Orchestral & Concerto

This unique record brings together two of the greatest musicians of their day in a complete Carnegie Hall New York concert from April 1953. We hear the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein (whose performing career lasted an incredible 82 years) in two concertos - the Saint-Saëns Second Concerto in G minor and Cesar Franck’s Symphonic Variations. What makes this particularly valuable is that Rubinstein’s performance of Saint-Saëns’ Concerto elicited high praise from the composer himself when he heard the young Rubinstein perform the work in Paris in 1905. At the time of this 1953 concert, Dmitri Mitropoulos was the chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and this equally great musician’s qualities are heard to their best advantage in profoundly sympathetic and penetrating accounts of two colourful Russian scores, especial interest being placed on Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, first heard in New York in 1908. This is a fascinating and very important single CD of great historical interest.

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