Artur Balsam was a pianistic dynamo, a specialist in the field of eighteenth-century music performance on the piano at a time when such players were relatively rare, yet his reach extended to contemporary music and beyond. Balsam made an enormous number of recordings, but very little of them have witnessed release on compact disc; most of what is out there is through Bridge Records' continued and committed advocacy on the behalf of Balsam. There is an investigative component to such advocacy, and Bridge's determined inquiries into all things Balsam have surfaced four of the performances included in its Artur Balsam: Mozart Recordings for the first time anywhere. These are Mozart concertos performed by Balsam for the BBC in 1956, with the collaboration of like-minded conductor Harry Newstone and his pioneering ensemble the Haydn Orchestra, a group whose commercial recordings are limited to a couple of Haydn symphonies and concerto accompaniments for Jennifer Vyvyan.
The Haydn Orchestra was a period orchestra led by conductor Harry Newstone, which scrupulously observed classical period dimensions, tempi, and other historical aspects of performance at a time when the gold standard for such music in England was the lurching, beefy, and unquestionably Romantic interpretations of Thomas Beecham. Although the BBC recordings, ably restored in noise-free clarity by Adam Abeshouse, have a limited range and sound rather congested, it is still astonishing to hear Mozart's concerti performed in a manner so close to the interpretive standard observed since 1980 or so in recordings of this vintage. Tempos are light and crisp, and Balsam's playing is dazzling -- fleet, direct, and seamlessly fluid, much like the "pearls on velvet" simile once used to describe Mozart's own playing.
Balsam is also represented here in a solo context in the Sonata in C major, K. 330, taken from a rare, subscription-only Concert Hall Society recording from about 1950 and the Rondo in A minor, K. 511, from a late recital at the Manhattan School of Music from 1980. As welcome as it is to be able to hear Newstone and his group, Balsam truly is the star of the show in this set; his Mozart playing is radiant, supple, sensitive, and never bombastic. For those who maintain an interest in the beginnings of historically accurate performance practice in modern times, Artur Balsam: Mozart Recordings should prove highly engaging; for others already following Bridge's reissue program of Balsam, this should be a no-brainer.
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