Not long ago, I featured György Sándor's sublime rendition of
Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, mentioning that at the time of recording in early 1946, the pianist was about to premiere the Third Piano Concerto of the recently deceased
Béla Bartók.
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| Cover of 78 set |
Both the premiere and this subsequent recording were with with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. Columbia issued the
Bartók as a 78 set (M-674) that year, and then transferred it to the new LP format in 1949. There, it was coupled with the Ormandy recording of the Symphony No. 21 of the then-living Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky (today usually transliterated as Myaskovsky), set down in 1947.
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| Sándor and Bartók |
Sándor was a
Bartók pupil and was closely associated with that master. He would record the Third Concerto two more times, first with the young Michael Gielen and a Vienna orchestra in 1959, and then with Adám Fischer and the Hungarian State Orchestra in 1990. As a bonus to the Philadelphia recording, I've transferred the Vienna rendition and included it in the download. Originally on the Vox label, it is an early stereo effort, with Sándor crowded over to the right of the sound stage. My transfer is from a later Turnabout pressing.
Both
Bartók performances are quite good. As might be expected, the Philadelphians have more tonal allure than the Vienna band, but the playing on both is alert and Sándor is impressive, as always.
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| Miaskovsky |
Don't skip the Miaskovsky symphony, which is well worth getting to know and wonderfully handled by Ormandy and his troops. The Chicago Symphony and Frederick Stock commissioned the work, which dates from 1940, but did not record it, to my knowledge. The first recording was by Nathan Rachlin (aka Natan Rahklin) with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra in 1941.
Both the
Bartók 78 set and the subsequent LP have covers by Alex Steinweiss. The LP art has fun with stereotypes, as that artist often did. I'm not sure what he is depicting on the 78 cover. A piano hammer? An avocado? Perhaps someone more perceptive than I am can decipher it.
