Many collectors will have heard these performances one way or another, but Music & Arts isn't kidding when it tells us that these performances were remastered in 1998 "from the best available sources." The live sound is great, considering its age. (Credit goes to Maggi Payne.) Furthermore, six and a fraction Mahler symphonies on six well-filled CDs, and for the price of four, is a bargain. But all this good stuff would be as useless as a preacher in a house of ill-repute if it weren't for the blazing nature of the musicianship. Our Editor usually passes Mitropoulos discs my way because he knows I sympathize, so perhaps my opinions are biased. Nevertheless, I think I am speaking reasonably when I say that all good Mahlerians will want these discs. No, they will need them. That Mitropoulitans such as myself will have to have them is predictable, and only right. In short, this is a fabulous collection: an orgy of great music interpreted greatly.

Context is needed. In the late 1950s, Mitropoulos was being driven out of New York in favor of the younger, more photogenic, more glamorous, and publicly heterosexual Leonard Bernstein. (Bernstein's role in Mitropoulos's downfall is traced in William R. Trotter's Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, which is published by Amadeus Press.) Lest it be thought that I am about to engage in Lenny-bashing, let me reassure readers that I believe him to be one of the century's great conductors. His reputation, however, has come to eclipse Mitropoulos's. There is an unfair tendency, particularly in America, to regard Bernstein as the conductor who single-handedly brought Mahler's music back to life, proving it was playable by orchestras and listenable by audiences. This set shows that Mitropoulos was performing the music too, and his interpretations were not those of an also-ran. Bernstein's Mahler, then, didn't just appear out of nowhere, and it wasn't until the last decade of his life that he had the maturity to be a deep conductor of Mahler, rather than simply an entertaining one.

Here, Mitropoulos was at the end of his life. In fact, all of these performances but one find him less than 15 months from death. (The Third, recorded in New York, is from 1956. I'm not sure why Music & Arts didn't use the Third recorded in Cologne three days before his death. It's been available on several "pirate" labels and is regarded as superior to the one offered here.) There's nothing sickly about this Mahler, though. Like Bernstein, Mitropoulos was a dramatic conductor, and his intensely physical response to the music was communicated to the orchestra and to the listeners. Unlike Bernstein, though, Mitropoulos's Mahler never is self-indulgently neurotic, and the Greek conductor never strains for effect, never neglects to look for the light and the shade. There are some stretches of conducting (try the first two movements of the Fifth) where the effect produced is positively nerve-wracking, but they are balanced by other stretches of such tender, consoling beauty that Mahler's muse comes to seem more Classic than Expressionistic.

Turning to individual performances, it is interesting to compare the "live" New York First with the studio version he recorded with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra for Columbia Records in 1940. (It's now on Sony Masterworks Heritage MHK 62342. Incidentally, it was the symphony's first recording ever.) Twenty years later, Mitropoulos took slower tempos in all the movements, but most dramatically in the finale (19:58 vs. 17:18). The bulk of the difference comes from the movement's last third, where the added breadth pays a big emotional dividend. Perhaps because his New York orchestra was so much better, Mitropoulos finds delicious subtleties that were beyond the Minneapolitans. Try the stealing in of Spring—it's a little comic, and it's oh-so-very tender.

In 1956, it had been 34 years since the Third Symphony had been conducted in New York (by Mengelberg). It almost tums into a different piece in the performance preserved here. Most conductors take 33 or 34 minutes to traverse the massive opening movement, the composer's longest non-vocal stretch. Mitropoulos's idea is to show that it can be done in 25 without seeming rushed. Incredibly, he succeeds—try the boisterous "Rabble" section to see what benefits he brings to it. The audience breaks into spontaneous applause after this movement. The other movements are fast too; some of the passages in the Third approach the alarming. This certainly is a potent performance, one that left me feeling better about the symphony as a whole than I sometimes do. But there's no denying that the instrumental and vocal balances are odd, and that the orchestra has its rough times. For me, what really throws this performance into left field is the fact that it is sung in English! The fourth movement isn't too bad, but when the fifth begins with—I kid you not—childish cries of "Boing! Boing!" you know you've wandered into the Twilight Zone. And what about the same movement's fade-out? The choruses aren't identified. Perhaps this is just as well, because they have problems with singing in tune.

The Fifth Symphony was performed just one week before the First reviewed above. As with all of the performances dating from January 1960 (this includes the Ninth and the Tenth), this is very strong Mahler. My first impression of this performance was that it is neurotic as all hell, but subsequent listens moderated that impression somewhat. What does characterize this performance, for me, is its sensitivity to the music's emotional ebb and flow. Of course. Mahler divided the symphony into three parts, the first part comprised of the first two movements, the second part comprised of only the third movement, and the last part comprised of the last two movements. Mitropoulos's is the only performance 1 know of that finds a different sound, a different temperament, if you will, for each of the three parts. The effect is striking. The first part is tense, even vicious, but then there's a sea change in the Janus-faced Scherzo. The Adagietto (11:03) takes on erotic proportions, and the Rondo-Finale is perhaps the only relative disappointment, not building to the triumph one ideally wants as an end to this symphony. Some noise, not unlike that of a slightly mistuned AM radio station, creeps into the fourth movement. Otherwise, all goes well.

The Sixth Symphony, recorded in 1959 with the Cologne Radio Orchestra, is relatively traditional, but hardly dull. It gets stronger as it progresses: the Scherzo—terribly bitter, in this performance— has a singularly menacing, grotesque trio, and the third movement heaves with a heavy passion. While remaining within traditional parameters of tempo, Mitropoulos's Finale is unwontedly coherent... and fatalistic. Perhaps surprisingly, the German orchestra is a little more reliable, even if it does reach the heights of inspiration heard in the New York tapings. The quality of the sound is A-OK.

Probably the most familiar of these performances is the Eighth, which was recorded in Vienna in August 1960. (Again, remember this was only a few months before the conductor's death.) It has been released on several different labels. It was the first Mahler Eighth I owned, before I was old enough to know what I was doing. (It was coupled with a "live" recording of Mahler's Second, conducted by Klemperer. Call it beginner's luck.) In his book, Trotter recounts how Mitropoulos, uncharacteristically, was beside himself with frustration during rehearsals. The concert, however, was regarded as a triumph. The first movement unfolds with unhurried glory; the female soloists are especially radiant. In the second movement, Prey distinguishes himself in his long solo, but overall, I just don't find the voltage to be very high. The sound is only middling, apparently having been spliced together from two or more different sources. In this symphony, my affection lies with Bernstein's first commercial recording of the work, still available in the "Royal Edition."

One begins to suspect that, at least at the end of his life, Mitropoulos became a different conductor whenever he was in New York—almost as if he had to prove something to the orchestra, the critics, or the audiences. Once again, the Ninth Symphony, and the torso of the Tenth, are given white-heat performances in the latter half of January 1960. Mitropoulos so moved the New Yorkers with the Ninth that he said, "Perhaps Gustav Mahler led my baton from the beyond," a ghoulish statement, given the conductor's failing health. But Mitropoulos does not go gentle into that good night—there is anger mingled with the resignation in the Adagio. And, in the Rondo, Mitropoulos predictably finds the darkest colors in Mahler's superficial high spirits. Just listen to the opening bassoon scales and you'll hear communicative musicianship of the highest order.

I believe Mitropoulos conducted all of Mahler's symphonies, with the exception of the "Resurrection." He conducted the Fourth in Minneapolis and the Seventh in New York—how exciting it would be if tapes of those performances were to surface. Also, how exciting it would have been if the present symphonies had been recorded in the studio, and in stereo. It should have been so. Nevertheless, this set contains more than one can digest quickly, and it can create nothing but support for Dimitri Mitropoulos's still-rising reputation. How ironic that it has taken more than 35 years for that resurrection to take place!

-- Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE

WILLEM MENGELBERG CONDUCTS TCH

Clara Haskil's Salzburg recital from August 8, 1957, is familiar from the pianist's Philips studio versions--but these live traversals are preferable. Haskil's sonority, for one, benefits from a closer mike pickup that conveys the full measure of the Romanian pianist's gutsy, musicianly playing. Her angular passagework in the wonderful Mozart C major Sonata K. 330 is more controlled than in her Philips recording. Likewise, the biting, woodwind-like left hand lines in the Scherzo of Beethoven's E-flat major Sonata Op. 31 No. 3 swagger with more conviction. Oddly, she omits the first movement repeat honored in her two studio versions. There's also a greater degree of risk as well as accuracy in this live Schubert B-flat Sonata--a performance filled to the brim with touching lyricism and tensile strength. A tip of the hat, then, to Music and Arts for making this material available in very good mono broadcast sound. Haskil may have had a saintly reputation, but as a pianist she was one tough cookie! --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

This is one of the most exciting "New World"s I've ever heard... [C]laims were made that it was a 1941 recording made by Wilhelm Furtwängler... It wasn't until the 1990s and detective work by German discophiles that the truth came out... The "Romantic" is remarkable for the flexibility that Kabasta builds into his brisk tempos; his Bruckner breathes... In short, this is a fascinating issue, and one well worth exploring for anyone who admires Furtwängler's athleticism.

-- Raymond Tuttle, www.classical.net

Edwin Fischer: The Legacy of a Great Pianist (1943-1953)

VERDI: OTELLO KLEIBER, FRENI,

In Honor of Rudolf Kolisch (1896-1978) is Music & Arts' six-disc tribute to a key figure in twentieth century music whose name is invoked in a number of historic contexts, yet whose actual recorded work remains almost unknown. Rudolf Kolisch was the leader of the Kolisch String Quartet, the "house band" at Arnold Schoenberg's ISCM conferences in the 1920s and a group that formed the first line of defense in the avant-garde musical movements in Europe before the rise of Nazi Germany. As the Kolisch also recorded a fair amount of standard quartet literature, this set is limited mainly to this and Kolisch's other groups' recordings of the Second Vienna School and Bart k, although the Kolisch Quartet recording of the Schubert Octet in F, performed with additional guest players, from the Library of Congress in 1940 is included as a bonus. The program opens with an extraordinary and audacious series of private recordings, made on a United Artists soundstage in Hollywood under the aegis of Alfred Newman, of all four of Schoenberg's string quartets dating from late 1936 and early 1937. The Fourth Quartet hadn't even premiered yet - this would occur the day after recording, on January 8, 1937, at UCLA. from this same session are included some of Schoenberg's spoken comments, in which he offers thanks to Newman and United Artists, and even addresses the "friends" of his music that belong to the future, presumably not yet born. These recordings have been issued a number of times, despite their "p-r-r-rivate" (pace Schoenberg) provenance, and unfortunately little can be done to rescue them from their noisy and somewhat dim audio perspective. They have never been dealt with, in a sonic sense, with more proficiency than here. From an interpretive standpoint, this Kolisch performance of the String Quartet No. 1 in D minor remains one of the best made, simply because the group has a thorough understanding of the Viennese milieu in which the quartet was conceived and does not try to make it sound more "modern" than it is. from there we jump ahead to 1950 and the Pro Arte Quartet of the University of Wisconsin, a pre-existing group that Kolisch took over in 1945 and retrofitted for performances of contemporary quartet literature. We get a second shot at the Third Schoenberg quartet with this group, and the performance is tighter and even more intense than that with the Kolisch Quartet, not to mention heard in excellent mono sound taken from a Dial LP. for some reason the sonic perspective is a little more cramped in Berg's Lyric Suite and some of the other Dials, but it is still astonishing to realize that in hearing the Berg you are listening to a performance led by the same person who premiered this now standard work at a 1927 ISCM Festival. The tempi observed here are faster than in most performances - indeed, the pace of the Allegro misterioso is downright dizzying. The three discs that follow are an embarrassment of riches: Kolisch heard in a rare context as soloist, playing the Schoenberg concerto at the University of Wisconsin, the Bart k Sonata for solo violin, and Schoenberg's Fantasy, Op. 47, with his colleague Gunnar Johansen. With the Pro Arte Quartet, further Dial recordings are heard - the Webern Opp. 5 and 9, Schoenberg's early String Quartet in D of 1897, and Bart k's Fifth Quartet Apart from the purely historical value of the recordings, and their highly variable sound quality, what is Kolisch like? In his time, all of this music was unfamiliar, and in the twenty-first century nearly all of it is familiar - in a sense some of it has reached a point of perfection that approaches fossilization. Kolisch certainly isn't looking to make his Schoenberg or Bart k warm and cozy, and he doesn't have a problem dealing with it as "difficult" music; after hearing his Bart K Sonata for solo violin, some might wonder if Kolisch is not making it a bit more diff.

Petri was in his youth something of a multi-instrumentalist. We remember him as Busoni’s greatest pupil and a Lisztian of coruscating brilliance but he was also a violinist – not surprising as his father, Henri, was an internationally renowned performer and teacher – but also, less predictably, as a French horn player good enough to take a place in the Dresden Symphony. Petri was a musician of the utmost clarity, distinction and directness with a technique remarkable even into old age and whose conception of space and tonal value gave him a persuasive insight into music of intellect and weight. As a Beethovenian he was distinguished - as a Chopin player he maybe reflected something of his teacher Busoni’s own professed ambiguity and duality of response. Petri’s pre-War Columbias have been collated on APR and demonstrate his strengths in abundance. Music and Arts has here brought together his concerts and broadcasts from the period covering 1954 to 1962, the year of his death. His reluctance to travel, his physical lack of flamboyance, indeed his active distaste of extravagance and extraneous gesture and detail, meant that audiences didn’t much clamour to hear him. Their loss is evident from this uneven but nevertheless exceptionally significant series of survivals.

There’s a caveat to be made about the actual piano sound on some of these off-air and private recordings; it can be rather harsh but it’s not at all unlistenable. There are also some imperfections to be expected – some wow and distortion (minimal and fleeting) some dropouts (ditto) as well as pitch distortion. These are all honestly noted in Music and Arts documentation and I should mention them here; they didn’t unduly trouble me. The repertoire is very much Petri’s canonical one – the last Beethoven sonatas, Busoni, Chopin as well as Bach-Busoni and Bach-Petri. He was always a charming exponent of Gluck, a more unexpected one here of Medtner. Of Liszt there’s but a fleeting glimpse – Venezia e Napoli, taped in the last year of his life.

We start with his Chopin Preludes Op. 28. Well, best to get this over with I suppose. I find his Chopin rather disappointing. His rubati in the Agitato opener are well judged if unexceptionable (he was known to scorn the emotive exaggerations of some of his colleagues) but he is very, very cool in No. 4, the Largo in E. There’s a dispassionate control in No. 6, a Lento from which, however, he seems to wish to expunge feeling. He is fine though in another Largo, No. 9 in E – his truly noble sound is affecting – but there isn’t enough distinction between the hands in No. 11, where he fails to differentiate the melody line in the right hand. There’s even a distribution between hands – something that seems to me afflicts No. 13 in F sharp as well. The Sostenuto in D flat (No. 15) is very dry playing indeed – Petri adamantine in his refusal to indulge colouristic potential; in addition his left hand covers the right at some crucial moments. He improves considerably for the B flat Presto and the power contained within as he does for the virility and energy of the Allegro appassionato conclusion (he omits Nos. 21 and 22 for some reason). Throughout I felt him most comfortable with the athletic, technical side of the Preludes and rather less indulgent towards the lyrical side that Busoni himself felt most ambivalent about. Of his Busoni indeed I could hardly say anything other than that it is magnificent. The Song of Victory from the Indian Diary is 1.16 of powerfully sustained pianism of an exalted level whilst the eloquence of the Bluebird Song shows that what he failed to do so glaringly in Chopin he could manifestly do in Busoni. The final dance shows off Petri’s superb rhythmic control, his colour and his sheer depth of tone (never overdone). He was seventy-seven when he was taped in Busoni’s All’Italia – sheer virtuosic panache. The disc finishes with twenty-five minutes of Petri with the eminent pianist Carlo Bussotti in a stratospherically impressive Fantasia Contrappuntistica; the two men seemingly joined at the musical hip so intense and marshalled their decisive vision.

The second disc is rather more bits and pieces – but what bits what pieces. The Medtner is very impressive playing indeed if not quite in the Moiseiwitsch or Medtner class. The Danza Festiva is rather heavier than the composer’s own recording but the Op. 20/2 Fairy Tale in B has some seismic attacks. The Schumann Fantasiestücke are in somewhat splintery sound but he plays them with rather more overt affection than he did the Chopin; the Allegro con fuoco second is sonorous, the third is affecting, without affectation, and the Vivacissimo, Dream Visions is full of filigree drive, albeit one accompanied by a degree of tape distortion. His own Bach Chorale arrangements are justly famous as are his recordings of them. Sheep may safely graze is nourishingly intimate and beautifully adept with its sudden pianissimi, whilst I step before Thy Throne grows in authority and grandeur. There’s little real difference between Petri’s 1930s recording of the Minuet (from the W.F. Bach Notebook) and this one, made in 1958. His Schubert-Liszt is duly frolicsome and the Nocturne in D flat has quite a lot more vivacity and colour than he lavished on the Préludes, albeit his rhythm is rather heavy.

The third disc gives us his trademark Gluck-Sgambati Melodie – and this time he must cede to his earlier self; he’s heavier, more emphatic, less treble oriented preferring to concentrate instead on the middle voicings. The captivating beauty of that earlier recording has been replaced by a philosophic depth that does seem rather alien to it. His Beethoven Op. 90 Sonata is characteristically plain speaking and strong; the second of the two movements is especially buoyant and decisive. The Chopin examples here, the Sonata in B and the Nocturne in F sharp, are vitiated by choppy rhythm. Petri was seventy-eight when these performances were taped so maybe that has something to do with it but whilst there are tonally delightful glints in the opening Allegro of the Sonata it sounds as if, like a mathematician, Petri were actively breaking the movement – and indeed the work as a whole – into units. The algebraic-philosophic-contrapuntalist approach here renders much of this very disappointing. I liked the lento much more though and whilst the presto finale again suffers from rhythmic insistence there are still compensatory features of colour and vivacity.

The final disc is in many ways the most consistently elevated in musical terms, principally because it finds Petri addressing Beethoven. There are some technical frailties in the opening of Op. 109, it’s true, but more important by far is the sense of powerful direction. Again the tiny Prestissimo second movement taxes him for a moment but we should concentrate on the Andante finale. Here Petri is very direct, almost casual, but as the movement advances and his architectural priorities become clearer we are aware of a mind of illuminating integrity at work. By the later variations he develops a degree of metrical flexibility that one would not have earlier suspected. There is no undue sentiment and I would certainly understand those who hold this to be a logician’s Beethoven. My own instincts are for something more overtly expressive but I can but admire the tremendous concentration of his approach. The A flat Sonata, Op. 110, again taped in 1954, certainly lacks to my ears the molto espressivo in the first movement requested of the performer. But Petri is careful to reserve the weight of his intelligence and tonal resources for the first, Adagio section of the finale. He keeps this moving with an almost Arietta delicacy, though he certainly employs weight and shading. The Fuga is strong and determined. In Op. 111 his Maestoso is fast, strong, with no great tonal beauty to it. I have to say I found it inflexible, on one level and rather superficial. It’s a performance that seeks to divide and fracture still further, rather than reconcile, the character of both movements. With a pianist such as Solomon the seemingly disparate and oppositional movements take on congruence and a retrospective sense of rightness. With Petri the implacably oppositional nature of the Sonata is starkly delineated. In that Arietta finale Petri is flexible without coming to a stop; his syncopated passages are driving, even a little peremptory, but he never seeks to extract huge weight of left hand tone or to indulge abstraction. This is intelligent, lean, technically adept and impressive playing, whatever ones view of its ability to move, which I happen to find relatively limited.

Documentation consists in the main of an interview between annotator Frederick Maroth and Petri’s English pupil, Claire James who had attended the famous Busoni-Petri two-piano London recital of 1921. They deal with the central features of Petri’s pianism with acumen, as one would expect, with some quietly revealing information disclosed along the way. This is a set of some real importance in capturing Petri’s art at a time when he was given considerably less than his due. Even at his most phlegmatic his brand of musical stoicism added an imperishable page to the annals of pianism on record in the twentieth century.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Walter Gieseking (1933-1947)

Born in Long Beach, California, on August 9, 1928, Camilla Wicks led a stellar career in the dozen years after World War Two; one of a select group whose achievements helped to establish women violinistsí prominence on the concert stage. It is worth considering that around that golden time, the likes of Heifetz, Milstein, Menuhin, Francescatti reigned supreme; the veterans Szigeti, Elman and Thibaud were still active and beloved; Stern was a firm favorite, Rabin a prodigious sensation, and Oistrakh and Kogan were just resoundingly breaking through the Iron Curtain. In this illustrious company, Wicks was considered one of the great soloists on both sides of the Atlantic, upheld by many as a queen among violinists. At the peak of her fame and subsequently, she retired more than once to devote herself to her family, but remained an outstanding if intermittent performer for many more decades. While her vinyl records have long been revered by collectors, this CD release of early live performances offers a vital opportunity for a more widespread audience to discover this astonishing artist. Wicks was recently featured in a long article in Strad magazine which mentioned this upcoming CD.

Live recordings, 1972-1882. Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-87) is largely forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic pianists of the twentieth century, and his eccentric personality and bizarre career have few parallels in the history of music. These late concert recordings, all but four released here for the first time, are representative of Nyiregyházi's art, and should help to rehabilitate a lost genius whose reputation has rarely matched his artistic stature.

WAGNER, R.: Walkure (Die) / Gotterdammerung (excerpts) (Furt

MICHELANGELI IN LONDON - THE J

Music and Arts has unearthed what it calls "lost Feuermann," recordings the great cellist made during tours of Japan in 1934 and 1936. The 1936 sessions are mostly fluff, the sort of ear candy that makes for nice encores, and were staples of the 78 rpm era. Feuermann, of course, elevates them to the realm of high art. His seamless legato makes fascinating listening experiences of Mendelssohn's Spring Song and Rubenstein's Melody, and he sings Godard's Berceuse and Schubert's Serenade with bel canto phrasing worthy of a Golden Age tenor. His tonal command is complete, ranging from rich, dark tones in Tchaikowsky's Valse sentimentale to the light and airy in Schumann's Zigeunerleben. Unfortunately, the transfers obscure much of Feuermann's golden tonal resources through aggressive noise-reduction techniques. Compare, for example, the wooden mid-and lower registers in the Spring Song to the multi-colored hues of the same Japanese recording on Pearl 9446. The 1934 sessions sound much better, more vibrant and alive, with unobjectionable 78 surface noise. Those recordings offer real novelties--arrangements of Japanese folk songs, one by a composer named Taki on the back of the jewel box, and three by a man the skimpy booklet notes identify as "eminent Japanese composer and conductor" Kosaku Yamada. These are also of the bob-bon persuasion, and frankly imitative. Yamada"s Karatachi no Hana reminds one of "Old Folks at Home," while Ojoro Takashima sounds more Jewish than Ernest Bloch's Prayer from the 1936 set, making it a perfect choice for a "name the composer" quiz. The disc is filled out with three European recordings made early in Feuermann's tragically brief career--a saccharine Bach--Gounod Ave Maria, a gorgeously played Bruch Kol Nidrei, and the second and third movements of Haydn's Concerto in D disfigured by a scrappy orchestra and a slow movement of such gross sentimentality that its only redeeming features are Feuermann's rich tone and its suitability as a torture device for aficionados of the authentic instruments school. But this interpretation too, is authentic in the sense that it's the way Haydn was done at a certain place and a certain time. There's some wonderful cello playing on this disc and it will be welcomed by all who admire Feuermann's art, both for his playing and for the opportunity to hear some of his most rare recordings.

--Dan Davis, ClassicsToday.com

Four CD set. Few great conductors can be classified by just a few characteristics. Although this cautionary remark applies to Dimitri Mitropoulos, it seems safe to say that, among other things, he was renowned for performances of intensity and animation; his willingness, even eagerness, to explore unfamiliar repertory; and his photographic memory. Ample evidence of the first two characteristics can be heard in this collection of live performances, many previously unreleased, with the Philharmonic-Symphony and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in repertoire with which his career was closely associated. The two volumes include works by Busoni, to whose circle he had belonged as a student in Berlin, the Twelve-tone Viennese masters for whom he fought major cultural battles, Prokofiev, Richard Strauss, and Mahler, whose inner landscape he found congenial and helped popularize in his decades in America. Digital restorations in 2008 utilizing the revolutionary harmonic balancing technique.

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Includes work(s) by Jenö Hubay. Soloist: Charles Castleman.

Includes cto(s) by Robert Schumann. Soloist: Claudio Arrau.
Includes cto(s) for pno by Franz Liszt. Soloist: Claudio Arrau.
Includes work(s) for pno by Carl Maria von Weber. Soloist: Claudio Arrau.

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Pianist, scholar and pedagogue Paul Badura-Skoda may best be known to the music loving public at large as an exponent of the Viennese classics. In fact, Badura-Skoda's lengthy career covers far more musical ground than he is usually given credit for, from his awesome teenage prowess as an accordion virtuoso to the flamenco-inspired flair he brought to Frank Martin's Fantasie, a work written especially for Badura-Skoda. In January 2005, we heard Badura-Skoda in an intimate, semi-private recital in New York, where the 77-year-old pianist covered a wide repertoire range with consummate authority and still-impressive technical command, notably in a shimmering, intense performance of Ravel's Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit. A selection of Chopin short pieces proved no less idiomatic, and served to remind US this composer also has preoccupied Badura-Skoda for a long time. Chopin also figures in the pianist's uncommonly large and wide-ranging discography of more than 200 releases, including the present 1971-5 studio recordings, all but one piece being released now for the first time.

There was no composer whose works were more frequently passed off as Mozart's than Eberl. Even more surprising is the documented fact that there was no protest from Mozart against the use of his name on Eberl's compositions. Eberl, a friend and (probably) a student of the great man, did mind but was too timid to take action until after Mozart had died. Finally, he published a notice in a widely read German newspaper claiming ownership of a number of his compositions attributed to Mozart. Despite this, his works still continued to be published under Mozart's name. This in itself is a telling indication as to the contemporary opinion of the quality of Eberl's works, but critical reviews of his day also spoke of works published under his own name reaching the heights of Haydn's, Mozart's and the young Beethoven's. -- Seven world premieres are presented in this collection of Eberl's solo piano output by forte-pianist John Khouri, whose previous recordings of Clementi, Hummel, Cramer, and others on Music & Arts have been acclaimed for authenticity and artistic excellence.

This is Toscanini's only concert recorded in stereo that survives complete! Deleted six years ago from Music & Arts catalogue, this long-time best seller has been reissued in response to widespread demand, with new graphics.

Complete Symphonies and Selected Overtures, from the legendary October-December 1939 NBC cycle. CD 1: Symphony No 1 in C Major, Op. 21 & Symphony No 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica" (Studio 8H, 28 Oct. 1939. CD 2: Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op. 36; Symphony No 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 & Leonore Overture No. 3 (Studio 8H, 4 Nov. 1939). CD 3: Symphony No 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastorale" & Symphony No 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (Studio 8H, 11 Nov. 1939). CD 4: Egmont Overture & Symphony No 7 in A Major, Op. 92 (Studio 8H, 18 Nov. 1939); Leonore Overture No. 1 & Symphony No 8 in F Major, Op. 93 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939). CD 5: Leonore Overture No. 2 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939}; Symphony No 9 in D Minor, Op. 1(Jarmila Novotna, Kerstin Thorborg, Jan Peerce, Nicola Moscona, Westminster Choir, Carnegie Hall, 2 Dec. 1939). New 2013 digital transfers by Aaron Z. Snyder using the revolutionary harmonic balancing process. Notes: Christopher Dyment. Total time: 6 hrs 12 min. BUZZ: "With Chris Dyment's uncommonly informative notes, this release is essential for anyone who cares about Beethoven or Toscanini" --Mortimer H. Frank in Fanfare [on the previous edition] "a must for every experienced music lover... 5.0 out of 5 stars " --Peter Dietrich, amazon.com customer reviews [on the previous edition] "These are superb transfers... They give a great cycle its best sonic shout to date." --Rob Cowan, Gramophone [on the previous edition] "The NBC Orchestra is in fine form and the great conductor's sometimes controversial genius combines with that of Beethoven to produce dazzling and memorable performances." -- www.new-classics.co.uk [on the previous edition]

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