This is a recording from Appian Publications & Recordings Ltd (to quote the full title)—the label invariably more familiarly known simply as "APR".

Since its foundation in 1986, APR has won an enviable reputation as a quality label devoted predominantly—though not exclusively—to historic piano recordings. In particular APR has won countless laurels for the high standard of its 78rpm restoration work—"Transfers of genius" to quote one critic—as well as the detail and content of its booklets.

In his later years, Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995) was regarded as one of the last ‘Romantics’—a throwback to the so-called ‘golden age’ of pianism in the first decades of the 20th century. As a pupil of Josef Hofmann, he had an impeccable pedigree, but we tend to forget his long career meant he was already playing and recording in that ‘golden age’. Here then are these early recordings, complete for the first time, starting in the acoustic era with the young prodigy’s 1923 Victor discs.