

8.571282booklet.indd 5-7 9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM

 IDIL BIRET SOLO EDITION . 1
Idil Biret Archive (IBA)
In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF
(Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française / French Radio and Television
Broadcasting) in Paris and made her first recordings. These were works by
Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made
over eighty LPs and CDs (released on ten record labels - Pretoria, Véga, Decca,
Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many
recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included
the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov and the Etudes
of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) will bring together as many of her
recordings as possible; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer
available commercially will be released together with her new recordings. The
transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven’s Symphonies, originally recorded for
EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of
Beethoven will be the first to be released on nineteen CDs. Then, all the Piano
Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs
recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York, including works by Boulez,
Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky will follow. IBA will be distributed
worldwide by Naxos on CD and on all major websites digitally.

FRANZ LISZT
Piano Sonata in B minor
The IBA emblem contains an etching by Albrecht Dürer sent to İdil Biret at Christmas 1959 Grandes Etudes de Paganini
by Nadia Boulanger with the following words:

“To my little Idil. Christmas 1959. May the Angel protect her on the beautiful and dangerous
path she has engaged herself in. With all my heart. N.B ”

8.571282booklet.indd 5-7 9/28/2010 9:57:06 AM

 Idil Biret
SOLO EDITION . 1
Idil Biret

Idil Biret
“I shall conclude with a piano recital which has greatly impressed me: the pianist Idil Biret is a marvelous musician, and,
even more, gifted with a very strong personality and great intelligence. After having admired successively the poetry of
Ravel’s Ondine, the virtuoso fireworks of Prokofiev’s Fourth Sonata and the intimacy of Chopin’s three Mazurkas, we IBA032
found, thanks to a brilliant interpretation of Liszt’s Sonata, all these qualities combined in one admirable synthesis; it was
truly a great moment. Idil Biret’s power of concentration is remarkable: at any moment she dominates the works as a whole,
as if she was looking from a mountaintop at the scene spreading below her. The miracle is that, without ever overdoing it,
SOLO EDITION . 1 Liszt Sonata, Paganini Etudes

SOLO EDITION . 1 Liszt Sonata, Paganini Etudes

Idil Biret succeeds in being, if needed, unashamedly romantic. That is what makes a great pianist.” 8.571282
REVUE DES DEUX MONDES France

“Idil Biret is extremely proficient in matters technical, secure in her sense of style and not afflicted by interpretive quirks Playing time
that pass so often for personality… She played Liszt’s monumental B minor Sonata with enormous assurance… Relatively 59:45
few pianists have the sense of architecture to organize this pianistic symphonic poem. She marshaled the sustaining power
to see the music through to the end, at which point her audience not surprisingly rose to its feet.”
TORONTO STAR Canada

Franz LISZT (1811-1876)

Sonata in B minor, S178/R21 31:20

Lento assai – Allegro energico – Andante sostenuto – Allegro energico – Andante sostenuto – Lento assai 31:20

Grandes Etudes de Paganini, S141/R3b 28:25

Preludio: Andante – Etude No. 1: Non troppo lento 06:23
and distributed by
Manufactured by Sonopress

www.idilbiretarchive.eu
Made in Germany
Booklet notes in English
Etude No. 2: Andante – Andante capriccioso 06:05
& © 2010 Idil Biret

Etude No. 3: La Campanella 04:52

Etude No. 4: Vivo 02:03
Etude No. 5: Allegretto 03:16
Etude No. 6: Theme and Variations: Quasi presto 05:46

Recorded: Brussels, December 1987 (Grandes Etudes); Bilkent Hall, Ankara, January 2010 (Sonata)
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Producers and engineers: Günther Appenheimer (Sonata), Michel Devos (Grandes Etudes)
Piano: Steinway • Booklet notes: Keith Anderson • Cover photo: Carsten Dürer