Horowitz:
What are the earliest recordings he made, are these the 1928 sessions? How about live recordings? there is that partial tchaik 1st (awesome playing) from '32 but is there anything earlier? I’m kinda obsessed with the young HO.
Friedman:
this is more speculation than anything else, but given that the new Kapell recordings came from home acetate recordings of radio broadcasts, do you reckon there’s a chance the same might exist from Friedman? As we know he gave many broadcasts and made recordings when he was in Australia (which were destroyed). Moreover, this was less than 10 yrs before Kapell came out, so it seems possible that someone might have recorded something. Any one think this is a chance? personally I think the obvious answer would be that something would have surfaced by now, but I’m still hopeful.
Horowitz did a series of Welte piano rolls back in 1926, IMSMC, as well as a silent film (part of which the Octave etude was on the Art of the Piano). The 1928 Victor/RCA sessions are to my knowledge the earliest non-roll recordings he did. The crazy Brahms 1st he did with Toscanini is the earliest live performance out there, I think? (1935).
As far as Friedman, as I’m sure you’re aware, you might well be walking on his recordings of the Liszt B minor and Chopin 3rd sonatas.
ahahaha da friedrice reincarnation:
yeah, I’m not a fan of rolls. The brahms might be the earliest full recording, the tchaik is only fragments but quite lengthy. I don’t have the details but it’s marked as 1932. As to Friedman, yeah it didn’t surprise me when I first read what had happened to those recordings, what Kapell said about this country is right on the money. We are basically a bastardised version of the British, who aren’t the most musical people themselves. Still, I hope that even though the masters were destroyed some acetate recordings would survive. Btw I love the new Kapell set, amazing tech.
