Rachmaninoff/ Previn & Ashkenazy

[jannelder]

Their recording of the suites for two pianos is one of my Desert Island discs, but did they ever perform them live, and if so, where and when, approximately?

[richardfinegold]

Nothing on You Tube

[smittims]

That's a very interesting question. I wish I knew, because I've often noticed that , during the 'years of plenty' in recording studios (i.e. the 1960s and '70s) famous artists recorded lots of msuic they could hardly have played live often if at all. Ashkenazy, for instance, recorded all the Mozart concertos and all the Beethoven sonatas, but I can't believe he found time to fit them all into this concert schedule more than once or twice.

I think a conscientious artist would be concerned to play in public at least once or twice a piece h'ed learnt for a studio recording, but there have been several instances of people recording works they never played in public.

[Ein Heldenleben]

That's a very interesting question. I wish I knew, because I've often noticed that , during the 'years of plenty' in recording studios (i.e. the 1960s and '70s) famous artists recorded lots of msuic they could hardly have played live often if at all. Ashkenazy, for instance, recorded all the Mozart concertos and all the Beethoven sonatas, but I can't believe he found time to fit them all into this concert schedule more than once or twice.

I think a conscientious artist would be concerned to play in public at least once or twice a piece h'ed learnt for a studio recording, but there have been several instances of people recording works they never played in public.

Recorded extremely difficult repertoire but not performed it live ?
I wonder why ?
Are studio recordings really “performances “ at all?

[smittims]

Well, that's a philosophical question. Are recordings music? I think some musicians don't think so.

I think the reason why a studio recording doesn't result in a concert performance may be, fr instance, when an artist is asked to record a series of works (say, all five Prokofiev concertos) because he's played, say, two of them brilliantly in concert, but the other three not at all. Then there's rare and unprofitable music (Bantock tone poems, say) that someone wants to put on CD but no-one wants to programme in a concert. Did the Lyrita recording of Alwyn's Miss Julie stem from a stage production? I don't think the Oiseau-Lyre recording of Handel's Sosarme (Alfred Deller, Anthony Lewis) did.

Then there's Beecham's Beethoven Mass in C. There was a concert performance at the Festival Hall, but Beecham handed it over to Denis Vaughan who had trained the chorus. Was it a 'thank you' or had Tommy just tired of the work? We shall never know.

[rauschwerk]

50 years ago I sang on three recordings conducted by Adrian Boult (Holst, Vaughan Williams and Elgar). Sir Adrian was no longer conducting live choral pieces as it meant lifting his arms high for lengthy spells. We did a concert performance of RVW's 'Dona nobis pacem' conducted by John Alldis, but not of the other pieces (as I recall).

[Keraulophone]

Their recording of the suites for two pianos is one of my Desert Island discs…

Mine too. I’ve not enjoyed others as much, particularly the recent Trifonov & his mentor’s virtuosic race through the second suite’s presto movements. (They remind me of R.Strauss’s suggestion “when you have reached the limits of prestissimo, double the pace!”.) Argerich & Montero live at the Verbier Festival are more gracious, but a closer rival to Ashkenazy and Previn is the 1983 studio recording for Philips by Argerich and Freire. They can be seen playing it live in Tokyo twenty years later: https://youtu.be/wYLasmJdeEg?si=VNgVmgHJXdcP4IiJ