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Post by charlesb on Aug 17, 2017 23:16:29 GMT 1
According to www.jpc.de, on 18th September 2017, ICA will be releasing concert recordings with the Philharmonia, recorded at the Festival Hall in London during 1955 and 1956. The CDs will include Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, recorded at different concerts in 1955 and the following 1956 concert: 6th February 1956 Mozart 35th Symphony Mozart 23rd Piano Concerto with Clara Haskil Mozart 41st Symphony Assuming that JPC's dates are correct, I believe that this will be the first release of all of these performances. |
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Post by charlesb on Aug 30, 2017 22:40:14 GMT 1
Amazon in the UK are now advertising the CDs. This is Amazon's product description: This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market. Herbert von Karajans association with the Philharmonia Orchestra started in 1948 and continued to 1960. Despite this long relationship, there are practically no live recordings from Londons Royal Festival Hall of Karajan and the Philharmonia caught on the wing. Karajans live Philharmonia account of Tchaikovskys Symphony No.4 in 1955 is an unrestrained version of his studio recording of 1953 which The Gramophone descibed as phenominal, a record in a thousand. Ravels Rapsodie espagnole was played in London just prior to Karajans Philharmonia tour of the USA in Autumn 1955 and was thought at the time to be even more sensuosly beautiful than his widely praised studio account with the Philharmonia from 1953. The Mozart concert is important because it features the Romanian pianist Clara Haskil (1896-1960) with whom Karajan had an extraordinary rapport. Since they were both contracted to different companies, they never recorded together which makes this memento of their collaboration especially valuable. Furthermore, this live 1956 London performance of the Jupiter Symphony also fills an important gap in Karajans Philharmonia discography, since a studio recording begun in August 1953 was never completed. If you want to find out more about Richard Itter, this link is interesting - www.lyrita.co.uk/ |
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barty
New Member
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Post by barty on Oct 6, 2017 10:01:32 GMT 1
This is a superb release, the sound quality is amazing considering it was recorded "off air". Richard Itter seemingly had recording equipment at home that was "State of the Art" at the time, and that he lived close to the BBC's FM transmitter giving him optimal broadcast quality.
It seems that after 10 days of touring Mozart around europe at the end of January/beginning of february 1956, Haskil and Karajan decided to change the concerto for this London concert. They performed K466 7 times between the 28th January in Salzburg and the 4th February in Paris, and only in this London performance did they perform the K488 Concerto. So now we have both! (The Belvedere CD release in 2016 of the 28th january concert in Salzburg, also in superb sound, included the K466).
It is wonderful to have this exquisite parnership caught on the wing at both the beginnng and the end of the tour.
Also the rapport with the Philharmonia does not seem to have suffered any from the problems of the USA tour of only a few months previously.
One can only thank ICA for this release and hope that there may be more from this source.
The remainder of the two 1955 concerts represented on the ICA release are -
London RFH 1 May 1955
Mozart Symphony 35
Sibelius Symphony 4
TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY 4 (issued)
London RFH 18 October 1955 (The next day they left for the 24 concert tour of the USA)
Britten Frank Bridge Variations
RAVEL RAPSODIE ESPAGNOLE (Issued)
Berlioz Symphony Fantastique
I wonder if Mr Itter recorded the complete concerts?
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