Description
The complete Westminster recordings by ARTUR RODZINSKI date were made in London and Vienna from 1954 to 1958. While they represent a true autocrat of the podium, Rodzinski drew from orchestras every last ounce of energy as well as cultivating their virtuoso talents. Most recordings in this set appear internationally for the first time, together with some (previously unpublished) rehearsal extracts. Once he had emigrated to the US, Rodzinski played an instrumental role in making the Cleveland and Chicago Symphony orchestras into the superbly responsive ensembles for which they are world-renowned today. Having retired from the stress of directorships, in the mid-1950s and in variable health, he produced a remarkable Indian summer of recordings for the Westminster label. Made mostly in London between 1954 and his death in November 1958, these Westminster albums centred on the late-Romantic and early-20th-century repertoire which responds to a virtuoso conductor's concern for subtle orchestral colours and extremes of speed and dynamic: Mussorgsky Pictures, Kodaly Dances and Richard Strauss's tone-poems. Rodzinski plays insightful accompanist to piano concertos with Paul Badura-Skoda, Youri Boukoff and Jorg Demus, but he achieved a special affinity with Erica Morini in the violin concertos of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
