This new double-album of historic broadcasts by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Arturo Toscanini is of the greatest importance to collectors of great conducting the world over. It is devoted entirely to the music of Brahms – a composer whose work was central to Toscanini’s repertoire throughout his career – and includes the only available versions in the best possible modern sound of major works by Brahms which he never recorded commercially, and in only one or two instances, hardly ever at all.
Principal amongst these is the first disc containing Brahms’s two Serenades for Orchestra, Opus 11 and Opus 16, which the Maestro never recorded commercially. This makes a CD played for over 78 minutes – wonderful value – and the second CD contains very rare performances of the Academic Festival Overture and the Second Piano Concerto with Robert Casadesus as soloist. The Maestro again never recorded the Overture commercially and the Concerto just once, but never with NYPO. As an intriguing bonus, the CD is completed by four of Brahms’s part-songs, three from his Opus 17 set and one an arrangement by Brahms of a famous song by Schubert. Toscanini again never recorded these works commercially. An astonishingly rare and valuable set.