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Live unpublished and newly restored broadcasts. Artur Schnabel lived as a concert pianist, composer, teacher and editor, activities that reveal a complete musician whose genius enlightened chamber music, under-represented in studio sessions. His live duo recital with Joseph Szigeti attests to the heights he achieved in real life, away from the studio atmosphere that he loathed. A legendary Beethoven player whose teacher studied with Beethoven's assistant, Schnabel's Schubert was equally important and three otherwise unrecorded works emerge here with his only known performance of Mendelssohn, recorded at a festival in Edinburgh. Liner notes open a trail of letters discovered inside the basement of Schnabel villa in 2018 in which Szigeti and Schnabel's son engage in an espionage caper to liberate this legendary recital; Excerpts from letters to a mistress indicate Schnabel's reactions to post-War Europe's attempts for normalcy after the fascists had destroyed culture, with scathing accounts of how box-office legends fell miserably below moral standards. Features works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, and Franz Schubert. Includes a lecture by Szigeti on Beethoven's Sonatas for Violin & Piano. Recorded between 1942-1962.
Artur Schnabel (1882-1951)