Posts Categorized: The Piano Files

Hungarian pianist Etelka Freund died on May 27, 1977 at the age of 98. She was a pianist with a remarkable lineage whose interrupted career and relative dearth of recordings has led to her largely being forgotten; fortunately there has been a relatively recent revival of interest as her scant studio discography and some private recordings have become available.

Born in 1879 (the exact date is not clear), Etelka Freund had a talented older brother Robert who had studied with Ignaz Moscheles, who was a contemporary of Beethoven and friend (and teacher) of Mendelssohn. Robert also studied with Tausig and Liszt, in addition to playing for Brahms. Etelka, some 20 years younger than Robert, had an opportunity to regularly play for Brahms, who admired her very much: when a friend of the composer asked if the young lady played, the composer affirmed in a loud voice, ‘To the enjoyment of everyone!” The composer is also said to have insisted that the Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde have her as a regular member despite her still being a student – she would be their youngest member. Freund also trained with Liszt pupil István Thomán (who also taught Bartók) and Busoni, as well as with her compatriot Bartók, with whom she had a close relationship – and at age 16 she went to Vienna to study with the legendary Theodor Leschetizky.

Although she stopped concertizing between 1910 and 1936 to focus on raising her children, Freund then resumed playing to continued great critical acclaim. She finally emigrated to the US in 1946 and had a successful debut at the Washington National Gallery the following year, but managers were not interested in promoting a 68-year-old pianist.

Fortunately, she made a handful of recordings through which her artistry can be experienced, but was largely overlooked despite having maintained her facility to a very old age. It should be noted that a recording of the Chopin Waltzes attributed to Freund is adamantly believed by several leading pianophiles to be a different pianist: Gregor Benko (co-founder of the International Piano Archives) spoke with Freund’s son, who was present at all of her recording sessions, and he had no recollection having set down a single work of Chopin. The same goes for an account of the Schumann Brahms Variations by one Frieda V, long thought to be Freund: it is in fact the Austrian pianist Frieda Valenzi.

Below is a fascinating interview with Allan Evans, who revived interest in her, and the pianist’s son from a radio programme hosted by David Dubal:

 

Here is perhaps the most important recording in Freund’s discography: a September 1953 recording of the Brahms Piano Sonata in F Minor Op.5, issued on the Remington label (R-199-109). Freund would have been about 74 years old when she set down this account of this titanic Brahms Sonata, a challenging work for an artist of any age. She plays with impressive strength and cohesiveness: melodic lines are beautifully highlighted, chords impeccably balanced, and textures exquisitely clear. Her timing is particularly remarkable, with just the right degree of expansiveness so as to never be exaggerated or sentimental. (Below this account of the Sonata are the two Intermezzi from the same LP.)

 

Recorded for the same LP was the Intermezzo in B-Flat Minor Op.117 No.2, played a sumptuous sonority, luscious phrasing with elegant singing lines, beautifully balanced textures, and a remarkable rhythmic pulse that maintains momentum without being driven but which is instead incredibly fluid.

 

Also on that Remington LP was another Brahms Intermezzo, the Intermezzo in A Minor, Op.116 No.2 – an equally remarkable interpretation, particularly notable for the asynchronization of left and right hands, an effect so wonderfully accomplished that it is not distorted or passé as some might suggestion. And what gorgeous singing tone, poised balance of primary and secondary voices, and incredible timing, with an incredible means of connecting the different ‘chapters’ of the work – a truly mesmerizing performance!

 

Recorded privately in 1950 and only published on a Pearl CD set that Allan Evans produced is the Brahms Intermezzo in E-Flat Minor Op.118 No.6. The relative constriction of the sound is no impediment to appreciating the incredible depth of Freund’s interpretation. In lyrical passages there is such spacious phrasing that allows lines to breathe as key chords and notes linger, seamlessly blending into what follows, while the stormy middle section is incredibly emotional and powerful.

 

A previously unpublished radio broadcast of the artist in Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata was included in Marston Records’ superb Landmarks of Recorded Pianism Volume 2 in 2020, a glorious performance that appears to have not been on the radar of a many collectors – you can hear an excerpt of it beginning at 2:31 in the video compilation (featuring a number of pianists) below (note that the image here is of Reah Sadowsky and not of Freund):

 

One recording of Freund playing Mendelssohn has been made available, a March 8, 1952 recording of the Fantasie in F-Sharp Minor Op.28 – fascinating to hear given her brother’s tutelage with Mendelssohn’s friend and teacher Moscheles. In her 72nd year at the time, she gives a superb performance, with impeccably voiced chords, beautifully shaped phrasing, masterful pedalling, marvellously coordinated articulation, wonderful timing, and gorgeous singing tone.

 

Freund had a great affinity for the works of Liszt as well, as evidenced by this superb November 8, 1951 traversal of his Funerailles.  Linked to the composer’s lineage through her brother and teacher, Freund demonstrates an understanding of his idiom with the amazing atmospheric effects she creates through tone and pedal, along with her transparent voicing. What an incredible resonant rumbling bass, declamatory melodic line, and spacious lyrical phrasing, with incredible power in the towering octaves that belie her age at the time.

 

As Freund worked directly with Bartók, it is of great interest to hear her way with his music. Just as the composer had once requested that a student playing for him play ‘a little less Bartók-ish’, Freund grasps the concept that his modern harmonic language does not call for aggressive sound: she plays throughout with beautiful tone even as she accents and plays dissonant chords. Wonderfully transparent playing that captures the folkloric nature of the music.

 

To close, a private 1958 recording of the artist playing with sublime mastery a gorgeous excerpt from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier: the Prelude in E-Flat Minor and the Fugue in D-Sharp Minor, BWV 853. It could be the influence of Busoni that we hear in her marvellous use of the pedal, accents, and highlighting of motifs as they switch between voices and hands. Even on a somewhat out-of-tune piano, her command is evident through her spacious phrasing, poised transparent voicing, and remarkable use of dynamics to clarify structure and highlight the emotional content. Absolutely beguiling playing by a true master of the keyboard and of music.

 

 

Hungarian pianist Etelka Freund died on May 27, 1977 at the age of 98. She was a pianist with a remarkable lineage whose interrupted career and relative dearth of recordings has led to her largely being forgotten; fortunately there has been a relatively recent revival of interest as her scant studio discography and some private recordings have become available.

Born in 1879 (the exact date is not clear), Etelka Freund had a talented older brother Robert who had studied with Ignaz Moscheles, who was a contemporary of Beethoven and friend (and teacher) of Mendelssohn. Robert also studied with Tausig and Liszt, in addition to playing for Brahms. Etelka, some 20 years younger than Robert, had an opportunity to regularly play for Brahms, who admired her very much: when a friend of the composer asked if the young lady played, the composer affirmed in a loud voice, ‘To the enjoyment of everyone!” The composer is also said to have insisted that the Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde have her as a regular member despite her still being a student – she would be their youngest member. Freund also trained with Liszt pupil István Thomán (who also taught Bartók) and Busoni, as well as with her compatriot Bartók, with whom she had a close relationship – and at age 16 she went to Vienna to study with the legendary Theodor Leschetizky.

Although she stopped concertizing between 1910 and 1936 to focus on raising her children, Freund then resumed playing to continued great critical acclaim. She finally emigrated to the US in 1946 and had a successful debut at the Washington National Gallery the following year, but managers were not interested in promoting a 68-year-old pianist.

Fortunately, she made a handful of recordings through which her artistry can be experienced, but was largely overlooked despite having maintained her facility to a very old age. It should be noted that a recording of the Chopin Waltzes attributed to Freund is adamantly believed by several leading pianophiles to be a different pianist: Gregor Benko (co-founder of the International Piano Archives) spoke with Freund’s son, who was present at all of her recording sessions, and he had no recollection having set down a single work of Chopin. The same goes for an account of the Schumann Brahms Variations by one Frieda V, long thought to be Freund: it is in fact the Austrian pianist Frieda Valenzi.

Below is a fascinating interview with Allan Evans, who revived interest in her, and the pianist’s son from a radio programme hosted by David Dubal:

 

Here is perhaps the most important recording in Freund’s discography: a September 1953 recording of the Brahms Piano Sonata in F Minor Op.5, issued on the Remington label (R-199-109). Freund would have been about 74 years old when she set down this account of this titanic Brahms Sonata, a challenging work for an artist of any age. She plays with impressive strength and cohesiveness: melodic lines are beautifully highlighted, chords impeccably balanced, and textures exquisitely clear. Her timing is particularly remarkable, with just the right degree of expansiveness so as to never be exaggerated or sentimental. (Below this account of the Sonata are the two Intermezzi from the same LP.)

 

Recorded for the same LP was the Intermezzo in B-Flat Minor Op.117 No.2, played a sumptuous sonority, luscious phrasing with elegant singing lines, beautifully balanced textures, and a remarkable rhythmic pulse that maintains momentum without being driven but which is instead incredibly fluid.

 

Also on that Remington LP was another Brahms Intermezzo, the Intermezzo in A Minor, Op.116 No.2 – an equally remarkable interpretation, particularly notable for the asynchronization of left and right hands, an effect so wonderfully accomplished that it is not distorted or passé as some might suggestion. And what gorgeous singing tone, poised balance of primary and secondary voices, and incredible timing, with an incredible means of connecting the different ‘chapters’ of the work – a truly mesmerizing performance!

 

Recorded privately in 1950 and only published on a Pearl CD set that Allan Evans produced is the Brahms Intermezzo in E-Flat Minor Op.118 No.6. The relative constriction of the sound is no impediment to appreciating the incredible depth of Freund’s interpretation. In lyrical passages there is such spacious phrasing that allows lines to breathe as key chords and notes linger, seamlessly blending into what follows, while the stormy middle section is incredibly emotional and powerful.

 

A previously unpublished radio broadcast of the artist in Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata was included in Marston Records’ superb Landmarks of Recorded Pianism Volume 2 in 2020, a glorious performance that appears to have not been on the radar of a many collectors – you can hear an excerpt of it beginning at 2:31 in the video compilation (featuring a number of pianists) below (note that the image here is of Reah Sadowsky and not of Freund):

 

One recording of Freund playing Mendelssohn has been made available, a March 8, 1952 recording of the Fantasie in F-Sharp Minor Op.28 – fascinating to hear given her brother’s tutelage with Mendelssohn’s friend and teacher Moscheles. In her 72nd year at the time, she gives a superb performance, with impeccably voiced chords, beautifully shaped phrasing, masterful pedalling, marvellously coordinated articulation, wonderful timing, and gorgeous singing tone.

 

Freund had a great affinity for the works of Liszt as well, as evidenced by this superb November 8, 1951 traversal of his Funerailles.  Linked to the composer’s lineage through her brother and teacher, Freund demonstrates an understanding of his idiom with the amazing atmospheric effects she creates through tone and pedal, along with her transparent voicing. What an incredible resonant rumbling bass, declamatory melodic line, and spacious lyrical phrasing, with incredible power in the towering octaves that belie her age at the time.

 

As Freund worked directly with Bartók, it is of great interest to hear her way with his music. Just as the composer had once requested that a student playing for him play ‘a little less Bartók-ish’, Freund grasps the concept that his modern harmonic language does not call for aggressive sound: she plays throughout with beautiful tone even as she accents and plays dissonant chords. Wonderfully transparent playing that captures the folkloric nature of the music.

 

To close, a private 1958 recording of the artist playing with sublime mastery a gorgeous excerpt from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier: the Prelude in E-Flat Minor and the Fugue in D-Sharp Minor, BWV 853. It could be the influence of Busoni that we hear in her marvellous use of the pedal, accents, and highlighting of motifs as they switch between voices and hands. Even on a somewhat out-of-tune piano, her command is evident through her spacious phrasing, poised transparent voicing, and remarkable use of dynamics to clarify structure and highlight the emotional content. Absolutely beguiling playing by a true master of the keyboard and of music.

 

 

Dinu Lipatti signed his contract with the Columbia label of EMI in January 1946, and at his first session at a studio in Zurich that July he recorded three works: Chopin’s Waltz in A-Flat Op.34 No.1, Liszt’s Sonetto del Petrarca No.104, and Liszt’s La Leggierezza. The exact date of the session is unknown: Lipatti wrote prior to the session that he was scheduled to make a series of recordings from July 4 to 6, but only recorded these 3 titles and so likely it took place on one of these days. Columbia was experimenting with a new recording material, and the masters which were pressed warped while in transit to London. Engineers attempted to press the records, but they were unsalvageable.

While Lipatti would once again record the Chopin Waltz – as a filler for the Grieg Concerto – and the Sonetto del Petrarca, both on September 24, 1947 at London’s Abbey Road Studio No.3, he did not make another attempt at La Leggierezza. While pitch-correcting technology could be used today to repair the damage to the 1946 recordings, no test pressings have been found and the record pressing master stampers have been destroyed. The recording sheet reproduced here lists October 15, 1946 as the date for a recording made at Abbey Road, but this is incorrect (as the handwritten note ‘Recorded in Switzerland’ indicates) and is undoubtedly the date of the attempted pressing of the disc.

Fast-forward to 1990. I was in London hoping to find more Lipatti recordings and paid a visit to the National Sound Archive, which was then located on Exhibition Road in Kensington. I searched through their card catalogue, which is what one did in the days before the internet, but there was nothing under Lipatti. I then had a hunch to search through the composers he’d performed just in case something was not properly cross-referenced – and sure enough… under Liszt, there was listed a recording on tape 101W of Dinu Lipatti playing La Leggierezza. It said that it had been recorded from a BBC broadcast by one D Steynor and obtained by the British Institute of Recorded Sound on October 21, 1958. I requested to listen to the tape, and I was flabbergasted by the playing. The opening few measures were missing and there was a big pitch fluctuation near the beginning of the recording, but other than that and the somewhat restricted tonal range, one could clearly hear Lipatti’s unique pianism.

A couple of years later when I returned to London, I met with the staff to discuss the recording. As Werner Unger of archiphon records and I were formulating plans to obtain and release some lost Lipatti recordings, we wanted to discuss the possibility of obtaining a copy of the tape. The staff of the NSA were very accommodating, and we listened to the recording together. Their engineers, with their incredibly trained ears, could recognize the acoustic as being a BBC studio, whereas I had thought this might still be a broadcast of a test pressing of the unpublished EMI recording. Further research revealed that Lipatti did in fact broadcast the work from the BBC studios on September 25, 1947. I have more recently discovered that this was part of a broadcast Lipatti gave on the Music In Miniature program on the BBC, in which he also played a Chopin Waltz (most likely the same A-Flat Major Waltz, which he recorded at Abbey Road the day before) and quite likely the Etude Op.10 No.2, which he was heard practicing during a break in the recording session of the Grieg Piano Concerto the week before (and which would pair beautifully with La Leggierezza).

The staff at the National Sound Archive said that if we could obtain permission from the BBC, they would be able to copy us the tape: we just needed to show that the broadcast took place before July 1957, something that was easy since Lipatti died in 1950. Unger handled that side of things, and the BBC were – rather surprisingly, given the stories that I’d heard – gracious not only in allowing us to have a copy of the NSA’s tape but also in consenting to its commercial release. In late 1994 we issued it on the archiphon CD set ‘Les Inédits’, its only authorized CD release to date.

The playing is phenomenal, and there are a few nuances that are particularly worth noting. Throughout the work, the bassline is remarkably clear, something that all Romantic pianists did in their playing: scores did not indicate that a line in the bass with step-wise progression should be highlighted because everyone at the time knew that it should be done. At 1:13 to 1:17, Lipatti voices the chords in the right hand such that the atonal quality of the harmonies stand out, highlighting the avant-garde nature of Liszt’s writing. In the section beginning at 2:52, as Lipatti moves from ascending to descending runs, he accelerates as he ‘goes around the corner’, so to speak, which produces a wonderfully ‘light’ effect. And then at 3:41-3:44, where every pianist that I’ve heard slows down and plays a decrescendo, Lipatti does the exact opposite, speeding up and crashing into a fortissimo in a grand, heroic gesture.

While we can lament the lack of more Liszt recordings by Lipatti – if only he’d played the B-Minor Sonata! – we do have a greater idea of his approach to this great composer through the recordings that have come to light, among them an early test recording of Gnomenreigen, a 1947 concert recording of the First Concerto, and this current recording. We can keep our hopes alive that a broadcast recording of Liszt’s Second Concerto, which he played in concert many times, will one day surface. In the meantime, enjoy the one BBC broadcast of Dinu Lipatti that has come to light: the September 25, 1947 broadcast of Liszt’s La Leggierezza.

Dinu Lipatti signed his contract with the Columbia label of EMI in January 1946, and at his first session at a studio in Zurich that July he recorded three works: Chopin’s Waltz in A-Flat Op.34 No.1, Liszt’s Sonetto del Petrarca No.104, and Liszt’s La Leggierezza. The exact date of the session is unknown: Lipatti wrote prior to the session that he was scheduled to make a series of recordings from July 4 to 6, but only recorded these 3 titles and so likely it took place on one of these days. Columbia was experimenting with a new recording material, and the masters which were pressed warped while in transit to London. Engineers attempted to press the records, but they were unsalvageable.

While Lipatti would once again record the Chopin Waltz – as a filler for the Grieg Concerto – and the Sonetto del Petrarca, both on September 24, 1947 at London’s Abbey Road Studio No.3, he did not make another attempt at La Leggierezza. While pitch-correcting technology could be used today to repair the damage to the 1946 recordings, no test pressings have been found and the record pressing master stampers have been destroyed. The recording sheet reproduced here lists October 15, 1946 as the date for a recording made at Abbey Road, but this is incorrect (as the handwritten note ‘Recorded in Switzerland’ indicates) and is undoubtedly the date of the attempted pressing of the disc.

Fast-forward to 1990. I was in London hoping to find more Lipatti recordings and paid a visit to the National Sound Archive, which was then located on Exhibition Road in Kensington. I searched through their card catalogue, which is what one did in the days before the internet, but there was nothing under Lipatti. I then had a hunch to search through the composers he’d performed just in case something was not properly cross-referenced – and sure enough… under Liszt, there was listed a recording on tape 101W of Dinu Lipatti playing La Leggierezza. It said that it had been recorded from a BBC broadcast by one D Steynor and obtained by the British Institute of Recorded Sound on October 21, 1958. I requested to listen to the tape, and I was flabbergasted by the playing. The opening few measures were missing and there was a big pitch fluctuation near the beginning of the recording, but other than that and the somewhat restricted tonal range, one could clearly hear Lipatti’s unique pianism.

A couple of years later when I returned to London, I met with the staff to discuss the recording. As Werner Unger of archiphon records and I were formulating plans to obtain and release some lost Lipatti recordings, we wanted to discuss the possibility of obtaining a copy of the tape. The staff of the NSA were very accommodating, and we listened to the recording together. Their engineers, with their incredibly trained ears, could recognize the acoustic as being a BBC studio, whereas I had thought this might still be a broadcast of a test pressing of the unpublished EMI recording. Further research revealed that Lipatti did in fact broadcast the work from the BBC studios on September 25, 1947. I have more recently discovered that this was part of a broadcast Lipatti gave on the Music In Miniature program on the BBC, in which he also played a Chopin Waltz (most likely the same A-Flat Major Waltz, which he recorded at Abbey Road the day before) and quite likely the Etude Op.10 No.2, which he was heard practicing during a break in the recording session of the Grieg Piano Concerto the week before (and which would pair beautifully with La Leggierezza).

The staff at the National Sound Archive said that if we could obtain permission from the BBC, they would be able to copy us the tape: we just needed to show that the broadcast took place before July 1957, something that was easy since Lipatti died in 1950. Unger handled that side of things, and the BBC were – rather surprisingly, given the stories that I’d heard – gracious not only in allowing us to have a copy of the NSA’s tape but also in consenting to its commercial release. In late 1994 we issued it on the archiphon CD set ‘Les Inédits’, its only authorized CD release to date.

The playing is phenomenal, and there are a few nuances that are particularly worth noting. Throughout the work, the bassline is remarkably clear, something that all Romantic pianists did in their playing: scores did not indicate that a line in the bass with step-wise progression should be highlighted because everyone at the time knew that it should be done. At 1:13 to 1:17, Lipatti voices the chords in the right hand such that the atonal quality of the harmonies stand out, highlighting the avant-garde nature of Liszt’s writing. In the section beginning at 2:52, as Lipatti moves from ascending to descending runs, he accelerates as he ‘goes around the corner’, so to speak, which produces a wonderfully ‘light’ effect. And then at 3:41-3:44, where every pianist that I’ve heard slows down and plays a decrescendo, Lipatti does the exact opposite, speeding up and crashing into a fortissimo in a grand, heroic gesture.

While we can lament the lack of more Liszt recordings by Lipatti – if only he’d played the B-Minor Sonata! – we do have a greater idea of his approach to this great composer through the recordings that have come to light, among them an early test recording of Gnomenreigen, a 1947 concert recording of the First Concerto, and this current recording. We can keep our hopes alive that a broadcast recording of Liszt’s Second Concerto, which he played in concert many times, will one day surface. In the meantime, enjoy the one BBC broadcast of Dinu Lipatti that has come to light: the September 25, 1947 broadcast of Liszt’s La Leggierezza.

Yet another pianist I’d never heard of showed up in a YouTube upload recently and I was stunned by the playing. The artist was one Hilda Bor, a pupil of Tobias Matthay and then Vivian Langrish when Matthay retired from the Royal Academy of Music. Bor later taught as a member of Matthay’s staff and arranged wartime concerts at the Royal Exchange at the same time that fellow Matthay pupil Myra Hess arranged her more famous events at the National Gallery. Among Bor’s pupils were Prince Charles and Princess Anne (the job had originally been offered to Hess but she preferred not to teach children).

The British pianist produced only two 78s for the Columbia label in the late 1930s, totalling a mere 12 minutes.  The first was a July 16th 1937 disc featuring a Chopin Waltz and Prelude on one side, and two dazzling ‘bee’ works on the B-side (no pun intended): Mendelssohn’s Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song) and Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble-bee. The second disc with three Grieg Lyric Pieces was set down on January 24, 1939. Both are presented here courtesy of Jonathan Dobson, who transferred and made them available for this upload and to whom we offer our sincerest thanks.

Bor’s playing throughout these selections features remarkable clarity of articulation and rhythmic precision in rapid passages while sustaining mindful phrasing, poised balance not only between hands but within the voicing of chords, and gorgeous ringing tone throughout. Her left-hand voicing is superb, as evidenced in the Chopin Prelude, and she maintains steadiness of rhythm and deftness of articulation in the first Grieg number even at the substantial speed that she chose (a colleague of mine stated that it was so brisk that it might be considered a shotgun wedding). In addition to her evidently polished technique, she also demonstrates fine musicianship in these rare performances.

Hilda Bor: The Columbia 78s

Chopin: Waltz in F Minor Op.70 No.2
Chopin: Prelude Op.28 No.3
Mendelssohn: Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song)
Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Rachmaninoff: Flight of the bumble-bee
(recorded July 16, 1937)

Grieg – Three Lyric Pieces:
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen Op.65 No.6
Papillon Op.43 No.1
Oisillon Op.43 No.4
(recorded January 24, 1939)

 

On YouTube there is also an excerpt from a BBC transmission disc in which Bor plays Bartók’s Román kolindadallamok (Romanian Christmas Carols). Despite the prominent crackle from the record, we can appreciate her beauty of tone (not a given in readings of Bartók), burnished voicing, clarity of texture, and rhythmic vitality:

Bor lived until 1993 and quite why she faded from memory is a mystery (likely the lack of commercial records was a contributing factor) – a fate that has befallen too many great artists.

There’s a mini documentary that’s been produced by her great-nephew that also includes an excerpt of a BBC broadcast (a Chopin Waltz not on her 78rpm disc above) – here’s that link:

 

One hopes that more of this great artist will be found and made available – she was clearly a remarkable musician!

 

Yet another pianist I’d never heard of showed up in a YouTube upload recently and I was stunned by the playing. The artist was one Hilda Bor, a pupil of Tobias Matthay and then Vivian Langrish when Matthay retired from the Royal Academy of Music. Bor later taught as a member of Matthay’s staff and arranged wartime concerts at the Royal Exchange at the same time that fellow Matthay pupil Myra Hess arranged her more famous events at the National Gallery. Among Bor’s pupils were Prince Charles and Princess Anne (the job had originally been offered to Hess but she preferred not to teach children).

The British pianist produced only two 78s for the Columbia label in the late 1930s, totalling a mere 12 minutes.  The first was a July 16th 1937 disc featuring a Chopin Waltz and Prelude on one side, and two dazzling ‘bee’ works on the B-side (no pun intended): Mendelssohn’s Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song) and Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble-bee. The second disc with three Grieg Lyric Pieces was set down on January 24, 1939. Both are presented here courtesy of Jonathan Dobson, who transferred and made them available for this upload and to whom we offer our sincerest thanks.

Bor’s playing throughout these selections features remarkable clarity of articulation and rhythmic precision in rapid passages while sustaining mindful phrasing, poised balance not only between hands but within the voicing of chords, and gorgeous ringing tone throughout. Her left-hand voicing is superb, as evidenced in the Chopin Prelude, and she maintains steadiness of rhythm and deftness of articulation in the first Grieg number even at the substantial speed that she chose (a colleague of mine stated that it was so brisk that it might be considered a shotgun wedding). In addition to her evidently polished technique, she also demonstrates fine musicianship in these rare performances.

Hilda Bor: The Columbia 78s

Chopin: Waltz in F Minor Op.70 No.2
Chopin: Prelude Op.28 No.3
Mendelssohn: Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song)
Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Rachmaninoff: Flight of the bumble-bee
(recorded July 16, 1937)

Grieg – Three Lyric Pieces:
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen Op.65 No.6
Papillon Op.43 No.1
Oisillon Op.43 No.4
(recorded January 24, 1939)

 

On YouTube there is also an excerpt from a BBC transmission disc in which Bor plays Bartók’s Román kolindadallamok (Romanian Christmas Carols). Despite the prominent crackle from the record, we can appreciate her beauty of tone (not a given in readings of Bartók), burnished voicing, clarity of texture, and rhythmic vitality:

Bor lived until 1993 and quite why she faded from memory is a mystery (likely the lack of commercial records was a contributing factor) – a fate that has befallen too many great artists.

There’s a mini documentary that’s been produced by her great-nephew that also includes an excerpt of a BBC broadcast (a Chopin Waltz not on her 78rpm disc above) – here’s that link:

 

One hopes that more of this great artist will be found and made available – she was clearly a remarkable musician!

 

With the advent of the CD in the 1980s, historical recordings began being made available at a faster rate than ever before, and as a result we are today able to hear more great artists of the past than at any other time. Now with the internet and YouTube, we are able to enjoy the playing of musicians who have been overlooked by the recording industry but whose music-making warrants attention.

Since starting my Facebook page in 2009, I have discovered many pianists whose artistry I hadn’t previously known simply by scouring YouTube and other sites that feature uploads of recordings, both commercial and unissued. I still recall my impressions when one day I came across a performance of Chopin’s Etude Op.10 No.4 by a pianist that I’d never heard of before, one Sidney Foster. I was blown away not only by the impeccable dexterity and clarity of his playing but also by a truly incredible personal touch: the addition of some notes in the left hand that continued the melodic line of Chopin’s composition – a truly brilliant, insightful, and musical adjustment to the score (heard starting at 1:07 in the clip below).

 

There were a few more Foster uploads on YouTube and I found all of them to be extraordinary. With a bit more searching online I discovered that the International Piano Archives at Maryland had issued a 2-CD set of concert recordings by the artist; anything produced by IPAM would obviously be of the highest standard, so naturally I ordered the set and once it arrived was absolutely thrilled by what I heard. Even in works as overplayed as Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, Foster could make things sound new without any exaggerated nuancing or indulgences: you could take dictation of the score from his performance, yet it was fresh and alive.

While many criticize Facebook for its negative impact on society and communication, for me it’s been a truly amazing vehicle to connect with wonderful people in the music field; one of these is Foster pupil Alberto Reyes, himself a wonderful pianist whose performing career was placed on the back burner while he worked for decades as an interpreter at the United Nations. On my 2014 visit to New York, Mr. Reyes invited me to lunch and we had a truly engaging and insightful conversation about music-making and his beloved mentor, whom he continues to idolize (rightly so) and about whom he has spoken and written with great eloquence. Reyes was the driving force behind an incredible production that has since been released on the Marston Records label: a centenary tribute to Foster featuring 7 CDs of concert and broadcast performances, every single one of which is top-tier. In addition to these ten hours of stunning pianism the set has the added bonus of the superb booklet notes by Reyes, which not only explore Foster’s life, character, and career but also details his musical and pianistic approach, with some jaw-dropping insights as to the technical means by which Foster created some of his extraordinary effects at the keyboard.

Here is the promo video that I produced for the Marston release, set to Foster’s exquisite account of Moszkowski’s Guitarre Op.45 No.2 from a concert performance of June 30, 1968.

 

I regularly explore in my postings how not all great pianists have great careers, and that many who had careers of note are not well remembered after they die, and unfortunately Foster seems to fit into both categories. He died of myeloid metaplasia (a bone marrow condition) at the age of 59, having made only a few commercial records that do not fully reveal his genius. He performed and toured widely, playing with major musicians and considered a peer by other great American pianists such as Jorge Bolet and Abbey Simon, but is the least remembered amongst this trio of pianists who had studied with David Saperton (Godowsky’s son-in-law). It is remarkable that the youngest pianist to be admitted full-time to the Curtis Institute and the winner of the first ever Leventritt Competition (the prize that would launch the careers of Van Cliburn, John Browning, and Gary Graffman) should fade into obscurity. Fortunately, the current unparalleled access to recorded performances by this exceptional musician can posthumously remedy this situation so that Sidney Foster can rightly be remembered as one of the most astounding American pianists of the 20th century, and one of the greatest in the international pantheon.

Born Sidney Finkelstein in Florence, South Carolina on May 23, 1917, he was four years old when his musical inclinations became clear. He auditioned for Josef Hofmann at age 10 and then became the youngest pupil to be enrolled full-time at the Curtis Institute of Music (Ruth Slenczynska was younger, but she was not a full-time student with a full course load like Sidney). Foster trained with the legendary Isabelle Vengerova and then for several years with David Saperton before winning the 1938 MacDowell Competition. This was followed by the 1940 Leventritt prize, which afforded him a debut performance with the New York Philharmonic under Barbirolli of Beethoven’s Third Concerto (with his own cadenza in the first movement). The enthusiastic New York Times critic Noel Strauss reported that Foster ‘proved himself a richly gifted performer’ as he ‘gave the concerto a reading in the grand manner.’

Foster’s career was launched, and with regular performances at Carnegie Hall and with major American orchestras and conductors, his playing was very well received. His appearance as one of ten international pianists on the Ed Sullivan show on October 18, 1953 is indicative of the esteem in which he was held at the time and the envisioned trajectory of his career. In this remarkable footage – alas, the only known filmed performance of Foster – we can see him (starting around the 2:25 mark) playing Chopin’s Polonaise in A Major, Op.40 No.1 simultaneously with Ethel Bartlett, Alexander Brailowsky, Gaby Casadesus, Eugene List, Moura Lympany, Guiomar Novaes, Rae Robertson, and Beveridge Webster, with the great Rudolph Ganz as conductor (though he sits down and joins in the fun at one point) – an event that was a precursor to a Steinway Centenary celebration the following night that would feature 34 pianists (Foster among them).

 

His playing was also recognized beyond the confines of his native country: Foster played throughout Europe, Israel, and Japan, and when the Soviet Union began to open up in the 1960s, he was among the first American artists to play there, in a tour consisting of some 22 concerts in 30 days. However, health challenges would begin hinder his career: he had suffered a heart attack at 39 (in the late 1950s) and by 1962 he was diagnosed with the disease that would take him from us 15 years later.

The self-effacing musician was not one to seek the limelight in any case, and his attention would become increasingly focused on teaching. After a few years at Florida State University, Foster was a beloved teacher at Indiana University for nearly a quarter century, from 1952 until his death on February 7, 1977 at the tragically young age of 59. He continued to play while tenured there, his 1970 Carnegie Hall recital rapturously reviewed by eminent pianophile Harold C Schonberg, who called it an ‘exhilarating experience,’ referencing Foster’s ‘singing tone, an ability to take liberties in a phrase without distorting the line, and a steady rhythmic momentum… He makes music in an alert and exciting fashion.’ He played less widely as his condition deteriorated, though he would continue to devote himself tirelessly to his students; Reyes had been unaware of the seriousness of his condition until the last year of Foster’s life, as he did not draw attention to himself. As insightful and inspired as Foster was in his teaching, his modesty prevailed there too: he asked Jorge Bolet to coach Reyes in Prokofiev’s Second Concerto as he knew the work better than him (having made its first recording), something the equally modest and congenial Bolet – also teaching at Indiana – was more than willing to do. The standards he held for himself as a teacher were as high as they were with his playing, and he was as lionized by his students and colleagues as he was by audiences and critics for his concerts.

Foster’s Recorded Legacy

As a pianist who was aware of the ephemeral nature of musical performance, Foster was not particularly enthused by recordings, leaving behind only a disc of two Mozart Concertos in addition to the complete Clementi Sonatas, but these pale in comparison to the pianism of his live performances. Fortunately he played regularly at Indiana University, where a single microphone hanging in the auditorium preserved recital performances that now form the bulk of his discography. There are a few live concerto recordings from New York, Tokyo, Salt Lake City, and Boston – Beethoven Third, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bartok Third – though not nearly as much as an artist of his stature warrants, and one hopes that more will be located. Two discs of recital recordings were issued in IPAM’s 1993 set ‘Ovation to Sidney Foster’ before Marston’s glorious 7-disc set of solo and concerto performances was released in 2018, and both of these sets reveal in every moment pianism of the highest order.

Foster was a virtuoso who played on a wider landscape than how the term is generally used, as his mastery of the piano was not just in the technical sense of having a total command of precision that allowed for thrilling performances; rather, his playing was fuelled by an intelligence and understanding of the music and pianistic technique that went beyond the purely physical requirements of a performance. With an inner compass unwavering in its quest for truthful interpretation, his thorough mastery of tone production, articulation, projection, and all other elements required for an insightful interpretation were fully at the service of the music. There is a multidimensionality to his playing that one can glean from these recordings, though the effect in person would clearly be much more impactful – likely one of the reasons that Foster would not be particularly enamoured with the mechanical process of producing recordings in a studio.

His repertoire spanned from Bach to Prokofiev, and in each performance we hear the same intelligence and clarity of tone serving the musical content while clarifying the structure of the work, in a symbiotic fashion. His deftness of articulation, transparency of texture, beautiful sonority, and steady rhythm are all in evidence in this majestic March 29, 1955 performance of the Bach-Liszt Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor.

 

As often as one might have heard Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, there is a freshness and vitality in Foster’s approach that makes it sound new without any contrived attempt at originality being externally imposed on it. Here is the first movement from a June 30, 1968 concert performance, where Foster plays with a phenomenal sense of architecture, articulating with tremendous clarity and phasing cohesively without ever sounding boxy, while also exhibiting boundless passion, impeccable timing, and impressive tonal and dynamic control.

 

In virtuosic repertoire, Foster’s musicality is still evident: this staggering 1965 concert performance of Mendelssohn’s Etude in F Major Op.104b No.2 features impressive dexterity and evenness of articulation, astoundingly clear and consistent voicing, and marvellously polished tone throughout. What striking layering of the primarily melodic content in relation to the dazzling fingerwork!

 

For all his technical prowess, Foster’s proficiency at the keyboard was wholly at the service of the music, and in works rich in emotional content his interpretations were probing and revealing. This April 27, 1952 performance of Chopin’s Fantasy in F Minor Op.49 features a long burnished melodic line that is mindfully shaped with articulation – not only fluid or only detached, but a subtle combination that mirrors the variety and shaping of human speech. There is gorgeous singing tone throughout, and particularly impressive is a transparent bass sound that travels through all registers without obscuring any of the other lines, an effect that is one of the hallmarks of his playing and which stands him apart from many of his better-known colleagues.

 

The refinement in Foster’s playing was such that on first listen one might easily overlook the absolute mastery on display. In this 1968 account of Finnish composer Selim Palmgren’s ‘May Night’, his luminous tone and seamlessness of phrasing are evident and admirable; however, most miraculous is the skillful balance between voices, a chime-like effect being produced by the flawless weighting of chords, impeccably poised so that the intervals create just the right tension. That he could achieve this while playing with such fluid legato, clarity of the primary line, and luminous tone is absolutely jaw-dropping.

 

In contemporary music, Foster achieves what modern composers themselves aimed to do but which is so often not accomplished by most pianists: playing with consistent beauty of tone without banging when there is harmonic dissonance. This October 2, 1961 performance of some Prokofiev Visions Fugitives (Numbers 1, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 8, and 18) is as mindfully phrased, beautifully nuanced, and flawlessly characterized as Foster’s readings of works by any other composer. His timing, attentive use of varied articulation, and rich dynamic and tonal palette serve to individualize to perfection each of these works.

 

Another masterful performance of 20th century repertoire is this March 5, 1959 reading of Bartok’s Suite Op.14, which clarifies this remarkable work with his phenomenal transparency, gorgeous tonal colours, deft articulation, and rhythmic vitality – a terrifically exciting account that reveals the work’s incredible depth and richness of emotional content.

 

To close this tribute to this superb artist, a 1959 performance of Albeniz’s Evocación from Iberia that captures Foster’s splendid tonal colours, magnificently sculpted phrasing (notice how the ornamentation is incorporated in the line), magical pedal effects, phenomenal dynamic control (the pianissimos are breathtaking), and immaculate timing. As with all of these performances, every phrase – every note – is a sign of absolute musical and pianistic mastery. Long may we continue to hear and appreciate Sidney Foster’s artistry!

 

 

 

How could it be that a pianist whom Busoni said was one of his greatest disciples should be virtually forgotten today? Leo Sirota was not just one of his three favourite pupils – alongside Egon Petri and Ignaz Friedman (although the latter’s primary teacher was Theodor Leschetizky) – but was also esteemed as a friend and colleague. Yet despite a major international career spanning six decades, the previously revered Russian pianist is far less remembered today than many of his contemporaries.

As is so often the case, one major factor is quite simply the lack of recordings: he made barely an hour’s worth for the Homochord label in the mid 1920s (including the first ever complete account of Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques) and another half hour in the 1930s while in Japan (including the first ever complete Petrouchka Suite), but he did not produce a single disc in the LP era, despite his having lived until 1965. Fortunately the relatively recent availability of some 1950s and 60s broadcast recordings has enabled his playing to reach a new audience and has brought awareness of the art and life of a man who played a major role in the dissemination of classical pianism in the first half of the 20th century.  

Early Years

The Russian pianist seemed destined for greatness from a very young age. Born Leiba Gregorovich Sirota on May 4, 1885 in Kamenezk Podolsk, Russia, he was attracted by the playing of the pianist Michael Wexler, who lived in the same home and to whom the young boy would gravitate whenever he practiced. After some lessons at home, he was taken to the Imperial Music School in Kiev to study with Chodorwski (Horowitz’s future teacher Tarnowski was in the same class). He gave his first tour at the age of ten and so impressed Paderewski that the legendary Polish pianist invited him to Paris to study with him, an offer that was declined because the boy’s parents found him too young. Glazunov took him under his wing and upon Leo’s graduation, the famed composer wrote a letter of recommendation to Busoni with the suggestion that the young man train with the legendary Italian composer-pianist in Vienna.

And so in 1904, the 19-year-old Sirota set off for Vienna – but he wanted to decide for himself who he should study with. He played for Hofmann, Paderewski, Godowsky, and Busoni: all four accepted him and he chose Busoni, and when Sirota belatedly presented him with Glazunov’s letter, the Italian is said to have stated, ‘What need is there for this? I have heard you play!’ The high esteem in which he was held by the composer is evidenced by a tale that after Sirota played the Don Juan Fantasy at a master class, Busoni shut the piano lid and stated that he did not wish to listen to anyone else play that day; he then took a copy of his recently-published Elegies from his desk and inscribed it, “To my young colleague from Kiev, for the Don Juan Fantasy on May 4th, 1908 in Vienna … Herzlich [cordially] … Ferruccio Busoni”. The date indicates that this was the pianist’s 23rd birthday, and the legendary composer’s use of the word ‘colleague’ was understandably moving to the artist as well.

Here is a broadcast recording of Sirota playing that work nearly 50 years later, a mere 6 weeks before his 70th birthday, still demonstrating a wonderful fusion of virtuosity and musicality:

 

Auspicious Debuts

Sirota’s solo Vienna debut took place on December 27, 1909 in a recital that included the Hammerklavier Sonata and ended with the Don Juan Fantasy. On February 8, 1910 he made his Berlin debut with a programme that sounds as though it was the same as his Vienna recital:

Beethoven Hammerklavier Sonata

Brahms Paganini Variations

Chopin: Two Etudes Op.10, Nocturne Op.48, Mazurka Op.59, Ballade No.1 [the selections in each opus grouping are unclear]

Mozart-Liszt Don Juan Fantasy

Despite rave reviews and the fact that he was already successfully performing, Sirota chose to enter the Anton Rubinstein Competition in St. Petersburg that year; Arthur Rubinstein was a participant and in his memoirs singled out Sirota, Edwin Fischer, Leff Pouishnoff, and another as pianists who ‘depressed me – they played too well. All four had the kind of technical polish which I never possessed. And they never missed a note, the devils.’ None of them would win a prize – Alfred Hoehn came out on top – and as we know, these artists went on to highly successful international careers, though it is Fischer and Rubinstein, both of whom recorded extensively, who are most remembered today.

One of the landmark concerts in Sirota’s career took place later that year at the Musikvereinsaal, in December 1910 – a massive and rather unusual programme: Sirota played the Don Juan Fantasy before joining Busoni for a performance of the Two-Piano Sonata in D Major, and then he played the titanic Busoni Piano Concerto with the composer conducting the Tonkünstler Orchestra with the Männergesangverein Chorus participating in the fifth movement’s choral performance.

Sirota wrote of the event, “How I came to play Busoni’s Concerto is rather an interesting story. I had planned to make my debut in Vienna under the baton of the of the noteworthy conductors of that time. Since Busoni was not only my former master but also a most excellent conductor, and because of his immense popularity throughout the European continent, I decided that I must persuade him to come to Vienna. I, therefore, quickly wrote to him, offering to perform his Concerto, which had never been performed before at a concert in Vienna. Busoni quickly replied, making all the necessary arrangements, and indicating any specifications he had in mind. It was September and the performance was slated for early November [sic]. I immediately set to work, practicing eight hours a day during the entire six weeks before the concert, and when the night arrived, I walked out onto the stage without so much as a single rehearsal. Busoni was overjoyed at the success. We received sixteen curtain calls.”

The pianist would travel around Europe but continue to be based in Vienna, continuing to work with Busoni throughout the war while studying philosophy, law, and music history at the University of Vienna. He helped his friend Jascha Horenstein, then training to be a conductor, by playing for him on Sundays and would eventually be introduced to the conductor’s sister Augustine. At a dinner the pair attended at Busoni’s home, while Leo spoke with Mrs. Busoni, the composer spoke highly of Sirota to Augustine, telling her what a nice man and wonderful musician he was. They were married soon after.

Sirota traveled extensively throughout Europe, at times in a Rolls Royce built for the King of Romania, and he was so well known in Vienna that mail addressed to ‘Leo Sirota, Vienna’ would be delivered to him. While performing throughout Russia, he was invited to give a tour of Manchuria: he took the Trans-Siberian railway and upon arrival was greeted by a special train elaborately decorated with greenery and adorned with posters of the pianist, complete with his own salon car and two additional carriages for attendants, plus another car with a Steinway. There are differing accounts as to how he met Japanese composer Kosaku Yamada while on that tour, but what is clear is that he made a previously unscheduled visit to Japan in the autumn of 1928 (not 1929 as has been reported) and gave more than a dozen concerts over the course of a month that were rapturously received.

The Far East

Sirota made such an impression in Japan that after his return to Europe he was offered to head the piano department at the Ueno Imperial Academy in Tokyo, while offers for concerts in the US were arriving. Instead of visiting the new world, Sirota opted to move to Japan with his family – surely not anticipating when he accepted the six-month post that he would remain for sixteen years. He became a beloved teacher, one of two major European pianists teaching there (the other was Leonid Kreutzer), and both his teaching and playing were highly acclaimed. Interestingly, Sirota was the first to play a Yamaha piano in concert – the brand-conscious Japanese had a preference for the more established European instruments – and he so significantly helped the company establish their reputation that they furnished him with pianos wherever he went.

Rave reviews were common, such as one in the Japan Times in 1933 that stated, “for him, no difficulty exists: he does with the piano what he wishes. The instrument like a faithful slave obeys and expresses every shade of his feeling, showing to his listeners whole series of tone pictures.” There were, however, signs that not all were aligned with Sirota’s aesthetic: occasionally a review might criticize his ‘passion’ while advocating ‘calm objectivity’, and critic Junji Kakei noted in 1937 that the Russian pianist represented more of the ‘old school’ of personal interpretations rather than the emerging preference for a more objective approach to performance:

Mr. Sirota’s expression lacks the freshness to lead and enlighten us. It lacks elastic naturalness. The rhythms are sometimes distorted by his arbitrary individualistic flourishes. I have no doubt that Mr. Sirota has the technique of a maestro but maybe he imagines he cannot be a signpost for us of the younger generation … This evening’s Liszt concert was a superficial success. If we feel any dissatisfaction about it, however, I think the chief reason was that Mr. Sirota failed to look back at every aspect of this great pianist Liszt from a modern point of view.

Nevertheless, despite such outlying reviews, he was very successful and was certainly beloved by his pupils. Despite some inherent linguistic barriers, Sirota was able to demonstrate effectively at the keyboard how they could improve their playing and they achieved noticeable results. However, things would take a turn during the Second World War. As Beate left in 1939 to go to college in California, the Japanese secret police began keeping tabs on foreigners living in Japan. The Sirotas made a visit to the US in mid 1941 and returned to Japan that November, setting sail on the last ship that left the States prior to Pearl Harbour being bombed. Their absence raised questions as to their allegiance and Leo was interrogated as to why he had mailed letters in the US on behalf of a friend. German officials in the country had all Jews in prominent positions removed from their posts and Sirota was thus barred from performing and broadcasting.

Leo and Augustine were with other expatriates sent to the mountain village of Karuizawa, a drastic change from the more luxurious conditions in which they had previously been living: their rural home was very cold (minus 15 degrees Celsius in the winter) and food was scarce. One day, a farmer recognized Sirota as he had not only attended one of the pianist’s concert years earlier but been so moved that he had brought home one of the posters of the event. Although local residents were to have no contact with interned foreigners, at great personal risk the farmer provided the Sirotas with extra food and helped them as much as he could.

In 1945, three secret police agents came to arrest Sirota but a colleague of theirs intervened and said they would be back the following week; Sirota believed he would be taken to be executed. Within days, the atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended. Beate, as one of the few Americans completely fluent in the Japanese language, got a job with the Foreign Economic Administration working for General MacArthur and was able to go to Japan to find her family and ensure their safety. She was tasked with helping draft the new constitution of the country and played a significant role in the inclusion of a clause regarding legal equality between men and women, which endeared her to the Japanese for the rest of her life (read more here).

The New World

After a few farewell concerts (and a polite refusal to resume his teaching post), Sirota and his family moved to the US in 1946, initially settling in New York. In 1947 the master pianist finally gave his Carnegie Hall debut – almost four decades after his European debuts. He was invited to St. Louis and accepted a post on the piano faculty at the St. Louis Institute of Music, taking over from another Busoni pupil, Gottfried Galston. Over the course of the next 15 years or so, Sirota gave many broadcasts on the radio – including the complete piano music of Chopin and Schumann, the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas (the first pianist to do so on radio in the US), and a Liszt series – but he made no commercial recordings.

At the age of 78, Sirota finally acquiesced to requests that he return to Japan and in late 1963 he gave a farewell tour where he played solo recitals and conducted concerto performances in which his students appeared as soloists. The three-week trip was described by the pianist as ‘like a wonderful dream.’ Alas, it was to be his last tour. Plans were underway to celebrate his 80th birthday in May 1965, but he fell ill a few months earlier, complaining of tiredness in early February. Within weeks, he died of liver cancer and aggravated diabetes, on February 24, 1965.

Rediscovering A Legend

Sirota made about an hour’s worth of recordings for the Homochord label between 1924 and 1926 (Gieseking also recorded for them) and also made some discs for Japanese Columbia within a year of his arrival in the country in 1929. These were all but forgotten until the mid 1990s, when the Dante label produced a reissue in their series devoted to historical piano recordings. The Japanese label Green Door came out with a 3-disc set that included some of these 78s together with later recordings of unknown provenance. Pianophile Allan Evans would befriend Sirota’s daughter Beate, who made available to him a number of private tapes that were taken from both American broadcasts and the pianist’s 1963 farewell tour of Japan. He included a few tracks in two Busoni and his Circle CDs on the Pearl label and then issued three discs entirely dedicated to Sirota on his own Arbiter label. It appears that more remains to be released and it is to be hoped that they will see the light of day (you can be assured that I am on the case).

Among the pianist’s official recorded output is one important world premiere: the first complete account on disc of Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques Op.13, including posthumous variations. Despite the lamentable sound – perhaps the recording, the remastering, or a combination thereof – we can appreciate the pianist’s nobility of conception, refinement of tone, deftness and consistency of articulation, combination of power and musicality, and clarity of voicing.

 

It was Sirota who premiered Stravinsky’s Trois mouvements de Petrouchka when Arthur Rubinstein, the pianist for whom the composer had penned the work, found himself unable to master the suite’s technical challenges (Rubinstein never recorded it commercially but a 1961 concert recording exists). Sirota put the work on disc for Japanese Columbia in his early years in Japan, demonstrating great dexterity yet always playing with beautiful tone, his rhythmic pulse steady without being rigid – the musical content is always primary.

 

Despite the faded sound in these early recordings, we can recognize some true brilliance and mastery in Sirota’s playing. His 1924 recording via the acoustical process [with a cone-shaped horn instead of a microphone] of the Glinka-Balakirev ‘The Lark’ reveals a gorgeous singing tone, seamless phrasing, magnificent pedalling, and magnificent nuancing. What glistening runs and poised presence!

 

Fortunately there are some later recordings of the pianist in vastly better sound that help us appreciate the full extent of his artistry. If he was past his prime – as might be expected when he was in his 60s and 70s in these performances – he nevertheless maintained his impressive dexterity and, more importantly, demonstrated depth of musicianship that was both innate and the result of his wealth of experience in a career that had that point been over half a century.

Because Sirota recorded primarily shorter works (with the exception of the Schumann Op.13 and Stravinsky Petrouchka) in his studio sessions, hearing him in larger scale repertoire from a range of historical periods gives us a greater idea of his interpretative capabilities. This performance of Beethoven’s Sonata No.18 in E-Flat Major Op.31 No.3 from his farewell tour of Japan finds the 78-year-old playing with tremendous command both technically and musically, and we get a glimpse into another world of piano playing. Sirota was still decidedly ‘old school,’ though his individual touches are not as overt as some from his generation or soon before; there are, nevertheless, some fascinating nuances such as gentle timing adjustments at transition points.

 

Sirota had the entire Chopin solo works in his repertoire (it is to be hoped that his 1950s broadcasts are preserved and will be issued) and the composer’s music provides the ideal vehicle for his brand of individual pianism. In this 1952 broadcast, he plays the opening measures of the Fantaisie F Minor Op.49 with a wonderfully full and transparent bass sonority, presenting the themes with disarming simplicity and beauty of tone, eschewing bombast as the work builds in tension while still playing with remarkable strength and power. A terrifically exciting yet musical performance!

 

As the Chopin Fantaisie above, this 1954 broadcast of Liszt’s Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata features grand and noble playing by the 69-year-old Sirota, powerful and impassioned without being overbearing or sentimental, his massive sonority and broad gestures never compromising musical content and clarity.

 

It is often in works that are seemingly simple that we can recognize an artist’s mastery. These two short works from Stravinsky’s Three Easy Pieces are delivered with a wonderful lilting rhythm, mindful use of articulation and dynamics to highlight the quixotic nature of the music, an absolutely gorgeous sonority, and magnificent phrasing. What a whimsical performance!

 

There is only one recording of Sirota playing with orchestra that has been made public, a recent and precious upload to YouTube: a June 24, 1955 St. Louis concert performance of Weber’s Konzertstück Op.79 with his brother-in-law Jascha Horenstein conducting. Sirota’s astounding pianism is readily discernible despite the sonic limitations of the recording: a month after his 70th birthday, he plays with incredible fire, with a depth of tone that never devolved into harshness in louder passages while also going down to a whispering pianissimo without losing its singing quality, and with remarkable rhythmic vitality and beautifully shaped phrasing. It’s also quite meaningful to hear these two musicians together some forty years after they met, especially given their familial connection.

 

To close this tribute to this remarkable pianist, a performance of Chopin’s Nocturne in B Major Op.62 No.1, from Sirota’s 1963 farewell concert tour of Japan. This reading features fluid phrasing, amazing dynamic shadings, incredible pedalling, and truly spacious pacing: what freedom in his shaping and timing of the melodic line and how it interacts with the accompaniment.

 

To learn more about Sirota, there is an English translation of a Japanese book available on Amazon (print-on-demand or instant Kindle download) which is a very enjoyable and insightful read. Some of the Arbiter CDs may still be available but apparently some are out of print (you can check to see if iTunes/Apple Music will work for you) – there is certainly some worthy reading about him on the Arbiter website. The pianist’s daughter Beate wrote a marvellous book detailing her role in drafting the Japanese constitution, which also gives some fascinating biographical background about the family. Let us hope that more of the pianist’s playing and personal history will be made available!