Monday, March 20, 2023

“Rediscovering” José Iturbi on RCA Victor

At the beginning of this month, Sony Classical released its latest “coffee table” anthology. These are moderately large books whose form factor amounts to a relatively thick collection of long-playing records. However, the recordings themselves are CDs; and the enlarged space accounts for a rich collection of photographs that embellish several essays of background material related to the content of the recordings themselves.

Unless I am mistaken, my first encounter with one of those releases involved an eight-CD anthology of Columbia Recordings made by pianist Oscar Levant, which received a disc-by-disc account on this site in 2018. This was followed in 2021 by a fifteen-CD collection of all the recordings made by contralto Marian Anderson for RCA Victor. That was covered by two articles, one dealing with the classical repertoire and the other with her recordings of spirituals. The full title of the latest release is From Hollywood to the World: The Rediscovered Recordings by Pianist and Conductor José Iturbi. Given the prioritization of physical packaging, I have not yet encountered a digital release of the music on the sixteen CDs in this collection.

My awareness of Iturbi was limited to my growing up with television. My parents never purchased any of his albums. One reason may have been their preference for Columbia over RCA. Another may have been that, because of his activities in Hollywood, they tended not to take him seriously as a concert pianist. It was only after both of my parents died that I began to take an interest in the many ways in which the repertoire of “serious music” could take advantage of the efforts of musicians that earned their living performing for movie soundtracks.

The title of this new collection takes Iturbi’s “Hollywood connection” seriously. One of the chapters in the book is entitled “José Iturbi Filmography.” However, none of the recordings in this collection have anything to do with that connection. As the overall title suggests, the recordings are focused on his work as both a conductor and a pianist; and, in the latter case, they account for both solo performances and duets played with his sister Amparo.

Sadly, the content itself is not particularly well organized; and there is no index that would facilitate providing a curious listener with an account of the composers whose music Iturbi chose to record. (This is also true of the two earlier releases I examined, but both of them had fewer CDs.) As a result, my listening strategy will involve proceeding through the collection disc-by-disc, trying to form groups wherever it seems appropriate.

Such is the case with the first two CDs in the collection. Taken together, this accounts for five concertos, all of which were recorded with the “RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra” (scare quotes to suggest that this was a pickup group) in January and March of 1952 at the Manhattan Center in New York City. The first CD consists of two concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the K. 466 concerto in D minor (for which Iturbi plays cadenzas composed by Ludwig van Beethoven) and the K. 365 two-piano concerto in E-flat major with cadenzas by Iturbi, who is joined by his sister.

The concertos on the second CD are presented in reverse chronological order, beginning with Franz Liszt’s first concerto in E-flat major. This is followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 25 (first) concerto in G minor. The final selection is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 37 (third) concerto in C minor.

The most salient quality on both of these CDs is the overall clarity of both piano(s) and ensemble. Even when occupied with the keyboard, Iturbi has established the key details of instrumental contributions to all five of the concertos. Most likely matters of overall balance have been relegated to the concertmaster when the solo piano work is primary in Iturbi’s attention; but, because the orchestra was basically a free-lance assembly, it is unlikely that any information about section leaders (including concertmaster) ever went “on the record.”

Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself most drawn to the Liszt recording. Granted, the instrumental balance may owe more to the recording engineers than to any of the performers. Nevertheless, the interplay of soloist and ensemble emerges as more refined than most of my encounters with this music in a concert hall. This is a recording that suggests that the music itself counts for far more than the reputation of the composer’s ego!

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