ME 233 Edwin Fischer at the Salzburg Festival, 1949 & 1951 Mozart: Concerto No 24; Haydn: Symphony No 104; Beethoven: Concertos Nos 1 & 4/ Vienna Philharmonic

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Edwin Fischer at the Salzburg Festival, 1949 & 1951.

Mozart: Concerto No 24; Haydn: Symphony No 104; Beethoven: Concertos Nos 1 & 4/ Vienna Philharmonic. Edwin Fischer at the Salzburg Festival, 1949 and 1951 Edwin Fischer’s appearances as soloist and conductor with the Vienna Philharmonic were highlights of the post-war Salzburg Festivals. But few recordings survive, and the performances published here for the first time thus add significantly to his legacy. The concert of 30 July 1951 shows his playing, and no less importantly his conducting, at their peak. Beethoven’s Concerto no 1 is a thrilling performance of a work that he never recorded commercially, while the Fourth Concerto, from 1949, though sonically problematic, gives a new perspective on an interpretation we know from discs. Fischer’s pianism is typical of him: incisive dynamics, propulsive but relaxed rhythms, fluid legato phrasing, prominent and expressive inner voices and bass lines, resonant tone – and of course the odd smudged note and scramble. At the level of interpretation as such, he was himself a composer (of songs, piano pieces and cadenzas), and credited a special insight to earlier composer-performers, including d’Albert, Reger and Bartók: “I often wondered how they achieved the astonishing musicality and inner logic of their performances. I came to see that it was a clear awareness of the harmonic progressions which made their playing so convincing and absorbing. No show was made of the ordinary course of events, but when a true modulation began it was significantly underlined. They led us with a sure hand from one key to another, from one section of the work to the next, giving us the impression of something that had grown organically. That may be what distinguishes interpreters who also compose from players who are fundamentally uncreative.” (1)…

(Excerpts from liner notes)