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Clifford Curzon |
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RECORDING INFORMATION When Clifford Curzon died in September 1982 it was ten years since he had completed what was to be his final studio recording. The recording was of a work which was central to his repertory and one of his finest recordings: Schubert's Sonata in B flat, D960. It was with the music of Schubert that Curzon began his exclusive association with DECCA in 1941, when he recorded the four Impromptus, D899; Schubert would feature regularly in concerts and a recording career which, lasting thirty-one years, produced but a handful of recordings. Curzon was born in London on 18 May 1907. His teachers included such legendary names as Artur Schnabel in Berlin and Boulanger and Landowska in Paris. He made his first appearances in America in 1939 and after the Second World War appeared in all the important musical centres, though even at this early stage in his career his appearances were rare events. Numerous honours bestowed upon him during his lifetime included the CBE (1958) and a knighthood in 1977. When Curzon signed his first contract with Decca on 14 May 1941, the term of the contract was for five years, during which time the artist was expected to record a minimum of eighty sides of 78rpm records. His dislike of the recording studio and the recording process was evident even at this early stage: a letter dated 14 February 1946 from the then manager of the Artists Department, H.G. Sarton, states that out of the requisite eighty sides only twenty-four had been recorded! One of the prime reasons for Curzon's dislike of recording is that he never regarded his interpretations as definitive in any way, and his was a constant search for the evolution and meaning of a work, which could only happen with repeated study and performance. Studio recordings frequently got as far as a test-pressing of the final edited tape, only to be rejected and confined to the archive. Such was the case with recordings very closely identified with Curzon: Mozart's last piano concerto, K595 in B flat major. A recording of this and K488 in A major was made with Szell and the Wiener Philharmoniker in December 1964. It was rejected. In December 1967 Curzon was persuaded into the studio once more to record K595 — this time with K537 “Coronation” and the London Symphony Orchestra with István Kertész. Rejected again. Another attempt to record K595 with K466 in D minor was scheduled for September 1970 with the English Chamber Orchestra and Benjamin Britten. Another rejection. Yet further plans were made to try K595 again but these were never realised. By way of a posthumous tribute the recording with Britten was released two months after Curzon died in November 1982. The recording with Kertész was released for the first time as one of the volumes devoted to Curzon in Philips' Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century and now, nearly forty years since it was recorded, Curzon's first recording of K595 (with K488) is released for the first time! |
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CD 1, Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1