The sonatas of Beethoven were Gilels’s last recordings. A projected complete set was left unfinished at his death. The Sonata in E-flat, Op. 31, No. 1, reveals both his dynamic and coloristic contribution to Beethoven’s music, together with textural clarity and articulation.

Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor, D. 940 is thought to be one of the greatest works ever written for piano four-hands, employing a genre frequently associated with amateur performance to achieve searing dramatic contrast and moving eloquence. Elena Gilels, a concert artist in her own right, joined her father for this memorable recorded document.

A Muscovite by birth, Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) was of German descent, a heritage so strongly reflected in his music that some likened it to Brahms. An outstanding pianist and a friend of Rachmaninoff, Medtner left Russia in 1921, settling first in Paris and then in England, where he spent the last sixteen years of his life. His music is noted for its technical sophistication, such as the high degree of thematic integration displayed in his single movement Sonata in G minor, composed about 1910.

The four works by Brahms that bear that name Ballade were composed between 1854 and 1856. A Scottish traditional ballad “Edward” inspired the mood but not the musical means of the first. The five sections of the second begin and end lyrically.

Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor, K 397, experiments with a fusion of the popular galant style and the empfindsamekeit of C. P. E. Bach. The broken chords of the beginning lead to a shyly lyric episode and the work concludes with a sunny episode in the major. The earlier Sonata, K 281 was written in Salzburg in 1774 and is one of six that seem to have been conceived for teaching purposes, although its Rondeau finale suggests that Mozart already looked ahead to Paris.

Chopin’s Third Sonata dates from 1844 (his only work composed in that year) and was set down in the summer at Nohant, where he vacationed with George Sand.

Edvard Grieg, a Norwegian nationalist, turned around the “ei” of his Scottish surname to “ie” so his fellow countryman could pronounce it correctly. As a composer, he achieved worldwide acclaim with a succession of pianistic miniatures of which the Lyric Pieces are best known. The selection of nine included here shows that together with the older pianist Walter Gieseking, Gilels must be considered among their finest interpreters.