Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer's technical brilliance, inward but passionate playing, and commitment to both new works and new interpretations of old works have made him one of the most respected violinists in the world today. He is widely known as the director of his own ensemble, Kremerata Baltica, which has explored a wide range of new music from the Baltic region and other areas.
Kremer was born on February 27, 1947, in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. The Latvian form of his name is Gidons Krēmers. His parents were both professional violinists (his father, a Jew, survived the Holocaust), and, as with so many virtuosi, Kremer's gift was apparent almost immediately after a violin was put in his hands. His grandfather, Georg Bruckner, concertmaster of the Riga Opera, is credited with having guided the development of his formidable talent. Kremer won the first prize of the Latvian Republic at age 16 and entered the Moscow Conservatory to study under the legendary violinist David Oistrakh, who eventually offered him a position as an assistant after he graduated. By that time, however, Kremer had already won numerous violin competitions (most notably the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition), and his star was rising as a soloist. Kremer had been denied permission to travel abroad but was finally allowed to leave the country in 1975. He became a sensation in the West when conductor Herbert von Karajan in 1976 proclaimed Kremer the greatest violinist in the world after recording the Brahms violin concerto with him.
A remarkably versatile player, Kremer has a repertory encompassing the standard Baroque, Classical, and Romantic literature, as well as new works by composers such as Stockhausen, Henze, and Adams, and music from the Baltic countries. Always a champion of the new and the rare, he has rhetorically asked: "Why ride the same old warhorses to success?" He also enjoys thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom, regularly creating radical reinterpretations of the classics, as in his 1980 recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with somewhat bizarre cadenzas by Schnittke. He disdains virtuosity for virtuosity's sake but is nonetheless one of the most technically proficient violinists in the world. His playing tends toward a thoughtful austerity rather than the extroversion of a Jascha Heifetz, but when he is in top form, he is a mesmerizing performer.
Kremer has kept apartments around the world but became particularly fond of the Austrian town of Lockenhaus. He founded the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival there in 1981 but ended the festival in 1990, deciding to stop before the task became too exhausting. In the late '90s, he created the punningly named Kremerata Baltica with a group of young Latvian players; the group's recordings of Arvo Pärt and Astor Piazzolla placed them out in front of two of the hottest trends of the 20th century's end. His recordings with the group have won numerous international awards, including a Grammy in 2002.
In the early 2010s, Kremer withdrew from several high-profile appearances, citing weariness with the machinery of musical celebrity. His recording career, however, has possibly become even more prolific, encompassing chamber music, recordings of mainstream repertory, and continued exploration with Kremerata Baltica, on the ECM label, of contemporary music from the Slavic countries, his native Baltic region, and the Russian sphere. He has devoted a pair of albums to Shostakovich's protégé Mieczyslaw Weinberg; one was honored with a Grammy nomination in 2015, and a second, devoted to the composer's chamber symphonies, appeared in 2017. He was once again nominated for a Grammy in 2019 for a recording of Weinberg's Symphonies Nos. 2 & 21 under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Kremer's more mainstream recordings, such as a 2012 album devoted to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, have appeared on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca. His recording pace slowed hardly at all, as he issued several recordings annually during the late 2010s and early 2020s, by which time he was in his mid-70s. Kremer is not known as a chamber music player but has issued recordings with younger performers whose careers he has helped along; in 2020, he released an album of trios by Beethoven (an arrangement of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56) and Chopin with cellist Giedré Dirvanauskaité and pianist Georgijs Osokins. In 2022, Kremer issued a recording of Weinberg's difficult Sonatas for violin solo. By that time, his catalog contained nearly 200 recordings.
© Andrew Lindemann Malone & James Manheim /TiVo
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Gidon Kremer - Great Recordings
Classica - Pubblicato da UME - Global Clearing House il 25 feb 2022
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Glass: Heroes Symphony
Gidon Kremer, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi, American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 1 lug 2014
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Weinberg : Violin Sonatas, Concertino, Symphony no.10... (Live In Lockenhaus & Neuhardenberg / 2012 & 2013)
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Classica - Pubblicato da ECM Records il 28 gen 2014
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Art of Instrumentation : Homage to Glenn Gould
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Classica - Pubblicato da Nonesuch il 21 set 2012
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Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 7 nov 1994
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Brahms: Klavierquartett, Op.25 / Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op.88
Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 1 gen 2002
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Schumann : Piano Concerto - Violin Concerto
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, The Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Musica concertante - Pubblicato da Warner Classics International il 1 gen 1994
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Vivaldi: Four Seasons
Leslie Pearson, Gidon Kremer, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 12 nov 2021
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Astor Piazzolla: El Tango
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Classica - Pubblicato da Nonesuch il 19 ago 1997
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Glass: Violin Concerto / Rorem: Violin Concerto (1984) / Bernstein: Serenade After Plato's "Symposium" (1954) For Solo Violin, String Orchestra, Harp And Percussion
Gidon Kremer, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi, Leonard Bernstein
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 1 gen 1979
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Schubert: Violin Works
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 1 gen 2002
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Tchaïkovsky: Concerto pour piano n° 1 - Concerto pour violon
Lazar Berman, Gidon Kremer, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel
Classica - Pubblicato da Universal Music Division Decca Records France il 1 gen 2007
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J.S. Bach: Concerto in C Minor / Vivaldi: Concerto in G Minor; Violin Concerto in D Major
Gidon Kremer, Heinz Holliger, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 1 feb 1984
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Johann Strauss II & Lanner: Waltzes & Polkas
Gidon Kremer, Peter Guth, Kim Kashkashian, Georg Maximilian Hörtnagel
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 1 mar 1984
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From My Home. Music from the Baltic Countries by Pärt, Tüür, Vasks ...
Classica - Pubblicato da Warner Classics il 1 gen 1997
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Schubert: Octet D 803
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 1 gen 1987
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Piazzolla: Tango Ballet
Classica - Pubblicato da Warner Classics il 1 gen 1999
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Schubert: String Quartet G Major
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Classica - Pubblicato da ECM New Series il 29 ago 2005
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Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Gidon Kremer, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 1 gen 1982
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Beethoven & Chopin: Piano Trios
Gidon Kremer, Giedré Dirvanauskaité, Georgijs Osokins
Musica da camera - Pubblicato da Accentus Music il 25 set 2020
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Happy Birthday
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Classica - Pubblicato da Rhino - Warner Records il 1 gen 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo