Happy Birthday, Antonín Dvořák!

Tuesday marks the 174th anniversary of the birth of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). I guess that means I'm a year ahead of celebrating a nice round number (175th), but so what? - any excuse to listen to Dvořák's music seems a good one to me. And so here is his Cello Concerto, one of the works composed in America, and suffused with nostalgia and homesickness. Of course, almost every cellist of note has recorded it, and most of these recordings that I've heard fall short of the ideal interpretation. It requires a performance of total emotional commitment, while at the same time avoiding sentimentality, and that's a fine line indeed! I think this version by Piatigorsky, himself a lifelong exile, comes as close as any I've heard (naturally, it doesn't hurt to have the support of Ormandy and his great orchestra):

Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 17, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-658, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 88.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 64.36 MB)

This cover design of this set affords another excuse to add to my ongoing Alex Steinweiss gallery:

Happy Birthday, Gregor Piatigorsky!

Unsigned cover design for Columbia MX-258

This Friday, April 17, marks the 112th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976). For a musician of his stature, he left far too few solo recordings - a handful for German Odeon in the late 1920s, all of short pieces, and a somewhat more substantial batch for HMV in the 30s (including a Beethoven sonata with Schnabel, and a Brahms with Rubinstein). But it wasn't until the 40s, when he came to America, and signed on with Columbia, that more of an effort was made to commit his repertoire to disc. These two sonata recordings are among the fruits of that association:

Beethoven: Sonata No. 5 in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Ralph Berkowitz, piano
Recorded June 6, 1945
Columbia Masterworks MX-258, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 39.14 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.53 MB)

Brahms: Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Ralph Berkowitz, piano
Recorded May 28, 1947
Columbia Masterworks ML-2096, one 10-inch LP record
Link (FLAC files, 66.00 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 44.94 MB)

Almost twice as much music was recorded by Piatigorsky for Columbia as was actually released. There were unissued versions of the Grieg, Debussy and Barber sonatas - this last-named, Columbia actually went so far as to assign a set number for (MM-737), and both Piatigorsky and Barber were eager to have it released. My guess is that a suitable filler side could not be agreed upon. These sonata recordings finally saw the light of day in 2010, with the issue of a six-CD set by West Hill Radio Archives, a set that is indispensable for lovers of Piatigorsky's art, and which, when last I checked, was being sold at Berkshire Record Outlet at a reduced price.

Strauss: Don Quixote (Piatigorsky & Reiner)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

About a year ago, I posted Emanuel Feuermann's great recording of Richard Strauss' strange and wonderful hybrid of variations, concerto and symphonic poem, "Don Quixote."  Fine as that recording is, I still maintain a great affection for the recording which functioned as its competitor when new, because it was my own introduction to the glories of this great work, about thirty-three years ago:

Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35
Fritz Reiner conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Henri Temianka, violin; Vladimir Bakaleinikoff, viola
Recorded November 15, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MM-506, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 84.7 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 48.5 MB)

Both Reiner and Piatigorsky would revisit "Don Quixote" in the recording studio a decade later, though not together - even though both had by then moved to RCA.  Piatigorsky recorded the piece with Munch and the Boston Symphony in 1953, and Reiner recorded it with the Chicago Symphony and cellist Antonio Janigro in 1959.