Bartok from Sándor and Ormandy, Plus Miaskovsky

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.

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.

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.

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.

György Sándor in Rachmaninoff

I discovered this superb performance of the Rachmaninoff second concerto through a posting on another forum by my friend Joe Serraglio of a transfer by the great Argentine music lover, Maria Elena Hartung.

As Maria acknowledged, her work came from a poor pressing, so I offered to dub a cleaner example of the LP, which I am bringing to you today.

It is an early recording by the Hungarian-American pianist György Sándor. Today, Sándor is closely associated with the music of Béla Bartók, but his first recordings for Columbia were actually of Liszt, Chopin and Schumann in March 1945, followed by this traversal of the Rachmaninoff concerto in January 1946. The following month Sándor premiered Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. Those forces took the piece into Columbia's studios in April 1946 for a recording I'll be presenting at a later date.

This particular concerto was accompanied not by the Philadelphians but by the New Yorkers under their then-music director Artur Rodziński. The recording session was in Carnegie Hall, but for such a famous venue, the Columbia engineers achieved frustratingly opaque and tubby sound. I have attempted to address the balances, perhaps at the cost of inducing some clattery piano tone above forte.

I hope the sound is good enough to convey the pianist's sterling qualities. Known as a virtuoso, Sándor nonetheless conveys grace and elegance while never indulging in the swooping and swooning that this concerto seeks to provoke in today's instrumentalists. Rodziński and his orchestra at at one with this approach.

Cover of 78 set

The first issue of the concerto was in 78 set M-605. In the LP era, the recording became a fixture in Columbia's low-priced lines, first on Entré and then in at least two iterations on Harmony. My transfer is from a circa 1957 pressing. Thanks to Maria and Joe for introducing me to this fine performance, and to Joe for sourcing the vintage image at right and several contained in the download.