LEONID KOGAN
LEONID KOGAN - THE UNRELEASED GERMAN RECORDINGS VOL. I - SAPPHIRE EDITION®
SAPPHIRE EDITION®
LEONID KOGAN
THE UNRELEASED GERMAN RECORDINGS VOL. I
118,00€
Delivered from 27/11/26
Record 1
- Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in G minor, RV 317
- Allegro
- Largo
- Allegro
- Bach: Sarabande, Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
- Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, KV 216
- Allegro
- Adagio
- Rondeau
Record 2
- Schubert/Wilhelmj: Ave Maria, D. 839
- Schubert/Heifetz: Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat major, Op. 90
- Händel/Flesch: Aria "Dignare"
- Brahms/Kreisler: Hungarian Dance No. 17 in F minor
- Debussy/Heifetz: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
- Shostakovich/Glickman: Three Fantastic Dances, Op. 5
- No. 1
- No. 2
- No. 3
- Karayev: From the ballet "Seven Beauties"
- Adagio
- Valse
- Prokofiev/Heifetz: March from "The Love for Three Oranges"
- Tchaikovsky: Méditation from "Souvenir d'un lieu cher", Op. 42
500 Copies
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Leonid Kogan was born on 14 November 1924 in Ekaterinoslav, now Dnipro, Ukraine, into a Jewish family. His father was a professional photographer and amateur violinist. However, Kogan was to say later, “I took up the violin entirely by chance.” As a child, he kept his instrument constantly by his side, and he would lay it at his bedside at night. In 1934, when Leonid was nine years old, the Kogan family moved to Moscow so that he could enrol at the Central School of Music in the class of Abram Yampolsky. The bond between Kogan and his new teacher was so strong that Abram took the young boy under his wing, even into his home, and found him a violin. Abram Yampolsky remained his teacher at the Moscow Conservatory and continued to offer him guidance until his death, working with him for eighteen years altogether.
In 1941, Leonid Kogan made his debut with Brahms’s Concerto. This was followed by a host of concerts throughout war-torn Soviet Union — in Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Baku, and as far afield as Ulaanbaatar. In 1949, in the small hall of the Moscow Conservatory, he made history as the first violinist to perform all twenty-four of Paganini’s Caprices in one evening. With Paganini’s First Concerto, he won the 1951 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels — a veritable triumph. It was an event that catapulted him onto the stages of the world.
The original recordings that The Lost Recordings unearthed from the archives of the former East German radio station date from November 1953, just two years after this achievement. The only exception is Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor, which opens this album. Superbly recorded, live, on 8 October 1968 at the Kongresshalle in Leipzig, with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester under the baton of Herbert Kegel, this previously unreleased recording of the concerto predates the version of Rudolf Barshai conducting the Moscow Chamber Orchestra by three years. Mozart’s Concerto KV 216 is part of a previously unreleased 1953 recording made in Berlin during a concert conducted by Hermann Abendroth — the earliest known performance by Kogan of this work, and certainly one of the most sincere and vital.
The second part of this album features some true musical gems, unseen and unheard since 1953. Astonishingly well recorded for the time, Kogan’s playing on these perfectly preserved studio tapes, with its purity of tone, the refinement of the bowing, the quality of the legato and the elegance of the vibrato, immediately pierces the listener’s soul. Such refined nuance, such total mastery immediately bring to mind only one other violinist: Jascha Heifetz. Heifetz toured the Soviet Union only once, in 1934, when he gave six concerts, all of which Kogan, then aged nine, attended. “I attended all his concerts, and I still remember every single note he played. For me, he was the ideal artist,” he said later. The first part of these studio recordings of short pieces, with Andrei Mytnik on the piano, rings out as Kogan’s tribute to his idol — right up to the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which Heifetz transcribed for violin in 1930, though he never went on to record it.
There is no doubt that this first volume of recordings, which remained unreleased for over seventy years, is invaluable. When Kogan played, he seemed to be wearing an iron mask, but his multi-hued bow and creative soul burned forcefully. We can only share the feeling of Marc Chagall, whose portrait hung in the violinist’s studio, when he wrote, “Dear Kogan, your violin and your music are so often present in my paintings.”
Leonid Kogan, violin
Andrei Mytnik, piano
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Herbert Kegel (Vivaldi)
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Hermann Abendroth (Mozart)
STEREO ℗ 1968 DRA, MONO ℗ 1953 DRA
Vivaldi: recorded October 8, 1968, Kongresshalle, Leipzig
Bach: recorded October 15, 1968, Metropoltheater, Berlin
Mozart: recorded November 11, 1953, place unknown
Record 2: recorded November 15, 24 and 26, 1953, Funkhaus Nalepastraße, Kultursaal, Berlin
Restored by © 2026 THE LOST RECORDINGS from the original analog tapes
Ref.: TLR-2603071VS
33rpm Lacquer-cuts: Marie Pieprzownik
200g Double Ultimate Record®
Limited edition: 500 copies
Deluxe Boxset
Phoenix Pressings
*A 16-bit album download card is included with the vinyl.
ULTIMATE RECORD®
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"Not for a single moment must the audience lapse into indifference." Leonid Kogan
OUR HAPPY MUSIC LOVERS
