‘An inspiring poet of the piano’ (Daily Telegraph)
Martino Tirimo’s major recordings include the piano concertos of Brahms (for EMI), Chopin (BMG/Alto), Rachmaninov (EMI), Tippett (Nimbus, with Tippett conducting), the complete works of Debussy (Regis), all Janacek works (Quartz) and the first complete set of Schubert’s 21 Sonatas on eight CDs (EMI). His urtext edition of the Schubert Sonatas is published by Wiener Urtext in 3 Volumes, with his completions to the unfinished movements.
For his Rachmaninov 2nd Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody, one of EMI’s best sellers, he received in 1995 a Gold Disc. In 2006 he celebrated Mozart’s 250th anniversary of birth with a unique series of eight concerts, at London’s Cadogan Hall, devoted to the complete piano works of the composer, a feat never attempted before. His recordings of all these works, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, were released on 12 CDs (Regis) and International Record Review wrote that ‘what Tirimo brings out is the essence of the music, nothing being allowed to come between the composer and us’. More recently he has recorded Beethoven’s complete piano works and these will be released in 2012.
Tirimo was born into a musical family in Cyprus and as child prodigy appeared both as pianist and conductor, at twelve conducting La Traviata seven times with soloists from La Scala, Milano. At thirteen the family moved to London and at sixteen he won the Franz Liszt Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, later completing his studies in Vienna. He came to world attention in 1971/72 when he won the international competitions in Munich and Geneva and has since appeared frequently with all the major London and UK orchestras as well as the leading orchestras in Berlin, Cleveland, Dresden, Leipzig, Munich, Prague, Vienna and other centres, with conductors such as Barbirolli, Boult, Masur, Sanderling and Rattle. He has also directed from the keyboard several cycles of the Beethoven Concertos, with the Dresden Philharmonic, notably in Germany and at the Royal Festival Hall.
He has given numerous series devoted to Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas, Schubert’s 21 Sonatas, Robert and Clara Schumann’s principal works, Chopin’s major works, as well as series of Mozart Concertos, directing the Prague Chamber Orchestra. In 2004 performances included concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and at the Athens Festival, during the Olympic period, with the Vienna Philharmonic. As conductor he has frequently appeared with the Dresden Philharmonic as well as other orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra, and directed Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Prague Chamber Orchestra and many others. His compositions include the score for the film “The Odyssey”, which was screened on Channel 4 and other European TV stations. In 2004 he had the honour to run with the Olympic torch, perhaps the first classical musician to have done so.
In 2010, in celebration of Chopin’s 200th anniversary of birth, he gave more than 100 concerts performing the composer’s complete works, 10 of them at London’s Kings Place, to exceptional critical acclaim. The Arts Desk described it as ‘a colossal feat’ and Tirimo as ‘Kings Place’s hero of the year’. In 2015 he is performing all the major works of Schubert and after the first concert Classical Source wrote that ‘Tirimo has the uncanny ability to make the audience feel it is in the very presence of the composer’. In an earlier review Music and Vision declared that ‘Tirimo’s playing belongs to a past generation of ‘greats’. Listening to him I conjure up aural images of Solomon, Arrau, Kempff, Serkin, Schnabel, Backhaus and Rubinstein. Throughout the evening one was consistently aware that this supreme musician placed himself entirely at the service of the composer’. (For more details see www.martinotirimo.com)
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