An unusual keyboard sonatas trilogy played by Emil Gilels, widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Howard Taubman of The New York Times proclaimed him a ''great pianist'' on the occasion of his New York debut at Carnegie Hall in 1955: he was the first prominent Soviet musician to perform in the United States since Sergei Prokofiev in 1921.
Gilels continued to receive such encomiums throughout his career, both in the Soviet Union, where he had taught at the Moscow Conversatory since 1938, and in the West. Altogether, he made 14 American tours, the last in 1983. On the occasion of his last New York recital, on April 16, 1983, Donal Henahan wrote in The Times of his ''formidable, high-finish technique and beautiful control of nuance.''
Gilels led the procession of Soviet artists of his generation to the West; others who emerged shortly after his debut were David Oistrakh, the violinist; Sviatoslav Richter, the pianist, and Mstislav Rostropovich, the cellist. Together, this group suggested that the traditions of Romantic music-making had not died out in the relatively isolated Russian musical world.
