Lili Kraus: The complete Parlophone, Ducretet-Thomson, Les Discophiles Français recordings 1933-1956

While the outstanding reputation of the Hungarian-born pianist Lili Kraus was built on a comparatively narrow repertoire of Viennese classics (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert), her experience as a musician and as a human being was of extraordinary breadth. A pupil of such towering figures as Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Artur Schnabel, she made an international career from the age of 18, becoming a professor at the Vienna Conservatory at the age of 20. It was while touring Indonesia in 1943 that she and her family were captured by Japanese forces, and she subsequently spent two years in prison camps, where studying her repertoire in her head helped her to survive hard labour. Her long recording career spanned the eras of the 78, the mono LP and the stereo LP. All the recordings in this 31-CD anthology date from a 25-year period on either side of World War II – 1933-1958. This collection gathers together all the recordings Kraus made for three separate labels – Parlophone, Ducretet-Thomson and Discophiles Français. Eighty per cent of them have never before been made available on CD in Europe, and all tracks have been re-mastered in 24 BIT / 96 kHz.