Misha Dichter - Misha Dichter - the Complete RCA Victor Recordings - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Misha Dichter was born in 1945 in Shanghai, where his Polish parents had fled to by way of the trans-Siberian railroad in order to wait out the war. In 1947 the Dichter family moved to Los Angeles where Misha began studying piano. His first significant teacher was Aube Tzerko, who had studied with Artur Schnabel. InchHe literally started me from scratch,Inch Dichter recalled. But the hard work finally paid off when he was accepted into Rosina Lhévinne's class at the Juilliard School. InchIn the fall of 1965 I saw a poster in the Juilliard coatroom announcing the third annual Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow,Inch recalls Dichter. InchI had just lost a few local competitions in Los Angeles, so I thought, why not just go for the big one?Inch The young pianist's Silver Medal victory in 1966 led to a contract with RCA Victor, for whom he made the three acclaimed albums reissued here, and to the international career of this Inchmost polished pianistInch (High Fidelity).It was inevitable, perhaps, that Dichter's début for the tag would be given over to the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor Concerto, the same work that catapulted the competition's first winner Van Cliburn to international stardom. Dichter was to perform the Tchaikovsky at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf, so RCA duly set up recording sessions.Dichter's second RCA Victor album juxtaposed selected Brahms piano pieces with Stravinsky's 3 Movements from Petrushka, and with his third RCA , the pianist devoted himself to Beethoven and Schubert. Arthur Rubinstein approved of Dichter's Schubert, to the extent that he famously invited his younger colleague to his Paris home, where a film crew captured Dichter playing Schubert's B-flat Sonata D 960 in Rubinstein's presence. Dichter holds an equally special affinity for the A major Sonata D 959 - Inchit still represents to me what paradise