When Gina Bachauer – who was born in Athens in 1913 and died there during a concert tour in 1976 – made her first gramophone recordings in 1949, which can be heard on CD 3 of this set, she could already look back on an impressive career. Alfred Cortot and Sergei Rachmaninov were among her teachers; Dimitri Mitropoulos conducted her first public concert in Athens in 1935, and concert appearances all over Europe soon followed. When the Second World War broke out she was in Egypt, and while there she gave more than 600 concerts to the Allied troops. 1947 saw her resume her professional activities first in London and three years later – after a triumphant concert in Carnegie Hall in New York – in the USA as well. The State of Utah made her an honorary citizen, and the newly-opened Kennedy Center in Washington invited her to give the first solo recital in 1971. For John Barbirolli, she was the 'glorious Greek', and Yehudi Menuhin remembered her warm-hearted humanity. (Text adapted from the booklet notes, written by Jan Gärtner.)