Artur Schnabel plays Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto 'live' in 1947

A recording of a November 17th 1947 concert of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major with Izler Solomon conducting the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra.

The performance was recorded privately for the conductor on yellow-labeled lacquers. Because the discs had suffered some water damage on account of poor storage, several portions were unplayable. For those sections, producer Allan Evans and transfer engineer Seth Winner patched the gaps with the relevant sections of Schnabel's 1942 RCA recording with the Chicago Symphony.

This rare broadcast performance was released on disc only once, on a Pearl CD set also featuring Schnabel's 1930s studio accounts of the complete Beethoven Concertos with Malcolm Sargent conducting. Schnabel would rerecord Concerti 2 through 5 in the late 1940s in London, as well as 4 and 5 in 1942 in Chicago. A 1945 concert performance of the Third Concerto conducted by Szell circulated quite widely but the Pearl set is the only release I know of featuring this traversal of the Fourth.

It is worth noting that the slow movement in this concert performance is significantly longer than in Schnabel's studio accounts: 6:50, whereas the 1942 RCA version is 5:29 and the 1946 EMI version is 4:55. This gives an idea of how the time constraints set by the limited length of 78rpm discs impacted some of the pianist's interpretative inclinations.

Schnabel's playing throughout is glorious, with a truly luminescent sonority, marvellous pedal effects, rhythmic vitality, and wonderful interplay with the orchestra - a truly heartfelt and inspired performance.

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