Géza Anda (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, Karl Böhm
Prospero Classical · PROSP0100 · 79 minutes
There’s something magnetic about hearing Géza Anda live rather than in the studio — the Mozart especially breathes in a way that feels almost improvised, like he’s discovering the phrases in real time alongside Böhm and the Vienna players. Anda’s touch has this rare combination of clarity and warmth, so even the fastest passagework never sounds rushed or brittle, just effortlessly alive. Pairing it with the Brahms gives you the full range of the man, from Mozartean sparkle to real weight and gravity, and the fact that both performances still sound this vivid decades later says everything about why they’ve earned an ICMA this year.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2025 — Winner – Historical
“In the Mozart concerto he presents himself with a fluid, light and clearly sparkling playing. Karl Böhm accompanies with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with particularly beautifully and substantially…”
— Pizzicato
Géza Anda (piano), Clara Haskil (piano), Swiss Festival Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Ferenc Fricsay, Ernest Ansermet
Audite · AUDITE95650 · 68 minutes
There’s something almost startling about hearing Bartók’s astringent modernism sit next to Bach’s clarity on the same disc, and Anda and Haskil make the leap feel natural rather than jarring. These are live Lucerne Festival tapes, so you get all the electricity of Karajan, Fricsay, and Ansermet pushing things forward in real time, imperfections and all. Haskil’s Bach has that rare combination of stillness and forward motion, while Anda’s Bartók crackles with a rhythmic bite that studio polish tends to smooth away.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2023 — Nominated – Historical
Geza Anda (piano), Robert Casadesus (piano), Clara Haskil (piano), Nathan Milstein (violin), Philharmonia Orchestra, Swiss Festival Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
Audite · AUDITE21464 · 3 hours 44 minutes
There’s something thrilling about hearing Karajan before he became the polished institution everyone thinks they know — leaner, hungrier, still figuring things out with the Philharmonia and the Swiss Festival Orchestra in these Lucerne broadcasts. The soloist lineup alone makes this a treasure trove: Clara Haskil’s Mozart has that unrepeatable combination of fragility and total control, and Milstein plays like he’s got nothing to prove, which somehow makes it more thrilling. Three and a half hours in, you start to realize you’re not just hearing great performances, you’re hearing a whole postwar musical world still finding its footing.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2024 — Nominated – Historical
Géza Anda (piano)
Berlin R.S.O, Ferenc Fricsay
Alto · ALC1246
There’s something almost combative about the First Concerto, all those percussive clashes between piano and winds, and Anda just refuses to soften any of it — he plays like he means every angular phrase, which is exactly what Bartók asks for. Fricsay matches him blow for blow in the Second, but it’s the Third, written in the composer’s last stretch of life, where Anda finds this unexpected tenderness underneath all that Hungarian grit. Decades on, these performances still feel like the benchmark other pianists get measured against, and honestly for good reason.
Awards:
- Building a Library — February 2020 — Also Recommended
“The ‘troubadour of the keyboard’ offers a steel-fingered, characterful readings of Bartók’s First and Second Concertos and atmospheric magic in the Third.”
— BBC Music Magazine
Géza Anda (piano)
Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Ferenc Fricsay
Deutsche Grammophon · 4473992 · 77 minutes
There’s something almost combustible about Anda’s approach to the First Concerto especially — those relentless, hammering rhythms that so many pianists tame into mere aggression, he plays with a kind of joyful ferocity instead. Fricsay matches him step for step, which matters enormously here since Bartók wrote these concertos as genuine conversations between piano and orchestra rather than star vehicles with accompaniment. Decades on, and with a Building a Library nod for the Second Concerto to prove it, this pairing still sounds like the benchmark everyone else gets measured against.
Awards:
- Building A Library — November 2025 — Top Choice (Piano Concerto No. 2)
“Much as you’d like to tout the new as the best, there are some older recordings where a very special chemistry spells ‘definitive’, and that pose an almost impossible challenge to subsequent…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide
Igor Markevitch, Jeanne-Marie Darré, Leonid Kogan, Jascha Heifetz, Charles Munch, Bela Siki, Geza Anda, Philharmonia orchestra, Louis Fourestier, Orchestre national de la radiodiffudion française, Pierre Monteux, Boston Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre du Concertgebouw, Madeleine D’aleman, Raoul Barthalay, Ninon Vallin
Diapason · 43636 · 78 minutes
Saint-Saëns gets dismissed sometimes as the composer who wrote a zoo suite and a bit of Halloween music, but this collection makes the case for how sly and inventive he actually was underneath the charm. What jumps out here is the sheer range of interpreters gathered under one roof — Heifetz tearing into the Havanaise with that unmistakable steel-and-silk tone, Kogan bringing his own fire elsewhere, and Munch shaping things with his usual sense of color and momentum. It’s less a single interpretive statement than a scrapbook of golden-age performances, and that variety turns out to be the whole point.
Awards:
- Building A Library — September 2021 — Historic Recommendation
