Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Overture (Prelude to Act 1)

Wagner's opera preludes are actually stage works in orchestral clothing, anticipating as they do all the emotions and dramas of the entire opera. With his illustrative interpretation, Mariss Jansons recognised this dimension, and produced one of the best recordings of his Oslo period.

It is the existence of surviving broadcast acetate recordings of many of Barbirolli’s broadcasts with the Philharmonic that have enabled us to form a more complete picture of his work and genius (not too strong a word) as a conductor during this period, recordings which in many instances are being made available for the first time publicly. From a period of almost three-quarters of a century, we are able to study and evaluate Barbirolli’s art in a manner that was unavailable to earlier generations of music-lovers. The evaluation produces extraordinary results.

The first of our two CDs in this set opens with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, in which the soloist is Mishel Piastro. The performance comes from March, 1942, and will be a revelation for many listeners. Piastro is hardly known at all these days, but he was the leader of the Philharmonic under Toscanini and, of course, under Barbirolli. He was, as we may hear, an absolutely astounding violinist – it is rumoured that someone remarked to Fritz Kreisler that ‘Piastro is so gifted but he’s lazy and doesn’t practise’, to which Kreisler replied, ‘Thank God!’ The second CD in this set of performances opens with the world premiere performance of the Piano Concerto by Mischa Portnoff. This Concerto is, as can readily be heard, a dazzlingly effective work, with extremely virtuosic writing for the soloist, composed in a style perhaps best described as a mixture of the then contemporary music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich rather than, say, that of Stravinsky. The soloist was the Lithuanian-born but American naturalised pianist Nadia Reisenberg (1904-83), whose family settled in New York after the Russian Revolution.

The works in this set receive brilliant – not to say breathtaking – performances from the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, the members of which were clearly relishing the opportunity to display their virtuosity under a conductor who by that time had won over the hearts and minds of every musician taking part.

The Toscanini Memorial Concert preserved in this album was an altogether remarkable event: three great conductors came forth to pay homage to their friend and colleague, each leading a work that Toscanini had interpreted wonderfully. Only the Eroica was previously released from this memorable concert in any format and the bonus selections were only issued on a Roulette mono LP (which also included Dvorak's New World Symphony) as a fund-raising record for the Symphony of the Air; this is the first release of these performances in stereo.