Hilda Bor

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / 3 Comments / July 16, 2021

A wartime concert in the series organized by Bor Yet another pianist I’d never heard of showed up in a YouTube upload recently and I was stunned by the playing. The artist was one Hilda Bor, a

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American Master Pianist Sidney Foster

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / May 23, 2021

With the advent of the CD in the 1980s, historical recordings began being made available at a faster rate than ever before, and as a result we are today able to hear more great artists

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Leo Sirota

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / May 4, 2021

Busoni disciples Leo Sirota and Egon Petri It is remarkable that a pianist whom Busoni said was among his greatest disciples could be forgotten to the extent that many fans of piano playing today have never

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Dohnányi – The Pianist

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / April 25, 2021

In 2010, I was invited to give a presentation by Alan Walker at the Great Romantics Festival that he was organizing in Hamilton, Ontario, an invitation for which I am eternally grateful. It was my

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Alfred Cortot plays Stravinsky

by Mark Ainley / Uncategorized / No Comments / April 19, 2021

There was quite a bit of excitement when a Youtube upload was made of a 1927 test pressing of Alfred Cortot playing the Danse Russe from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka Suite. Those who didn’t read the details

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Celebrating Simon Barere

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / April 2, 2021

Many pianists lived fascinating lives whose biographical details are forever fused to their legacy. Sadly, for several artists it is sometimes the circumstances around their deaths for which they are most immediately remembered. One such

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Egon Petri at 140

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / March 23, 2021

The German-born Dutch pianist Egon Petri has been a favourite of mine from my earliest years of collecting records. The APR label had put out the bulk of his 78rpm recordings on three double-CD sets

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An Introduction to Historical Piano Recordings

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / March 13, 2021

I was delighted to have been invited by the Ross McKee Foundation in San Francisco to present a filmed introduction to historical piano recordings. I was approached several months ago about the possibility of presenting

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A Forgotten Genius: Muriel Kerr

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / No Comments / March 4, 2021

One of the great joys of running my Facebook page for the last 11-plus years is coming across great pianists I’d never heard of. In the past one had to find a record in a

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Lubka Kolessa

by Mark Ainley / Feature / Recordings / 1 Comment / January 31, 2021

There are many great pianists whose performing careers for a variety of reasons did not sustain the promise of their early years, and a good number of them became distinguished teachers whose influence on musical

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