For many music-lovers and record-collectors, the quarter-century George Szell served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra in Ohio was one of the great post-war glories of international orchestral art, with many recordings (now available on Sony) to document the fact. But in the late 1950s Szell was increasingly invited to guest-conduct in Europe, and we are very proud to present this fabled concert with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra (WDR Rundfunk Köln) with the great French pianist and composer Robert Casadesus - a rare and priceless document of the conductor's art. The programme also includes Boris Blacher's 'Music for Cleveland' - dedicated to Szell - and ends with Stravinsky's 'Fireworks', both being works which Szell never recorded commercially. An extraordinarily valuable disc.

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