Egon Petri: The 17 September 1929 Liszt Recordings

[maestrob]

0:00 LISZT Paganini Étude No 5 in E major S141/5 (Busoni edition)
3:07 LISZT Gnomenreigen No 2 of Zwei Konzertetüden, S145
5:51WAGNER/LISZT Der fliegende Holländer – Spinning Chorus S440
10:59 SCHUBERT/LISZT Die Forelle, second version S564
14:06 SCHUBERT/LISZT Auf dem Wasser zu singen S558/2
Egon Petri (1881-1962), piano
All recorded on 17 September 1929

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ikiYdM29eE

This is some of the finest Liszt playing I have ever heard, beautifully restored.

[Rach3]

Many thanks !

These " Golden Age " giants treated the smallest miniature with the same respect , vision, and attention to detail, as they did a major work , every single note having its own purpose, and they seemed to have a near infinite range of dynamics at their disposal. "Auf dem Wasser" is particularly stunning.

[Lance]

Petri was really one of the great ones, mostly inspired by Busoni, Paderewski and a few others. I knew his piano technician while Petri was teaching at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, about an hour from whence I write. His technician always shuddered when Petri gave a concert stating his power at the piano was overwhelming. You can hear just how powerful his playing was, while being totally musical in Petri's recording of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, recorded in the days of mono for Westminster Records and remains an ear-opener of this work! His Westminster recordings are now under the blanket of Deutsche Grammophon. One set is entitled The Liszt Legacy [DGG 477 9527, 10 CDs], and the other set is entitled Westminster Legacy [DGG 479 2343, 40 CDs]. I have no idea if they are still available, especially the Westminster 40 CD set, which includes a wide array of many artists. For all his greatness as a pianist, it would have been wonderful to have more recordings from Petri who brings us probably the closest to the genius of Ferruccio Busoni with whom he closely worked and collaborated.

Also, Appian/APR issued an excellent seven CD set [7701], mostly recorded between 1929 and 1942 and supplemented with other material not issued in their individual CD released. The seven CD set contains all of Petri's American- and British Columbia releases as well as those from Electrola.

Music & Arts added to the treasures with their four CD set [772], which contains concert and radio performances made between 1954 and 1962. Pearl of England gave us a series of three individual CDs [9078, 9916, and 9966], but without verifying this, I believe most of the Pearl material became available in superlative remastering on the Appian/AP label. Then one Arbiter CD [134], Biddulph [007-008, LAB 153], Nickson Records, Naxos [110777, 111119], Pristine, EMI [66421], and Columbia/Sony also have some items in recently reissued mega-boxed sets.

Am I glad to have every recording I have found with Egon Petri? You betcha! Insofar as maestrob/Brian's posting, I am unsure right now if they all have been "lifted" from any of the sources I have mentioned above. ♫

[Holden Fourth]

Apart from the amazing pianism thew sound quality for a recording that is nearly 100 years old is staggering.

[jserraglio]

I am unsure right now if they have been "lifted" from any of the sources I have mentioned above.

From APR 7-disc Egon Petri: Complete Columbia & Electrola Solo & Concerto Recordings 1929-1951.

[maestrob]

I am unsure right now if they have been "lifted" from any of the sources I have mentioned above.

From APR 7-disc Egon Petri: Complete Columbia & Electrola Solo & Concerto Recordings 1929-1951.

Precisely the box I have.

Also this one sits next to it:



Petri also played the Liszt Rhapsodie Espagnole with Mitropoulos for Columbia, released in the recent megabox:

[Rach3]

An Arbiter cd in my collection with 2 Petri excerpts , notes by the late Allan Evans:

https://arbiterrecords.org/catalog/buso ... is-legacy/

" Egon Petri is recognized as Busoni’s most important pupil, yet felt overshadowed by Busoni’s musical and artistic personality, being at odds to separate his music-making from Busoni’s imprint. The influence Petri received from Busoni may be glimpsed in one comparison, as both recorded the Bach chorale transcription. Petri is nearly as fast yet employs a fuller tone, unlike the submerged remoteness of Busoni’s coloring.

Two rare surviving documents, never before published, represent Petri’s earliest recorded public performances: a nearly-complete Liszt Totentanz and an entire movement from Busoni’s concerto. Both sets of discs were seized by Soviet troops invading Berlin in 1945, taken to Moscow where they remained for decades. The first disc of the Totentanz is missing, part of a radio broadcast on which Petri and Rosbaud also gave the entire Busoni Concerto (this surviving fourth movement comes from an earlier transmission on which Petri and Rosbaud only performed this movement.) A manic boldness inhabits the Totentanz, with gripping effects such as glissandos employing strong crescendos, an abandon resulting from rapid tempos and the peerless artistry of Rosbaud, shaping the brass into an audible Durer etching. While Petri played in Germany as late as 1936, he is seen in an accompanying photo taken the same year in Moscow (with Prokofiev, whose music he performed on occasion). Petri was a resident of Zakopane, Poland until the Blitzkrieg broke out (on a tip from a Dutch diplomat, their family fled on one of the last trains to leave unoccupied Poland).

Petri understates the basic Italian tarantella rhythm in favor of a remarkable virtuosic display. Busoni intended his work to be a modernist evocation of a dance which originated in Southern Italy as an ancient folk cure for tarantula bites in the belief that its rhythm would provoke a spasmodic dance in the victim, effecting a healing. (A fragment from a performance, c.1941, in Washington, D.C. of part of the 3rd and 4th movements finds Petri less involved, of interest for Petri’s sense of proportion.) Rosbaud again emerges as a remarkable architect. In 1954, Francis Poulenc stated: “The taste of music buffs little resembles that of professional musicians. Music buffs believe that the greatest living conductor is Toscanini; musicians know that it is Hans Rosbaud.” One hopes that reports of the 1936 Petri-Rosbaud performance languishing in Moscow will someday prove true. – Allan Evans © 2002."