MISCHA KOTTLER
Ukranian-born American pianist (1899 - 1994)

Mischa Kottler had the opportunity as a young man to play for Rachmaninoff who urged him to further his studies in Europe where he studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris and Emil von Sauer in Vienna. Why he did not become a name we all recognize is a mystery, but he certainly returned from those studies with an ever greater technique than the one with which he had so impressed Rachmaninoff years earlier.

Listen to his amazing version of the "Minute Waltz" and his splendid performance of the Rachmaninoff prelude in G♯ minor, both recorded live.

The recording of the Rachmaninoff 3rd concerto displays his extraordinary pianism and wonderful musicianship, even in his eighties.  It is said that he also performed the concerto with the Detroit Symphony.  Would that one of those performances had been recorded.  The sound of this one is awful and the unidentified orchestra is almost indistinguishable as such much of the time.

In the 1950s, he became the principal pianist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Chopin-Kottler  Waltz 6 in D♭ major, Op 64~1