I am delighted to have been invited to contribute a regular column to International Piano magazine. I have written several features about great pianists for the magazine, first in 1999 in its initial incarnation as International Piano Quarterly (a 4,000 word feature about Dinu Lipatti since updated on my website here) and several since its shift to a monthly publication (it is now back to a quarterly format). I am pleased that this new column will be an opportunity to provide a more regular reflection on historical recordings and their importance.

The first appearance of my new column Historical Perspectives was in the September 2023 issue – the announcement here refers to me as ‘the guru of historical recordings’, a description I consider somewhat too generous given how many experts I know are out there. My first column is longer than what will generally be the norm so as to provide a more general introduction to the importance of historical recordings.

The editors decided to make this first feature available for free online, and you can read the online version by clicking here (the web layout is somewhat different than the print version partially reproduced on the top right of this page).

I thought it might be of interest to readers for me to share in this post the recordings that I refer to in the article, and some representative ones in cases where I merely mentioned the artists’ names and the qualities of their playing … so here they are, in the order in which they are mentioned in the feature.

The cylinder that Brahms recorded in 1889 in which we can (barely) hear him play his own Hungarian Dance No.1 is almost inaudible, but I think that this upload enables one to hear more than any other transfer I’ve come across:

Other examples of artists playing their own music on cylinders includes Anton Arensky, heard below in excerpts of his Piano Trio No.1 in D Minor Op.32, recorded in 1894 – a fascinating document from the first decade of recording technology, issued on the Marston Records label’s invaluable set The Dawn of Recording (available here).

Here is one of the handful of recordings we have of the composer Isaac Albéniz, dating from 1903 – in faded sound, naturally, but still appreciable:

And, a decade later, we can hear the great Spanish composer-pianist Enrique Granados, recorded not long before his tragically premature death:

We are extremely fortunate that the composer Rachmaninoff recorded so much – about 10 CDs’ worth of performances of his own works and those of other composers. It is invaluable to hear his recordings of his complete works for piano and orchestra, as we can not only hear his vision of his own music – as I state in the magazine feature, much less sentimental than would be the case even a short time later – but also how different his playing is of works written not that long ago … which makes us wonder how different our playing might be of works written in the more distant past.

Among those who left us some important recordings of their own works are more contemporary composers like Prokofiev, Bartók, and Stravinsky. What is particularly fascinating is the lack of aggression in their playing: even though their music features dissonances, they do not use this harmonic quality as a reason to create an ugly sound. Here is Prokofiev in his popular Suggestion diabolique Op.4 No.4:

As I mention in my article, Bartók once asked a pupil to play “a little less Bartók-ish”, indicating that even in his lifetime his music was played more aggressively than he’d hoped. In the recording below we can hear him play his own Romanian Dance No.1 without producing ugly sounds even as he plays dissonances with strength.

Stravinsky was another contemporary composer I mention who did not play his music nearly as aggressively as it is played today – as suggested by his playing of his own Piano Rag Music:

While composers naturally had their own envisioned and preferred approaches to their own works, they usually still appreciated the varied styles of other performers. Rachmaninoff was a great fan of the playing of Benno Moiseiwitsch, whom he called his ‘spiritual heir’ (not, as some might assume, Vladimir Horowitz). This recording of Moiseiwitsch playing the Prelude that was both the Rachmaninoff’s and Moiseiwitsch’s favourite amongst the composer’s works – the Prelude in B Minor Op.32 No.10 – makes clear why this pianist was so admired by his legendary compatriot.

Horowitz was another pianist whose playing Rachmaninoff admired. The composer’s quote that ‘he swallowed it whole’ in reference to Horowitz’s performance of the Third Concerto is often taken as pure admiration (if one considers the wording, it’s not necessarily a whole-hearted endorsement – it might be, but it might not); however, there’s no doubt he admired the younger musician’s artistry. This gorgeous performance of the Prelude in G Major Op.32 No.5 was filmed during Horowitz’s first return to Russia, 43 years after Rachmaninoff’s death.

As I state in my article, composers naturally had their own perceptions of how their works should be performed yet were often still open to approaches that were radically different than their own. The unconventional account of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto played by Walter Gieseking comes from a New York concert that Rachmaninoff himself attended – far slower than the composer and most other pianists would play it, but still appreciated by the composer – even though his wife walked out after the first movement! After the concert, composer and pianist had an engaged and enthusiastic conversation backstage.

Ilona Eibenschutz and Carl Friedberg both coached with Brahms and he liked both of their playing, but their approach was still not the same. It’s interesting to compare Eibenschütz’s 1903 recording of the Brahms Ballade in G Minor Op.118 No.3 with (below) Friedberg’s from nearly 50 years later.

We are so fortunate to be able to access so many recorded treasures today, including some that were not intended to be preserved. One of the most miraculous early recordings to survive is a 1930 radio broadcast of the complete 1st movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto featuring pianist-composer Eugen d’Albert, who in 1896 had played both Brahms Piano Concertos in a single concert conducted by the composer. A wild, vivacious, passionate, and engaging interpretation, with a fiery temperament and freedom that are rarely encountered today. It should be utterly mindblowing that we can listen to the playing of an artist born 160 years ago in a 1930 radio broadcast of such a substantial composition – and playing that is so radically different from our current norms over 90 years later.

How audio recording connects us with bygone times is very clear when listening to the spoken reminiscences about Brahms that Ilona Eibenschütz recorded for the BBC in 1952, in which she shares details about Brahms giving her the private premiere of his Opp 118 and 119 sixty years earlier – which in a recording 70+ years old from our times means we are listening to the voice of someone who knew Brahms 130 years ago. Both the stories and the playing in this clip are otherworldly.

In the written feature I mention how some university students at one of my presentations found Rachmaninoff’s 1927 recording of Chopin’s once-ubiquitous Nocturne in E-Flat Major featured ‘extreme’ timing – and yet could he and others from his time perhaps make similar observations about the playing in our time? How might we find Chopin’s own playing 200 years ago if the playing of a major composer from 100 years ago seems so jarring?

Playing being different from our current norms in no means it is not musically valid (nor that it is inherently valid). I’ll never forget the face of a fellow student 35 years ago when I played him Josef Hofmann’s 1937 concert recording of Chopin’s Ballade in G Minor Op.23 – ‘I never knew that such playing was possible.’ Indeed, such playing today would be unimaginable.

I note in my article how some recordings from the past are not necessarily jarring to our ears but might simply be so different and of exquisite beauty that’s notable to both professionals and amateur’s alike. The beauty of Marcelle Meyer’s jewel-like sonority is easily appreciable in her Rameau:

Dinu Lipatti’s Bach features remarkably transparent voicing that is still admired by amateurs and professionals today:

The soaring melodic lines of Ignaz Friedman’s pianism have fascinated listeners for decades:

Maryla Jonas’s disarmingly direct phrasing brings intoxicating warmth and poignancy to her Chopin Mazurkas:

Alfred Cortot had inimitable yet distinctive timing – one can often identify his playing in a matter of seconds:

Géza Anda’s 1953 account of Schumann’s Études symphoniques features tonal colours so glorious that most have never heard anything similar:

I noted in my article that some pianists who were highly regarded in their lifetimes might not come across as well on recordings today. Paderewski was perhaps one of the most popular pianists but he was not always appreciated by critics or his colleagues – nevertheless, some of his many recordings show that he was indeed a marvellous musician and played with absolutely gorgeous tone.

As I write in the feature, many pianists played quite differently in concert than in the recording studio. Dame Myra Hess was not generally thought of as a heroic pianist, in part due to the repertoire choices made for her studio recordings and the manner in which her image was crafted – but in concert she played with great fire and bravura:

Egon Petri – one of the great Ferruccio Busoni’s three top pupils – was a titanic pianist who could at times sound a bit ‘cold’ in his studio recordings (many artists hated the process – Hess among them). In private settings and in concert, however, his playing could be volcanic, as with this 1951 rehearsal performance of an astonishingly difficult work, Alkan’s Symphony for Solo Piano, recorded in a college practice room as he gave a full run-through of the work.

Jascha Spivakovsky released no solo recordings before his death in 1970, and was only with the publication in the last decade of various home recordings and broadcast performances that his phenomenal artistry has become known. How many other great pianists have been forgotten because they did not produce commercial records?

There is a natural assumption that all old recordings are of poor fidelity but a number of them reproduce the instrument and artists’ subtlety with great clarity – in the article, I mention Mischa Levitzki’s late 1920s recordings as an example.

As stated in the article, I consider many of the piano recordings made at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in the 1950s to be superior in sound (and certainly in playing) to much of what we hear today. Among the artists who produced discs there at the time (the ones mentioned in my article) are Géza Anda, Benno Moiseiwitsch, and Solomon.

These recordings are but a handful of the rich legacy of audio documents readily available to today’s listeners. I hope that you will explore them and those I mention in my ongoing columns for International Piano.