1960 UK RCA SB-2067 Rubinstein Story Chopin Piano Cto & Recital 1D1D stamps NM
£
17
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23
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Description
One of a nice collection of Classical rarities we have just had in, all nice clean originals.
Pristine playing surfaces first year issue with 1D1D stampers 1960 UK RCA SB-2067 The Rubinstein Story. Chopin Piano Concerto No 2 with Wallenstein & the Symphony of the Air. Side 2 after the last movement has solo Chopin, the Andante Spionato & then Grand Polonaise with full band again.
these are pressed by Decca in the golden age of SXL's, receiving all the same loving care to produce great valve era stereo sound from the mastertapes.
1st type gatefold, fully laminated flips inside of sleeve, and the original company pink stereophonic inner is present. This is free of surface marks, has clean labels and the sleeve is Near Mint.
here is the original gram review:
Rubinstein last recorded this Chopin F minor concerto with Steinberg and the N .B.C., a disc which was issued in this country in July 1957 and withdrawn soon afterwards at the termination of the H.M.V./R.C.A. contract. It was the best available version of the work in its day, and the same can be said for Rubinstein's new recording. If I remember rightly, Steinberg phrased the orchestral tuttis with more loving care than Wallenstein, but there is plenty to be said for the orchestral side of the new disc. For one thing, a real attempt has been made to get a balance between piano and orchestra. In the second half of the first movement development someone seems to have lost heart, for the woodwind are totally inaudible from letter J right up to the recapitulation. But elsewhere counter-subjects come through well, and the bassoon solo at the end of the slow movement sounds most beautiful. The orchestral sound on the whole will be too dry for most tastes, and the piano quality is a bit tinny, especially in the mono version. In the stereo disc the wind, who presumably had their own microphone, have been superimposed on the 'cellos at the extreme right, a somewhat improbable place to find them, and there is here and there a lack of realism in the sound. But all discs of Chopin concertos seem to have their defects, and most of them have more defects than this one. What makes it outstanding is, of course, Rubinstein's performance. In the quick movements his playing has an almost slap-dash quality which is endearing and stems from his rhapsodic approach to the music. You listen to every bar, held by the wonderful piano writing, wonderful because Rubinstein makes it so. In the dramatic middle section of the slow movement he brings a tension to the music such as I have not heard before. The result is wonderfully exciting. This is a really superb account of this lovely music.
The concerto is just too long to go comfortably on one side without cutting, and the third movement is wisely relegated to side two. (Even so, eight bars of the final tutti of the first movement are cut. They may not be very good bars, but the music sounds worse without them than with.) As a fill up, Rubinstein plays the Andante spianato and Polonaise, of which only the polonaise has orchestral accompaniment (perfimctory even by Chopin's standards). The timps are sharp in the final chord, which is about all I noticed of the accompaniment. Rubinstein manages the poetic andante ravishingly, and in the polonaise is heroic and wayward by turns, making the music sound far better than it really is.
R.F., The Gramophone, March 1960
we send packed in hard card custom made new boxes.
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