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This week's podcast
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Click here to launch the Archive Classics Podcast playerThis week's podcast
Stephen's selection
Featured recording

Archive Classics tx 23/07/2010

This week Stephen Johnson continues his exploration of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos with No.3 in D minor Op.30. Cyril Smith performs the piano part, one of the most fiendishly difficult solo parts of all concertos. George Weldon conducts the City of Bimingham Symphony Orchestra.
 
Only a short excerpt is available on the free podcast: subscribers can access the complete work.

This week’s podcast begins on an up-beat note with Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies performed by the violinist Fritz Kreisler and the pianist Carl Lamson in this early, 1927 recording.

What a contrast it makes with our next piece, Bartok’s fittingly-titled ‘Contrasts,’ his only chamber piece to include a wind instrument. Joseph Szigeti is the violinist, Benny Goodman plays the clarinet and Bela Bartok himself plays the piano. There is a little distortion in some places in this 1946 recording.

Prokofiev is next, with a piece he composed while touring California in 1921: his Five Melodies Op 35. Ruth Posselt plays the violin and Allan Sly, the piano.

Bonus track for subscribers only:

  • More Prokofiev for our subscribers. The Classical Symphony – one of Prokofiev’s first neo-classical compositions – is performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sergiu Celibidache.

 

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Stephen's selection

IRVING BERLIN Blue Skies [3:38]
Fritz Kreisler, (violin)
Carl Lamson (piano)
Recorded 1927
BIDDULPH LAB075

BARTOK Contrasts [16:57]
Joseph Szigeti (violin)
Bela Bartok (piano)
Benny Goodman (clarinet)
Recorded 1940
BIDDULPH LAB071

Featured Recording
RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor Op.30 [34:52]
(Free podcast excerpt only)
Cyril Smith (piano)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
George Weldon (conductor)
Recorded 1946
APR 5507

PROKOFIEV Five Melodies Op.35 [13:02]
Ruth Posselt (violin)
Allan Sly (piano)
Recorded 1938
WEST HILL RADIO ARCHIVES 6016

Full podcast only
PROKOFIEV Classical Symphony in C Op.25 [14:30]
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Sergiu Celibidache (conductor)
Recorded 6th July 1946
MUSIC AND ARTS 1079


This week's featured recording

RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor Op.30 [34:52]
Cyril Smith (piano)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
George Weldon (conductor)
Recorded 1946
APR 5507

Wigmore Hall Live
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