This marvelous two disc set brings back into the catalog Jerome Lowenthal's superb readings of all four of the works that Tchaikovsky wrote for piano and orchestra. The recordings focus on Tchaikovsky's original, uncut scores in virtuoso performances by Lowenthal, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, directed by the late Sergiu Comissiona. The recordings, made in the late 1980s, were originally released on Arabesque.
These recordings were unearthed from the BBC archives. All the restoration work has been done from the original analog tapes. The works presented here are from a historic session in the London studios on June 30, 1959.
This disc, recorded live toward the end of Jacqueline du Pré's grievously short career, displays both her irresistible magic–the sumptuous, warm tone, the spontaneous immediacy of expression, the technical and emotional risk-taking born of total faith in her talent and musical instincts–and her unbridled excesses: the liberties, the extreme tempi and tempo changes, the passionate abandon, the incessant slow, sentimental slides.