1CD (75'51)
Polydor recordings, Berlin
1-4 BRAHMS Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major Op 83
BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / MAX FIEDLER conductor, 1940 session: uncredited conductor
Recorded on 1, 2 & 5 June 1939 & 29 April 1940
5-8 SCHUBERT: Grosse Fantasie ‘Wanderer’ D760 (Op 15)
Recorded on 21 May 1942
9. SCHUBERT ‘Aus Schubert’s Tänzen’ Suite of Dances arranged by Elly Ney
Deutsche Tänze, D783: No 1 – Deutsche Tänze, D783: No 7 – Deutsche Tänze, D783: No 10 – Grätzer Walzer, D924: No 6 – Valses sentimentales, D779: No 13 – Deutsche Tänze, D790: No 3 – Waltzes, D365: No 29 – Ländler, D734: No 14 – Waltzes, D365: No 36 – Waltzes, D365: No 33
Recorded on 21 May 1942
German pianist ELLY NEY’s posthumous reputation has, perhaps justifiably, been tarnished by her links to the Nazi regime, but 80 years on it’s easier to focus on her pianism and acknowledge she was one of the finest pianists of her generation. A previous APR release (APR7311) presented her interpreting a wide range of composers, but she came to be regarded as one of the great interpreters of the Austro-German repertoire and here she tackles two of the masterworks, including a monumental performance of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the first version recorded by a woman. Brahms specialist, Max Fiedler, ostensibly conducts, though our booklet note proposes circumstantial evidence that Alois Melichar could be the uncredited conductor who completed the project after Fiedler’s sudden death and we have recently received new information that suggests this conductor could alternately have been her ex-husband Willem van Hoogstraten.
APR5639 Available on Compact Disc, as a Digital Download and to Stream