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.![Col%2BMM-605%2B%25281946%2529-r.jpg]() |
| 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.
