Rosina Lhévinne in Chopin and Debussy

Josef and Rosina Lhévinne

In my first post devoted to the little recorded pianist Rosina Lhévinne, I promised a second entry devoted to her Chopin first concerto and one of the few discs she made with her husband Josef before his early death in 1944. I am making good on that promise today, perhaps the only New Year's resolution I will keep all year.

Josef and Rosina's recording of Debussy's "Fêtes," in Ravel's two-piano version, comes from June 1935, and is one of two works they performed for commercial issue. (I do not possess the other, a Mozart sonata.) The rendition is spirited, emphasizing the festive rather than the nocturnal. My transfer comes from an early RCA Camden LP with excellent sound.

The main work is Rosina's second late-in-life concerto recording. Following the Mozart recording that marked her 80th birthday, she was invited into the Vanguard studios to tape Chopin's Concerto No. 1. Accompanying her was the clumsily named Members of the Alumni of the National Orchestral Association, under John Barnett. A word of explanation: the National Orchestral Association provided a training platform for orchestral players who were newly graduated from conservatory. The "Members of the Alumni" included musicians who had gone on to New York orchestras such as the Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. John Barnett was the director of the National Orchestral Association at the time, in succession to Léon Barzin, who had founded the organization in 1930.

The Members of the Alumni are very good, but in Chopin concertos almost all of the interest is in the solo part, and Lhévinne does not disappoint. Her playing displays the same grace and control that made the Mozart concerto such a success. It's a shame she was not asked to record more often.

Vanguard's sonics were dull, but I have done my best to bring out the elegant sound of Rosina Lhévinne's piano, with some success, I hope. The LP also included a performance of Schumann's Overture, Scherzo and Finale, which I have not transferred.