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The conductor Ferenc Fricsay studied under Bartok, Kodaly and Dohnyani. He conducted many orchestras and opera companies including Houston Symphony, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic. These recordings were made between 1957 and 1959.

This anthology of Ferenc Fricsay’s Bartók recordings for the RIAS Berlin documents, in a three CD series, a summit meeting of famous Hungarian soloists: the pianists Géza Anda, Andor Foldes, Louis Kentner and the violinist Tibor Varga. Fricsay’s time-tested and congenial vocal soloist, once again, is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

The project of a representative, possibly even complete, recording of Bartók’s oeuvre formed a part of Fricsay’s work from the beginning of his time in Berlin. These RIAS recordings feature almost exclusively Hungarian artists for the solo parts: a novelty at the time. In Fricsay’s view, Hungarian soloists were best suited to realising his precise concept of the close relationship between, on the one hand, Hungarian language and culture and, on the other, interpreting Hungarian music authentically. The only exception is Fischer-Dieskau, whom Fricsay much admired. This compilation from 1951 until 1953 includes all surviving Bartók recordings from the RIAS archives with Fricsay. It begins with opus 1, the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1904) and conceived in an entirely Hungarian idiom, and goes via the expressionist, agitated Deux Portraits Op 5 (1907-08) and the powerfully optimistic Dance Suite (1921) up to the masterworks of the 1930s: the neo-baroque influenced Second Piano Concerto (1930-31), the archaic, fairytale-like and darkly coloured Cantata Profana (1932), the splendid Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1935), the lucid Second Violin Concerto (1937-38) and the mysterious Divertimento of 1939 with which Bartók marked the beginning of his inner farewell to Europe. Even today, more than 60 years after these recordings were made, Fricsay’s intensity is perceptible for the listener as an existential experience – both in the impetus and the positive power of the rhythm, and also in the mysteriously resigned and ironically contorted moments in this music which is so rich in nuances. This was made possible by the cooperation with other world-famous alumni of the Budapest Music Academy where Fricsay had himself studied: the pianists Géza Anda, Andor Foldes and Louis Kentner, as well as the violinist Tibor Varga. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau joined Fricsay as a soloist in the opera Bluebeard’s Castle and the Cantata Profana. His singing (albeit in German) congenially corresponded to Fricsay’s ideal of dramatically thrilling and passionately precise Bartók interpretation.

Erica Morini (1905-1995), born and trained in Vienna, managed, as one of the first female violinists of the first half of the 20th-century, to build an international career.

This was unusual at a time when the concert platforms were still dominated by male soloists. Morini started out as a child prodigy; following sensational débuts with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Berlin Philharmonic under Arthur Nikisch, she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York for the first time in 1921. Morini, who was of Jewish descent, emigrated to the US in the late 1930s, extending her career in that country. Her artistic career lasted for over five decades; however, she made few commercial recordings.

Morini is particularly impressive in live recordings, including this concert recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto made in 1952 with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra Berlin and Ferenc Fricsay. Her art as a violinist becomes apparent in an exemplary fashion, explaining why Morini was considered by some to be the greatest violinist of the twentieth century. Her sophisticated mastery of virtuoso pieces and baroque sonatas is also impressively documented by the RIAS recordings with Michael Raucheisen.

Berlin 1950/1952

Ferenc Fricsay's love of the waltzes by Johann Strauss II exemplifies his opinion that there is no difference between ‘popular’ and ‘serious’ music but, if needs be, between good and bad music.Thanks to his own musical education and his first post as conductor of a military band in Szeged, he was very familiar with the repertoire and the musical world of 19th century Vienna.When the 34-year-old was called to post-war Berlin in order to help rebuild musical life in the western part of the destroyed city as director of the newly founded RIAS Symphony Orchestra, he passionately performed the music of Strauss from the outset.This is also documented by his ravishing recording of Die Fledermaus [see audite 23.411]. This CD presents a representative cross-section of the most beautiful and famous waltzes and polkas by Strauss recorded between 1950 and 1952, issued here for the first time. In these, not only do Fricsay's (in)famously precise rehearsal methods become perceptible but also his unique talent of improvisation, i.e. an art of interpretation where the highest degree of precision becomes completely natural, and spontaneous, music-making.

Ferenc Fricsay recorded Lucia di Lammermoor in 1953 with a dream-team of soloists: Maria Stader, Ernst Haefliger and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau shared Fricsay's stylistic sensitivity, his conceptual approach and his desire for perfection. After four years of working with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, he had formed it into a committed ensemble bearing its own, characteristic sound and displaying a clear concept of style and immense precision. Fricsay produced the recording for the RIAS Berlin in German.

Peter Anders' career was brought to a sudden end following a car accident in 1954. But thanks to his many recordings, the tenor, who died at the age of 46, remains present even today.This double-CD, featuring several rare Berlin radio recordings made between 1949 and 1951, including Ferenc Fricsay conducting the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, is an exemplary document, demonstrating his unique talent as a lyric and dramatic tenor, as a light-hearted and yet subtle operetta hero and as a sensitive Lied interpreter. Anders' first-class partners in these recordings are Anny Schlemm (in an extensive compilation of excerpts from Countess Mariza), Elfriede Trötschel (as Violetta in the complete third act of La Traviata), Martha Musial (in excerpts from Andrea Chenier) as well as the fine German Verdi baritone, Josef Metternich.

In the 1950s Ferenc Fricsay was almost the only conductor to perform Rossini's Stabat Mater in Germany.With this interpretation of the Stabat Mater Fricsay demonstrates that Rossini's music does not merely consist of operatic solo numbers accompanied by a spirited orchestra. Simply by casting singers such as Maria Stader and Ernst Haefliger, who generally showed a less operatic approach, Fricsay reveals his discovery of subtle musical interactions in Rossini's dramaturgy.The RIAS Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble of international standing under Fricsay, realises his intentions in a precise and unpretentious fashion.

1951/3 recording

Gioconda De Vito, one of the great violinists of her time, was considered a Brahms specialist.The only written evidence to date of her work with Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Orchestra is the above mentioned quote. Precisely this collaboration was captured in a superb monaural recording by the RIAS broadcasting company in Berlin - a stroke of luck, for De Vito had an aversion to the recording studio. The recording reveals all of Gioconda De Vito's strengths. She unfolds a large, singing tone, at once brilliantly radiant and warm.This accurate, crisply recorded performance by the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester under Fricsay also brings out the very deliberate rhythmic organisation with which she shaped her cantilenas.

"Her performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto in the early 1950s, under Ferenc Fricsay, was pervaded by a delicate lyricism and a romantic sorcery rarely encountered elsewhere." Joachim Hartnack [contemporary critic]

Clara Haskil's recordings from the 1950s enjoy a cult status. Her subtle interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann enjoyed particular fame.These studio recordings and live recordings of concert performances of great piano concertos as well as of two solo works by Schumann, released for the first time remastered from the original tapes, reveal Haskil's sensitive and natural playing which Ferenc Fricsay compared to the ability to sing on the piano. In addition, this Audite release offers the opportunity to compare and contrast Mozart's famous concerto in D minor, in the form of a hitherto unpublished live recording from a concert performance, and in the form of a studio recording made only one day later, in January 1954. Fricsay and the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin prove to be congenial partners of a greatly distinguished pianist.