André Watts The Complete Columbia Album Collection

On January 15, 1963, sixteen-year-old American pianist André Watts dazzled television audiences with Liszt s E-flat Concerto on a New York Philharmonic Young People s Concert with Leonard Bernstein, bringing inspiration and hope to a diverse population of music students. When Glenn Gould cancelled a Philharmonic appearance a few weeks later, Watts was called to substitute. His triumphant performances launched an international career. Watts remains one of the world s most successful, consistent and communicative musicians as he enters his seventieth year in 2016. To celebrate this milestone, Sony Classical presents a 12-CD box set, André Watts The Complete Columbia Album Collection, documenting the pianist s progression from teenager to the youthful maturity revealed in his 1980 Tokyo concerts. In addition to concertos by Chopin, Liszt, Franck, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, Watts solo Columbia recordings showcase his natural affinity for a wide gamut of works and styles, as in the elegant virtuosity of the pianist s Liszt Sonata, his direct and virile Beethoven interpretations, his affectionate Schubert, his delicately nuanced Debussy and his upbeat, idiomatic Gershwin.



André Watts The Complete Columbia Album Collection features twelve CDs with a booklet that includes notes by Jed Distler, full discographical information and archival photos. The contents and sleeves replicate each album s original LP packaging, with five albums available for the first time on CD and all newly remastered.

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